Lesson 3: The Role of Women

Visit the website My Jewish Learning: Women in Rabbinic Literature and read about traditional views of women from a Rabbinical perspective. It is interesting to note some consistencies between the Rabbinic definition of the female role and her nature and the role of women during Freud's lifetime. Read the section on sexuality on the Young Dr. Freud site. How might the rabbinical view of women, especially the wariness regarding women and sexuality, have influenced Freud's contention that his hysterical patients were suffering from sexual repression?

Although Freud focused on women's sexuality, he admitted being baffled by it. Go to Young Dr. Freud and read a discussion on how Freud viewed women.

The following quote has been copied from Wikipedia. "
"Freud has also come under fire from many feminist critics. Freud was an early champion of both sexual freedom and education for women (Freud, "Civilized Sexual Morality and Modern Nervousness"). Some feminists, however, have argued that at worst his views of women's sexual development set the progress of women in Western culture back decades, and that at best they lent themselves to the ideology of female inferiority. Believing as he did that women are a kind of mutilated male, who must learn to accept their "deformity" (the "lack" of a penis) and submit to some imagined biological imperative, he contributed to the vocabulary of misogyny. Terms such as "penis envy" and "castrating" (both used to describe women who attempted to excel in any field outside the home) contributed to discouraging women from obtaining education or entering any field dominated by men, until the 1970s.

"On the other hand, feminist theorists such as Juliet Mitchell, Nancy Chodorow, Jessica Benjamin, Jane Gallop, and Jane Flax have argued that psychoanalytic theory is essentially related to the feminist project and must, like other theoretical traditions, be adapted by women to free it from vestiges of sexism. Freud's views are still being questioned by people concerned about women's equality. Another feminist who finds potential use of Freud's theories in the feminist movement is Shulamith Firestone. In "Freudianism: The Misguided Feminism", she discusses how Freudianism is essentially completely accurate, with the exception of one crucial detail: everywhere that Freud writes "penis", the word should be replaced with "power"."