Feminine psychology
Encyclopedia
Feminine psychology is a term used to describe issues concerning the gender of psychology of female human identity, and the issues that women face throughout their lives. Karen Horney “began work on her version of feminine psychology in 1922, when she became the first woman to present a paper on the topic at an international psychoanalytic congress” (Schultz 170). She countered Sigmund Freud’s concept of penis envy with what she called womb envy.
, a neo-Freudian feminist and pioneering theorist in personality, psychoanalysis, and feminine psychology (Boeree, 24). Horney was critical of Freud’s theory on penis envy
, which she felt arose from inadequate evidence. “Freud offered descriptions and interpretations of this alleged phenomenon from a male point of view in a place and time when women were considered second-class citizens (Schultz, 170). Freud felt that women were victims of their anatomy and were jealous of men for possessing a penis (Schultz 170).
Horney argued that men envied women for their ability to be mothers. This idea was based on the pleasure she experienced in childbirth. “When one begins, as I did, to analyze men only after a fairly long experience of analyzing women, one receives a most surprising impression of the intensity of this envy of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood” (Horney, 1967, pp. 60–61). She claimed that womb envy occurs just as much in men as penis envy occurs for neurotic women. “The degree to which men are driven to succeed and to have their names live on, she said, is mere compensation for their inability to more directly extend themselves into the future by means of carrying, nurturing, and bearing children (Boeree, 26).
Horney felt that men had to overcompensate for their womb envy by searching for achievement in their work. The womb envy and the resentment that comes along with it are “manifested unconsciously in behaviors designed to disparage and belittle women and to reinforce their inferior status” (Schultz, 171). Men strive to be the superior sex because of this womb envy. “Horney did not deny that many women believe themselves to be inferior to men” (Schultz, 171). What she did deny was the fact that some women felt so due to societal reasons, not because they were born female. The idea of feeling unworthy derives from the ways women have been treated in male-dominated cultures. “After generations of social, economic, and cultural discrimination, it is understandable that many women see themselves in this light” (Schultz 171).
If a mother works, she misses her children and feels guilty for not spending time with them. However, if she stays home, then she misses the personal fulfillment of work, interaction with other adults, and the financial security of her income. The additional income also relieves some stress and gives the mother the ability to provide advantages to her children they may not have otherwise—for example, better education or better healthcare. Working also allows women to feel as though they are making a contribution to society beyond the family. A more fulfilled mother, in most cases, will be a better mother. However, women will often neglect their own needs so that they can satisfy the demands of their careers, motherhood, and relationships. They will neglect their health and allow less time for sleep. Women will often take on the full responsibility for the care of their children as well as the care of their relationship, when in reality it is just as much the responsibility of the father to provide for the emotional needs of his children and partner, as well as their financial needs (Hansen et al., 2002).
According to a study conducted by Dr. Jennifer Stuart, sometimes the past history of the woman affects her decision to work or to stay home with her children, or to try to find a balance between the two. "Whether or not her mother worked outside the home has little impact on a woman’s comfort with choices around work and motherhood. Rather, her experience of comfort or conflict with her own choices is strongly influenced by the quality of her relationship with her mother. Women whose mothers fostered feelings of both warm attachment and confident autonomy may find ways to enjoy their children and/or work, often modifying work and family environments in ways that favor both” (Stuart, 2008).
Some women have no choice other than to work while raising children because of financial need. Others work for personal fulfillment. In either case, women are making compromises in their careers so that they can balance paid work and motherhood responsibilities. They are cutting back hours and accepting lower pay or a lower job status. In order to make the compromise, they have chosen to be satisfied with being average rather than being a top performer in the workplace (Kapur, 2004).
What mothers have to remember, according to Dr. Ramon Resa, is that "children are fairly resilient and will adapt to whatever changes are required. They are also astute at sensing unhappiness, disappointment and apathy" (Resa, 2009). There is no harm in trying any path in order to find fulfillment, because no decision is permanent and can be changed as the situation warrants.
also opened the door to women gaining a voice in politics with the right to vote, which in turn gave women the right to run for office. The cultural shifts and changes in attitude toward women began in the 20th century in almost every nation and continued into the 21st century, as the traditional roles of women in society continued to be rewritten.
