Freud & Feminism
Introduction & Scope
Freud created a foundation for modern psychology. His impact on understanding of human behavior cannot be overemphasized. Freudian therapy seeks to make the unconscious conscious and to strengthen the ego so that our behavior is based on reality rather than on instinctual cravings or irrational guilt. Freud believed that psychoanalysis would liberate human beings from shackles of deterministic forces, freedom that was not transcendental but freedom from our bondage to causes that afflict us.
Feminism grew in a grass-root manner, to provide solutions for the challenges faced by women. (Corey, 2001). It signaled an end of an era where blame-the-victim psychology had forced women to internalize the trauma’s inflicted by society and the source of women’s unhappiness were assumed to lay within her. Feminists insisted on examining the pathological forces in cultures that constrained women’s potential and abilities. Feminism was divided into four enduring philosophies – liberal, cultural, radical, and socialist. They all advocated female emancipation as a goal, but each of them saw the oppression differently.
This paper examines similarities, divergences and evolution of psychoanalysis and feminism in context of adult life. It explores their interpretation of age, gender, sexuality and sexual orientation, culture and socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, physical and emotional abilities and disabilities. We also examine the implications of these theories in micro, messo and macro levels of social work practice.
Definitions
Feminism is theory that men and women should be equal politically, economically and socially. According to Corey (2001): “It puts gender and power at the core of therapeutic process. A central concept in feminist theory is the psychological oppression of women and the constraints imposed by the sociopolitical status to which women have been relegated.” Corey defines liberal feminists as activists who focus on helping individual women overcome the limits and constraints of their socialization patterns (Corey 2001). Cultural feminists believe oppression stems from society’s devaluation of women’s strengths…solution to oppression lies in the feminization of the culture so that society becomes more nurturing, co-operative and relational (Corey 2001). Radical feminists focus on oppression of women that is based on patriarchy and seek to change society through activism. Their major goals are to transform gender relationships, transform societal institutions, and to increase women’s sexual and procreative self-determination (Corey, 2001).
Social feminists focus on multiple oppressions and believe that society’s problems must include considerations of class, race and other forms of discrimination (Corey, 2001).
The view that all ethical truth is relative to a specified culture is called Cultural Relativism. According to this philosophy, it is never true to say simply that a certain kind of behavior is right or wrong; rather, it can only ever be true that a certain kind a behavior is right or wrong relative to a specified society.
In Freudian theories, boys crave attention of their mother and feel antagonistic towards their father. This incestuous desire for mother is called the Oedipal Complex. Boys then fear that their father will cut off the offending organ for desiring their mother. This fear is called Castration Anxiety.
The girl’s counterpart of Oedipus Complex is called Electra Complex.. Girls love their father and develop negative feelings for their mother blaming her for their lack of penis. This condition is known as Penis Envy. Genital Transformation is the psychic process that leads to formation of a vagina.
Principles of Classical Psychoanalysis
Freud believes each person is born with the positive (eros) energy – love of life, activity, hope, friendships. The negative energy (thanatos) represent the death drive, destruction, despair and aggression. Human personality consists of three distinct layers of id (basic impulses – the biological component), ego (rational thinking – the psychological component) and superego (values and beliefs – the moral component). Human behavior is governed by the dynamics between these three energies. The reservoir of psychic energy is limited, hence their interaction is a zero sum game. All problems – affective disorders, panic attacks, neurosis, psycopathology – are attributed to the domination of one of these three drives or some traumatic event/relationship from childhood.
Briefly, Freud postulated that all human behavior is governed by psychic-sexual libidinal energy. Freud’s developmental stages are broken into 4. During the oral stage, (birth – 1 year) the mouth provides pleasure and pain. During anal stage (1 –3) the focus psychic energy shifts from mouth to anus as the child learns to control bowel movements. The third stage, phallic (3-6 years) is important for development of sexual identity and sex roles. This is the stage of Oedipal Complex and Castration Anxiety. Electra complex includes the penis envy and the resultant emergence of the girl as a female. The fourth stage, latency (6-puberty) portends peer relationships and sublimation of sexual energies to sports, school and play. The fifth stage is the genital stage (puberty – adulthood) which characterizes heterosexual behavior pattern and love.
