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Penis Envy
Psychoanalysis Quotes in The Feminine Mystique
The The Feminine Mystique quotes below are all either spoken by Psychoanalysis or refer to Psychoanalysis. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 5 Quotes
“Normal” femininity is achieved, however, only insofar as the woman finally renounces all active goals of her own, all her own “originality,” to identify and fulfill herself through the activities and goals of her husband, or son.
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Friedan describes “normal” femininity according to the psychoanalyst Dr. Helene Deutsch’s theory that femininity developed out of a combination of factors: a girl’s realization that she lacks a penis, the “penis envy” that resulted from this realization, and social expectations that she get married and have children. In keeping with Freud’s view that passivity was a woman’s natural state, a “normal” woman would give up any independent activity and only take interest in the things that mattered to her spouse or her children, particularly her sons (if she had any). This would mean not having any independent intellectual pursuits and Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mol
Girls who grew up playing baseball, baby-sitting, mastering geometry—almost independent enough, almost resourceful enough, to meet the problems of the fission-fusion era—were told by the most advanced thinkers of our time to go back and live their lives as if they were Noras, restricted to the doll’s house by Victorian prejudice. And their own respect and awe for the authority of science—anthropology, sociology, psychology share that authority now—kept them from questioning the feminine mystique.
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Friedan concludes the chapter on “The Sexual Solipsism of Sigmund Freud” by contrasting the freedom that is permitted to girls, presumably before they discover their “lack” of a penis and develop “penis envy,” with the restrictions of femininity in womanhood. She uses the example of Nora, the protagonist from Henrik Ibsen’s play, “A Doll’s House,” as an emblem of how women were not permitted to form their own identities but existed as their husbands’ adored objects. Friedan finds this even more tragic in her own time than it was in Ibsen’s, for the demands of modern era required more brainpower, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecat
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Psychoanalysis Term Timeline in The Feminine Mystique
The timeline below shows where the term Psychoanalysis appears in The Feminine Mystique. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: The Happy Housewife Heroine
...editors acknowledged the role they played in validating the feminine mystique. One blamed it on psychoanalysis, which had made them “feel embarrassed about being career women” and made them objects of...
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