penis envy

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envy

a desire to have another's possessions or qualities for oneself.

penis envy in psychoanalysis, the concept that the female envies the male his possession of a penis, first described by Freud as occurring during the phallic stage in little girls as they become aware of anatomical differences between the sexes. It is often used more broadly for the women's generalized envy of men or their characteristics.

pe·nis en·vy

the psychoanalytic concept in which a female envies male characteristics or capabilities, especially the possession of a penis.

Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary © Farlex 2012

penis envy

The supposed wish of a girl or woman to have a penis, postulated in Freudian psychoanalytic theory as causing psychic conflict that drives female psychosexual development and results in psychological disorders if not resolved.

penis envy

Psychiatry The unconscious desire by ♀ to have a penis which, per psychoanalysts, corresponds to an unresolved castration complex. Cf Oedipus complex.

pe·nis en·vy

(pēnis envē)

Psychoanalytic concept that a female envies male characteristics or capabilities, especially the possession of a penis.

Medical Dictionary for the Health Professions and Nursing © Farlex 2012

penis envy

The Freudian concept that all women have a repressed wish to have a penis and resent the fact that they are incomplete men. The idea is no longer taken seriously.

Collins Dictionary of Medicine © Robert M. Youngson 2004, 2005

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References in periodicals archive ?

Finally obliged to settle the dispute, Freud sided with Abraham, reaffirming the importance of penis envy in the formation of female character.

Feminism and its Discontents: A Century of Struggle with Psychoanalysis

Though most contemporary Freudian analysts are suspicious of any theory of sexuality or gender based on infantile dichotomies such as absence/presence, clean/dirty, inferior/superior, even the more enlightened among them still evidence a perplexity about the term female castration anxiety--which inevitably they reduce to the problem of penis envy, an absent genital seeking to appropriate or castrate a genital that is there-present.

In "Castration" (1991), Leo Rangell, citing Freud, analogizes the feminine wish in men to penis envy in women.

Female castration anxiety

In 1989, for example, the FCC fined a Miami radio station for playing the Uncle Bonsai song "Penis Envy," a satire of macho attitudes.

Pervasive problem: the 1978 Supreme Court decision allowing censorship of dirty words on radio threatens free speech in cyberspace

After all, Freud and many of his acolytes helped pathologize lesbianism by explaining it as a wrong object-choice, and by consigning it to the masculinity complex that included a severe case of penis envy. Yet despite the history of animosity between Freudian theory and lesbians (a history de Lauretis admits to having contributed to in the past), she argues convincingly lesbians should attend to the ambivalence in Freud's work.

The subversion of perversion

In other words, I theorize that the otherwise virtually inexplicable train of thought of penis envy etc., which has, moreover, virtually no therapeutic value (cf.

Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel (1976, 285) accepts the notion of penis envy but understands the desire to have the penis as a female's defense against the frightening power of the mother (cf.

Jewish masochism: couvade, castration, and rabbis in pain

As Freud and Havelock Ellis were having their way with terms like "penis envy" and "inversion," lesbian sexuality was forced out of the Boston marriage and into the demi-monde.

The passion of the Lesbos: are our politics getting in the way of our sex lives?

The good news too is that money envy is a lot more easily treated than penis envy.

Philippa Davies is a top psychologist to prime ministers and cabinet ministers

Some people suffer penis envy, but for me it's nose envy.

To pull the girls, these blokes rely on just one tiny part of their body

I'm concerned, of course, about the lengths to which some women will go in the spirit of penis envy. Yet more amazing still is how uproariously funny all this is to women in general, feminists in particular.