Principles of Feminist Philosophy
Feminists believe that personal is political i.e. individual problems have societal and political roots and if pathological forces in the environment are affecting lives of men and women, then these forces should be changed for individual change to occur. Feminists honor women’s experiences. As such an approach of equality between sexes, races, cultures, classes, religions, beliefs, affectional or sexual orientation, age or disability is emphasized.
Age
Freud is accused of reductionism and determinism. His research led him to believe that cause of people’s symptoms could always be found in early childhood traumas and their relationship with their parents. His developmental model was later modified by Erikson who is credited with coining the term gender identity. Psychodynamic theories of today rely more on Margaret Mahler’s Model of infantile attachment to individual growth. It stresses the child’s emergence from symbiotic relationship during the pre Oedipal years and poses no inherent limitations to woman’s development but helps bridge the divide between two dominant schools of psychology. Feminists leans on Cross’ developmental model that accounts for experiences of people of color. They believe that children apply societal view of gender to themselves. In such an environment, the masculine defines the feminine. Researchers believe that when all development is seen through male lens, special qualities of both men and women are overlooked (Corey, 2001).
Age related and generational difference exist in perception & meaning across the life course. These also vary with social class. While a blue collar worker views middle age as a period of weakening and decline, upper middle class describes as a period of great productivity, at a time when one has come to one’s own with regard to competency and personal power (Neugalten & Peterson, 1957).
Sex and Gender
Although classical Freud is gendercentric, heterocentric and is centered on the primacy of phallus, feminism nevertheless owes its sexual emancipation to Freud and his depth psychology. By viewing women through sexual and reproductive lenses, he hastened the demise of a passionless Victorian woman and led the world into sexual modernism. For him, penis envy and genital transformation were building blocks of human sexuality. The feminists accuse him of a shallow interpretation of their sexuality and reproductive ability. Karen Horney, a pioneer of feminism, felt penis was an object of potential pleasure rather than a possession women yearn to possess. She emphasizes boyhood inferiority arises from their lack of reproductive abilities of their mother - male development, a compensatory phenomenon, is dependant on envy of the power of womanhood.
Freud attributes pursuit of masculine intellect, professionalism in women and even the “hostile bitterness” of the feminists (feminism was pathologised along with lesbianism) to the phenomenon of penis envy and neurosis. Feminists may attribute female aggression to neurosis, but women’s acceptance of misogyny is understood to be a consequence of man’s spite for women’s procreative powers. Inadequacy leads men to develop phallic narcissism that causes them to demean women materially, morally, sexually. Womb envy mirrors penis envy. Feminists consider Freudian readiness to pathologise as an instances of institutionalized oppression. They believe that male domination is an overcompensatory mechanism for their insignificance in procreation.
In his thesis On Narcissism Freud maintains that boys and girls love themselves and the nurturing mother. Whereas the men sublimate self-love for object love (love for the mother), women do not. As the sexual organs mature in women, the self-love becomes narcissistic. Thus men desire women but women are self centered and wish to be desired by men. Narcissistic women appeal to men because they represent what men have lost.
Freud reduced women’s existence as objects that were to be desired by men. Her appetite for and enjoyment of the sexual act was assumed to be lower than that of men (Bonaparte, 1973). Her sexual organs were therefore deemed inferior to those of men (Deutsch, 1967). Lundenberg and Farnham correlated a woman’s orgasmic potential with her desire to bear children and postulated a negative relationship between her education and her sexual satisfaction.”Vaginal Anaesthesia” made most women frigid and neurotic. Freud himself remained silent on the nature of orgasm.
Horney’s followers viewed clitoral sexuality as an affront to womanhood - a “push button sex that served to feed the male fantasy of endless indulgent acceptance by women.” They asserted that womenhood needed no confirmation, even sexual, from men. Difference between men and women was to be celebrated but efforts at liberation, they cautioned, should not be so women could become more like men, but that women should just be themselves.
