Sigmund Freud had a Good Point
Sigmund Freud is constantly berated as a joke of a psychologist and a meme.
(A good meme but still.) I would like to take some time to say, while Freud wasn’t a super genius or right about everything, he made some good points and he was quite progressive for a man of his time.
Freud came up with the idea of “Penis Envy”, a feeling that grows in girls who then give birth in an attempt to fill some void left by the lack of a penis. In the literal sense, this makes no sense. But metaphorically and symbolically, this issue is a huge point made in everyday life as a passing female. (I specify “passing” to include trans and nonbinary peeps.)
As a passing female, in a patriarchal world, she must adapt herself to fit into the male-dominated world if she ever wants to get somewhere in life. The most extreme ways of adapting are easily visible during middle/high school years. You have your “girly-girls” and your “tom-boys”.
“Girly girls” over-feminize themselves, they play the helpless damsel roll and they are content to live within the boundaries of “the Barbie life”. They make themselves small and take up less space, they talk less and have more kids. But chances are, they’re also bitter. They have strengths that they need to downplay to accommodate the male and they internalize their envy of the male privilege. This can often lead to unnecessary stress as the passing female is living her life taking care of others before herself and her own needs and desires. This also connects back to Freud’s time where women weren’t seen as Human because they were “less than man” and scientifically proven to have smaller brains (glad that was cleared up).
On the other extreme, we have “Tomboys” who try to impersonate the male. They dress in baggy clothes to hide their curves and take up more space. They’re sometimes loud and overbearing, they play sports or video games and hang with the guys “cause they’re less drama”. But by doing this, they deny all things gentle and become hateful towards anything feminine which leads to internalized sexism. They look at their bodies with disgust and their fellow-females as weaker or lesser then them while they are still lesser then the male. Androgynous people, trans men, they have to overcompensate their masculinity to be accepted by the male and anything that comes close is what’s “best”.
So Freud was right, passing women often suffer from Penis Envy. But what they’re envious of isn’t the phallic appendage, it’s all the power and perks that come with it. Women have to work twice as hard to be taken half as serious. We’re not in control of our own bodies in regards to government. We can’t walk the streets at night without fearing for our safety or for our reputation. Passing women must be both strong enough to carry a family but not stronger than the male, they must be smart but not smarter than the male. It’s a constant struggle that most passing women still struggle to find balance in. Most eventually settle in some place in between. The patriarchy demands we choose one over the other while still maintaining these contradictions and women struggle with that like a mental illness only passing females get. So Freud was right about that. His reasoning and proof was skewed at best but I like to think his intentions were the same as most other scientists of any time period, to help the people and to understand the truth.
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