The old school of thought was that women were the weaker of the two sexes and therefore inferior to men. Under the common law of England in the 19th century, an unmarried woman could own property, make a contract, or sue and be sued, but a married woman, defined as being one with her husband, gave up her name and virtually all her property, inherited or otherwise, and came under her husband's control
(Brinjikji, 1999). In early America, life for a woman was much different from that in England. In early America, a man more or less owned his wife and children as if they were material possessions. If a poor man decided to send his children to the poor house, the mother had no legal grounds and, by all accounts, was defenseless. It was only in the 19th century that things began to change significantly in America. In the early to mid-19th century, some local governments began modifying the laws to allow women to act as lawyers, to own property in their own names if their husbands saw fit, and sue for property (Lambert). As of the early 21st century in America and throughout many nations, married or not, a woman can buy, sell, or own her own property, go into contractual relationships, sue and be sued, act in her own defense, and protect her children.
In 1848, when the Seneca Falls Convention
for women's rights was held in New York State, one of the complaints documented in the Declaration of Sentiments
was that the "history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her... He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education, all colleges being closed against her." One of outcomes of the convention was a demand for higher education (Lowe, 1989). For women, formal education had always been second in importance and subpar to that for men, and colonial America was no exception. In colonial America, girls usually learned to read and write at dame schools and could only attend the master schools for boys when there was room, which was usually during the summer months when most boys were working (Lowe, 1989). In fact, women did not begin to go to college until after the Civil War, and for the most part they went to coeducational institutions. The newly established land grant colleges in the Midwest opened as coeducational facilities, while the more established institutions of the northeast resisted the move to coeducation (Lowe, 1989).
Being denied the opportunity to be fully educated meant that women had to learn from their mother's example that cooking, cleaning, and caring for children was the behavior expected of them when they grew up uneducated. Beginning in colonial times and extending as late as 1900, the only jobs available to women were seamstress work or keeping boardinghouses. Some women did work in professions available mostly to men, becoming doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers, writers, and singers. By the end of the 19th century and due to increasing need for education in the above fields, the only acceptable occupations for working women were limited to factory labor or domestic work. Women were excluded from the professions, except for writing and teaching (Lowe, 1989). As of the early 21st century in most nations, there has been progress such that women are allowed to complete as much education as they want and to choose what profession they wish. Though the glass ceiling
still exists in some industries, women are making great advances in every area from working in coal mines to working on the front lines.
• The Woman Suffrage Timeline
• Maggie Lowe
• Tim Lambert
• Karen Horney: Major Concepts
Womb Envy
Womb envy is a term originating from Karen HorneyKaren Horney
Karen Horney born Danielsen was a German-American psychoanalyst. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views, particularly his theory of sexuality, as well as the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis and its genetic psychology...
, a neo-Freudian feminist and pioneering theorist in personality, psychoanalysis, and feminine psychology (Boeree, 24). Horney was critical of Freud’s theory on penis envy
Penis envy
Penis envy in Freudian psychoanalysis refers to the theorized reaction of a girl during her psychosexual development to the realization that she does not have a penis....
, which she felt arose from inadequate evidence. “Freud offered descriptions and interpretations of this alleged phenomenon from a male point of view in a place and time when women were considered second-class citizens (Schultz, 170). Freud felt that women were victims of their anatomy and were jealous of men for possessing a penis (Schultz 170).
Horney argued that men envied women for their ability to be mothers. This idea was based on the pleasure she experienced in childbirth. “When one begins, as I did, to analyze men only after a fairly long experience of analyzing women, one receives a most surprising impression of the intensity of this envy of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood” (Horney, 1967, pp. 60–61). She claimed that womb envy occurs just as much in men as penis envy occurs for neurotic women. “The degree to which men are driven to succeed and to have their names live on, she said, is mere compensation for their inability to more directly extend themselves into the future by means of carrying, nurturing, and bearing children (Boeree, 26).