Freudian lesbianism emerged from the inability to displace penis envy by reproductive aims - an obsession with clitoral sexuality. Homosexuality in men was attributed to bad mothering skills. Castration anxiety and Oedipal complex were drives that kept men heterosexual. Women’s economic liberation, their desire for a career was deemed detrimental to the welfare of the family.
For feminists of late 70s, lesbianism seems normal and logical, given the theories of feminine relatedness. If women were seeking to re-create the primitive relationship with their mother, it was obvious they would turn to another woman. However, it was believed that primary love was overwhelmingly strong and created an unusually painful negotiation between connectedness and individuation.
Meanwhile, John Money of the psychoanalytical school found that if an androgynous infant, with both female and male genitals, is declared a female by the attending physician, and if the parents raise the child as a conventional gender norms during the pre Oedipal years, the resulting adult achieves a feminine or masculine identity through operant conditioning. His work implicated personal childhood experiences in the formation of gender identity, but if gender identity was established early, sexual differentiation must exist in the unconscious, preverbal stages of development, some reasoned. Contrary to Freudian belief, Spitz, Levy, Ribble etc established that gender differentiation is established before the age of one, at the same time the toddler learns to separate itself from the mother. Margaret Mahler model, discussed earlier, bridges the divide between two dominant schools of psychology.
Alfred Kinsey’s documented researched that established women enjoyed sex as much as men. William Masters and Virginia Johnson (1966) posited that unlike men, women, enjoyed an unlimited capacity for orgasm. In 1966, Mary Jane Sherfy affirmed that cyclical sexual response in both primates had evolved to the paradoxical state of sexual insatiation in the presence of utmost sexual satisfaction.” Anne Koedt believed men purposefully attempted to keep women ignorant of her sexualiy as masturbation may render men expendable for most women. The focus changed from Freudian concern about maternal incest to containment of female passion – it wasn’t the male lust but the female passion that demanded societal control. Social control thus necessitated the move from matrilineal society to a patriarchic society.
Sexual liberation marked a beginning of feminine liberation and openness about masturbation and lesbianism. As Jill Johnson declared “a true political revolution” would not occur until “all women are lesbians.” A slogan read:” Feminism is a theory; lesbianism is the practice.” Radical feminists projected an androgynous future where biological differences do not matter. Homosexuality and bisexuality became as an expression of support for gender equality.
May Jane Sherfy’s essay mentioned above, was a cornerstone for major shifts in psychoanalytical thought in America. Freudian followers could no longer support his view of female sexuality. They amended psychodynamic theories to converge with feminism. Psychoanalysis, derived from its neo Freudian roots, now stood on its own - ignoring the pull of phallocentricism and concentrating on either the mother and infant relationship (ego psychodynamics) or an infants attachment to objects (object relations). Sherby’s research and orgasm in the male and female was deemed identically biological. Feminists showed eagerness in forging a partnership with psychoanalysts and created a field of study called Psychoanalytical Feminism,.
Feminists hold that women are afraid of their success because the patriarchical upbringing forces them to be nurturers. Forays into competitive world hold severe emotional and physical penalties for them. In that sense, and for different reasons, most post modern feminist had revived the neo Freudian controversies surrounding mid century phenomenon of Momism – masculine and demanding careers often leave women overwhelmed and isolated, leading to emotional neurosis like depression which is detrimental for the development of the children. Thus years after Horney made the proposition that women should just be themselves and not try to emulate men, feminists came full circle and proposed a balance between autonomy and relatedness, cautioning that choice of traditionally male careers could potentially be detrimental to the well being of women. Motherhood once again became supreme in formation of a feminine identity. Freudian assertion that “women sense of justice compromised in its refusal of blind impartiality,” the idea so denounced by feminists on the mid 50s, was rewarded in the mid 80s when Gilligan acceded that women were willing to subjugate rules in favor of relatedness. The problem arose when different was classified as inferior. Relatedness, with all its problems, was a sign of woman’s strength – not of weakness as Freud and Kohlberg had contended. Lacan later built most of his work around Freudian theories as well. A succession of psychoanalysts interpreted Freud in ways that even he may have found conflicting.
