Freud femininity essay

In the Theory of Femininity lectures Sigmund Freud categorises femininity as ‘passive’, contrasting the ‘activity’ of masculinity. Freud draws the distinction between gender and femininity making it clear that femininity cannot be categorised purely as psychological or biological and indeed includes social/ cultural aspects.

Strachey comments on Freud's protestations starting with the Three Essays that the sexual life of women is "veiled in an impenetrable obscurity" ( SE 7, 151; cf. 1900 [ ID, SE 4 , 257; 1908 [On the sexual theories of children, SE 9, 211]; 1916-17 [Introductory lectures #21]; 1926 [The question of lay analysis, SE 20, 212]; cf. Gilligan, 1984).

Freud believes that both boys and girls experience a castration complex, albeit it in different ways. When boys first realize that girls lack a penis, they suddenly confront a fear of losing the organ. Meanwhile, when girls first realize that boys have a penis, they are consumed by envy.

Freud's best answer to explain this hostility, then, is the castration complex, whereby a female child harbors resentment over the lack of a penis - in his words, the “anatomical distinction must express itself in psychic consequences” (154).