Horney felt that men had to overcompensate for their womb envy by searching for achievement in their work. The womb envy and the resentment that comes along with it are “manifested unconsciously in behaviors designed to disparage and belittle women and to reinforce their inferior status” (Schultz, 171). Men strive to be the superior sex because of this womb envy. “Horney did not deny that many women believe themselves to be inferior to men” (Schultz, 171). What she did deny was the fact that some women felt so due to societal reasons, not because they were born female. The idea of feeling unworthy derives from the ways women have been treated in male-dominated cultures. “After generations of social, economic, and cultural discrimination, it is understandable that many women see themselves in this light” (Schultz 171).
Motherhood vs. Career
For hundreds of years, women have battled with the conflicts of choosing between the more traditional role of motherhood and the more modern concept of career woman, often fighting to strike a balance between the two in order to satisfy both the need for personal achievement and the need for love and emotional security.If a mother works, she misses her children and feels guilty for not spending time with them. However, if she stays home, then she misses the personal fulfillment of work, interaction with other adults, and the financial security of her income. The additional income also relieves some stress and gives the mother the ability to provide advantages to her children they may not have otherwise—for example, better education or better healthcare. Working also allows women to feel as though they are making a contribution to society beyond the family. A more fulfilled mother, in most cases, will be a better mother. However, women will often neglect their own needs so that they can satisfy the demands of their careers, motherhood, and relationships. They will neglect their health and allow less time for sleep. Women will often take on the full responsibility for the care of their children as well as the care of their relationship, when in reality it is just as much the responsibility of the father to provide for the emotional needs of his children and partner, as well as their financial needs (Hansen et al., 2002).
According to a study conducted by Dr. Jennifer Stuart, sometimes the past history of the woman affects her decision to work or to stay home with her children, or to try to find a balance between the two. "Whether or not her mother worked outside the home has little impact on a woman’s comfort with choices around work and motherhood. Rather, her experience of comfort or conflict with her own choices is strongly influenced by the quality of her relationship with her mother. Women whose mothers fostered feelings of both warm attachment and confident autonomy may find ways to enjoy their children and/or work, often modifying work and family environments in ways that favor both” (Stuart, 2008).
Some women have no choice other than to work while raising children because of financial need. Others work for personal fulfillment. In either case, women are making compromises in their careers so that they can balance paid work and motherhood responsibilities. They are cutting back hours and accepting lower pay or a lower job status. In order to make the compromise, they have chosen to be satisfied with being average rather than being a top performer in the workplace (Kapur, 2004).
What mothers have to remember, according to Dr. Ramon Resa, is that "children are fairly resilient and will adapt to whatever changes are required. They are also astute at sensing unhappiness, disappointment and apathy" (Resa, 2009). There is no harm in trying any path in order to find fulfillment, because no decision is permanent and can be changed as the situation warrants.
Cultural influences on women
Throughout history, women have been regarded as the weaker of the sexes and afforded fewer rights, which include but are not limited to education, legal and career opportunities. For women, being a wife and a mother has long been regarded their most significant and only important profession. It was only in the 20th century that widespread countries finally saw women as a sex with a persuasive voice. In the 20th century, most women were afforded the right to go to school beyond elementary education and the opportunity to go to college, opening the door to more career opportunities than becoming a teacher or nurse. In that century, feminismFeminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
also opened the door to women gaining a voice in politics with the right to vote, which in turn gave women the right to run for office. The cultural shifts and changes in attitude toward women began in the 20th century in almost every nation and continued into the 21st century, as the traditional roles of women in society continued to be rewritten.