Erikson, decidedly Freudian, commented : “ the basic modalities of women’s commitment and involvement naturally also reflect the ground plan of her body.” His blatant biologism was rebutted by Kate Millett : “What Erikson does not recognize is that the traits of each group are culturally conditioned and depend upon their political relationship.”
Culture, race, ethnicity and socio economic status
Freud maintained that at the dawn of modern civilization, in the primordial family, the father was a tyrant with sexual privileges that he denied to his sons. The sons banded together and killed him, but were filled with remorse and guilt. To relieve themselves of the guilt, they internalized his values, morality and sublimated their incestuous desires. This was the beginning of civilization – art, religion, morality, difference between sexes and more – a set of values inherited from and propagated thru society because of Oedipal Complex.
Freud assumed linear social growth - society existed at different points on the linear scale from prehistoric (savage) to modern western society of his time. He asserted a social heirarchy that encompassed moral hierarchy – the Western civilization being at the apex of the hierarchy. Of divergent culture Freud is said to have said: “the mental life of non literate people outside the West must have a peculiar interest for us if we are right in seeing it in a well preserved picture of an early stage of our own development.” The binary nature of his belief prevented him from exploring diversity and environmental impact on the psyche of a person.
Freudian psychoanalysis reflects cultural isolation and perceived superiority of Western civilization and a lack of historical perspective. Patriarchic manifestation is a universal condition. However, later psychoanalysts accepted the effect of environmental factors on human development and behaviors. Cross and Levinson later build developmental models for people of color. The models accounted for differences in color. Just as experiences of all women are not similar, men differed in their development as well. Research has indicated that the experiences of men of a particular group have developmental overlaps with women in their own group. These overlaps are stronger than overlaps with men in other groups.
Anthropologist Brownislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) combined sexual modernism with cultural relativism thru his research in Trobriand Islands, New Guinea. Trobriand Islanders have a matrilineal society that emphasises equality of the sexes and none of the sexual restraints and morals of the West. They do not associate childbirth with sex. Their children reside with their mothers and maternal uncles and are allowed to observe adults copulate. Malinowski found few signs aggression and neurosis in this society. He found more sexual repression and more neurosis in the neighborly Amphlett Islanders who followed a patriarchic system like the West. While Malinowski established the validity of psychodynamic theories on one hand - childhood experiences do provide a key to adult personality –he also proved that gender inequality and repression of female sex could be the basis for neurosis and repression in the West. Minowski’s findings were a blow to the psychodynamic theorists and Freud dismissed the research as “wishful femininist thinking.”
Margaret Mead’s research in Samoa proved there was no connection between sex and sex-linked traits. She established femininity as a mere socio-cultural construct. Femininity did not exist (Buhle, 1986). Motherhood, a marker of sexual differentiation for Freud, is simply a transient condition for feminists, possibly avoided through contraceptives. Feminists deem human behavior to be unbelievably plastic. Except for the biological demarcation, they assert that gender roles can be readily switched.
Horney led the cultural revolution of American psychoanalysis. She believed that childhood experiences were central to the psyche but environmental factors were more powerful determinants than Freudian drives. She emphasized lack of causal connection between anatomy and destiny. According to her, causes for neurosis lay in cultural conditions. She attributed neurosis of American life to a social system driven by competition and claimed that femininity was a response to societal restrictions placed on women, answering in negative Alexander Goldenweiser’s question: “Is there a woman?”
Psychoanalytical Feminism : Emotional Abilities & Disabilities
Feminism puts gender and power at the core of its therapeutic process. It addresses issues of psychological oppression of women and the constraints imposed by the socio-political status to which women have been relegated. The distinction between psychoanalysis and feminism has dissipated as post modern psychoanalysts have made significant contributions to feminism. Dorothy Dinnerstein, a noted object relations analyst, postulates all infants go through experiences of loving and hating their mothers. The prospect of dependence on any woman seems like a threat to a painfully won autonomy from the mother. Thus they demand fidelity, avoid emotional entanglements and easily achieve sexual gratification without intimacy. Women, on the other hand never overcome the guilt of separating from their mother. Femininity is thus a source of redemption - women strive to recreate the all-encompassing love of that significant relationship. The result is polygamous men and monogamous women, jealous husbands and tolerant wives. Further, because women remain fixed in the pre Oedipal realm and continue to seek nurturing relationships, men expand and want to control not just women, but what women represent – nature. Maternal omnipotence, according to feminists, creates gender asymmetry and estrangement of man from woman and nature.
Nancy Chodorow takes a different route to the conclusion of Dinnerstein. Using the conflict between separation and attachment, she asserts that the instability of masculine identity stems from the fact that by age three, the child has to achieve individuation and needs a role model. Since the male child rarely sees the father, the only way he can achieve manhood is by rejecting the feminine by labeling it as different and inferior. Women, on the other hand, never form ego boundaries separating their self from the “other.” She concluded, “the basic feminine self is connected to the world.” She held that whereas male identity was threatened by intimacy, female identity was threatened by individuation.
Both explain the benefits of dual parenting from their own vantage points.
Whereas Freud pathologised behaviors, for feminists, the definitions of distress and mental illness are reformulated – feminism rejects the medical model of illness. Psychological distress is not illness but a communication with an unjust system. Pain is defined not as an outcome of a deficit or distress but as an evidence of resistance and a will to survive. Symptoms are reframed as survival strategies. Modern day therapists recognize how oppression can debilitate people.
Limitations of the theories and implications on Social Work
By assuming a psychosexual and psychosocial approach, social workers have a useful conceptual framework for understanding developmental issues. These theories emphasize that the client is biological, psychological and social being and an interactive mix of these inner and outer forces shape their behavior. Free association teaches us the advantages of patience while transference phenomenon allows us to understand a client’s mode of exchange and provides us with a valuable tool to make them re-experience the feelings that would otherwise not be possible. The developmental cycle allows the counselors to look at the continuity of their client’s life and see how they have directed themselves through their lives. Freudian explanation of ego defense mechanism infers valuable tools and counseling is expected to modify individual personality and character. Though there is little to be gained by blaming the past, but it is important to understand the past as it pertains to the client’s current state. (Corey, 2001).
He discounted the effect of race, gender and class diversity of the people. As social workers, we must be aware of the ways in which our environmental impacts our development.
Freudian theories are androcentric, ethnocentric, gendercentric, heterosexist and deterministic. He explored femininity with great reluctance – he wrote approx 30 essays on sexuality – of them only 3 addressed female psychosexual development, and then briefly. He also held a dark and deterministic view of psyche because his research was based on study of abnormal behavior –he readily pathologized deviant behaviors, labeling feminists, lesbians, career oriented women as neurotic. Freud postulates dreams, slips of tongue, posthypnotic suggestions, symbolic content of psychotic symptoms to the unconscious. Thus he individualizes and pathologises aberrant as well as deviant behavior. He has been mostly silent about human development in context of race and ethnicity and we now know that environmental impacts are powerful determinants of personality development. Social workers need to be aware of the limitations of his work and apply orthodox psychoanalysis selectively to social work. Applying Erik Erikson’s model provides an understanding of major turning points of a client’s life. .
Freud gathered his data from the analytical dialogue with his patients which limited the integrity of his research as in involuntary behavior could not be analyzed, in fact analysis of infantile behavior was impossible. Later psychodynamic theorists eagerly sought laboratory research and direct observations of mothers with infants. Thru supplementary data from infancy research of developmental psychologists, post modern psychoanalysts made inferential leaps to speculate about the nature of psyche of infants. This allowed them to study behavior and challenge Freud’s biological premises and his developmental paradigms. As social workers, we need be more eclectic in our choice of tools.
Feminism takes an all encompassing, environmental view and places the responsibility of individual behavior on the environment. Causes of aberrant behaviors are scrutinized under the socio-political or familial lens and they ask “how has society erred to create this maladjustment in a person or family?” Unlike psychodynamic theories, the feminist movement has evolved organically and embodies the collective voice of multiple activists. It is grounded in female experiences that have spawned centuries. This alone gives it more validity and balance.