The old school of thought was that women were the weaker of the two sexes and therefore inferior to men. Under the common law of England in the 19th century, an unmarried woman could own property, make a contract, or sue and be sued, but a married woman, defined as being one with her husband, gave up her name and virtually all her property, inherited or otherwise, and came under her husband's control
Coverture
Coverture was a legal doctrine whereby, upon marriage, a woman's legal rights were subsumed by those of her husband. Coverture was enshrined in the common law of England and the United States throughout most of the 19th century...
(Brinjikji, 1999). In early America, life for a woman was much different from that in England. In early America, a man more or less owned his wife and children as if they were material possessions. If a poor man decided to send his children to the poor house, the mother had no legal grounds and, by all accounts, was defenseless. It was only in the 19th century that things began to change significantly in America. In the early to mid-19th century, some local governments began modifying the laws to allow women to act as lawyers, to own property in their own names if their husbands saw fit, and sue for property (Lambert). As of the early 21st century in America and throughout many nations, married or not, a woman can buy, sell, or own her own property, go into contractual relationships, sue and be sued, act in her own defense, and protect her children.
In 1848, when the Seneca Falls Convention
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was an early and influential women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19–20, 1848. It was organized by local New York women upon the occasion of a visit by Boston-based Lucretia Mott, a Quaker famous for her speaking ability, a skill rarely...
for women's rights was held in New York State, one of the complaints documented in the Declaration of Sentiments
Declaration of Sentiments
The Declaration of Sentiments, also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, is a document signed in 1848 by 68 women and 32 men, 100 out of some 300 attendees at the first women's rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York, now known as the Seneca Falls Convention...
was that the "history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her... He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education, all colleges being closed against her." One of outcomes of the convention was a demand for higher education (Lowe, 1989). For women, formal education had always been second in importance and subpar to that for men, and colonial America was no exception. In colonial America, girls usually learned to read and write at dame schools and could only attend the master schools for boys when there was room, which was usually during the summer months when most boys were working (Lowe, 1989). In fact, women did not begin to go to college until after the Civil War, and for the most part they went to coeducational institutions. The newly established land grant colleges in the Midwest opened as coeducational facilities, while the more established institutions of the northeast resisted the move to coeducation (Lowe, 1989).
Being denied the opportunity to be fully educated meant that women had to learn from their mother's example that cooking, cleaning, and caring for children was the behavior expected of them when they grew up uneducated. Beginning in colonial times and extending as late as 1900, the only jobs available to women were seamstress work or keeping boardinghouses. Some women did work in professions available mostly to men, becoming doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers, writers, and singers. By the end of the 19th century and due to increasing need for education in the above fields, the only acceptable occupations for working women were limited to factory labor or domestic work. Women were excluded from the professions, except for writing and teaching (Lowe, 1989). As of the early 21st century in most nations, there has been progress such that women are allowed to complete as much education as they want and to choose what profession they wish. Though the glass ceiling
Glass ceiling
In economics, the term glass ceiling refers to "the unseen, yet unbreachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements." Initially, the metaphor applied to barriers in the careers of women but...
still exists in some industries, women are making great advances in every area from working in coal mines to working on the front lines.
External links
• Women in the Senate• The Woman Suffrage Timeline
• Maggie Lowe
• Tim Lambert
• Karen Horney: Major Concepts
- Family and career path characteristics as predictors of women’s objective and subjective career success: Integrating traditional and protean career explanations
- Spots of Light: Women in the Holocaust an online exhibition by Yad VashemYad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
See also
- Feminization (sociology)Feminization (sociology)In sociology, feminization is the shift in gender roles and sex roles in a society, group, or organization towards a focus upon the feminine. This is the opposite of a cultural focus upon masculinity....
- Masculine psychologyMasculine psychologyMasculine psychology is a term sometimes used to describe and categorize issues concerning the gender-related psychology of male human identity, as well as the issues that men confront during their lives...
- Analytical psychologyAnalytical psychologyAnalytical psychology is the school of psychology originating from the ideas of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. His theoretical orientation has been advanced by his students and other thinkers who followed in his tradition. Though they share similarities, analytical psychology is distinct from...