The phallocentrism and the misogyny of Freud’s work has been attributed to the patriarchical Victorian era in which he lived. His patients were primarily neurotic and psychopathic, very different from the psychoanalytical outpatients of today. Ellen Franfort (1998) analyzes Freud thru psychodynamic lens and concedes that Freud was a product of “a repressed Victorian upbringing and an authoritarian education.” His theories, including Oedipal Complex, were based on experiences of his childhood and his experiences with his gentle, weak father and his domineering, obsessive mother. His marriage and the marital relationship with his wife provide an assessment of his theories.
Freudian theories shifted the focus from environment to individuals. Though this prospect had negative connotations, the importance of childhood experiences on adult aberrations was a powerful concept for everyone – lawmakers, care providers - society in general has become extremely concerned about early interventions. Eriksonian developmental theory, derived from Freud, has wide acceptance in the area of social work.
From feminist perspective, object relations approach is criticized in that it puts great emphasis on the role of mother/child relationship. Later deficiencies of character are blamed on inadequate parenting by mother. Ego psychologists too, fix on the differentiation of the ego from the id in very early infancy. John Wiley’s book, Generation of Vipers, based on ego psychology, is a “misogyny that blames mothers for nearly everything, from thumb sucking to premature ejaculation to world war. Mom had so thoroughly debased the nations men – including its corporate executives, professors, clerics andhead of state-that these would-be leaders no longer possess the (masculine) will to fight for democracy,”(Buhle, 1998).
The long time needed for successful therapy is not suitable for managed care environment where cost minimization becomes the goal of the insurance companies. Psychoanalysis is expensive and is based on upper class values. Ethnic minorities may not share these values and costs may be prohibitive for them. Emphasis on treatment has shifted from curing neurosis to dealing with everyday problems of personality and affective disorders. Psychodynamic group therapy is becoming popular.
Feminist theories are transformational for individual clients and for society as a whole. They empower men and women and make them aware of the gender role socialization. They help women rethink their relationship with their body. Being consciously political, they realize that it takes time to change social institutions. Hence transcendence is the goal of social worker – helping the clients become aware of their socialization processes and the introjection of certain harmful beliefs. Through their awareness, clients then decide which beliefs they need to deconstruct or reconstruct, thereby learning to free themselves from people and bonds of oppression and stereotyping. Social workers can help break down the isolation women feel and help them connect with other women. They can also help women to depathologise their experiences and their behavioral responses to their experiences. However, though it is expected that through this awareness the clients will experience liberation, social workers should not force such change because the change may have major societal implications in the multicultural environment. A criticism of the theory is that it was developed by White, middle class, heterosexual women. Women of color had been overlooked. Later, these women were to call themselves Womanists. Feminists have become more inclusive of recent.
Longitudinal studies of Battes, Rees, Lipstiff (1978) have suggested that no one phase of the lifecycle may be identified as primary and that personality development is continuous across the second half of life. The social construct of reality (Berger & Lockman, 1966) complements the actions and intents of particular persons, for this template provides the elements of personality that are further modified with subsequent experience.
Conclusion
Gilligan’s work on women and ethic of care shows that in women, a sense of care and relationship with others is interconnected with the concept of integrity. This connection shares its values with mission of social work. Gilligan asserts that : “While an ethic of justice proceeds from the premise of equality – that everyone should be treated the same – an ethic of care rests on the premise of nonviolence – that no one should be hurt. In the representation of maturity, both perspectives converge in the realization that just as inequality adversely affects both parties in an unequal relationship, so too violence is destructive for everyone involved.” (Shriver, 2001, pp 259). Gilligan is accused of discounting diversity by limiting her sample set to white men.
Thru menstruation women attune to the cyclical nature of the universe. Childbirth sensitizes them to creativity and life, they learn to trust their bodies without being able to control it. Nurturing the infant creates a symbiotic relationship where she is forced to sacrifice self in favor of other. Freudian assertion of our differences per biology isn’t wrong per se. The trouble arises only, when the labels of good or bad are ascribed to experiences that are powerful and unique. To demand equality is to negate these experiences.
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