Personality Development of a Child - Essay Example

Compare and contrast Horneys concept of womb envy and Freuds formulation of penis envy in personality development name: Instructor name: Date due: Introduction Personality development is dependent on the environment one is brought up. A child will look upon the parents and will tend to defy one of the parents especially the parent of the same sex. The development of a child is usually influenced by the role of the particular parent. Horney explained this in her concept of the womb envy. She suggested that the notion of the womb envy gives a feeling of admiration, which makes women respect men. Horney emphasized on the fact of women’s need for men in the attempt to give birth. Freud, on the other hand, explained personal development using his formulation of penis envy (Rosalind, 2014). Envy is a development of a person’s awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another and the desire to possess the same advantage. Envy takes place in either real or imagined social context. According to Freud, a small girl would desire to have a penis after she sees one. Envy includes different experiences. Such experiences include the wish to possess what other has, such as aggressive feelings, negative self-feelings like feelings of inferiority, hurt feelings or irritation. The penis envy, as put in the Freudian theory, constitutes a central element in personality development of a woman. The womb envy, on the other hand, has a lot of significance in the way various cultures regard women. The womb envy does not necessarily refer to the womb as an organ but to the entire complex of a woman’s distinctive physiology. Freud’s formulation is significant in that it offers a case study for philosophically investigating how male-cantered perspective distorts a psychology that ignores its originating stance. Culture also has much significance on personal development. Most cultures tend to disregard the females and give a lot of superiority to the males. A child will take what is in the society, and that is why most boys will tend to fight and despise girls right from their early ages. This paper seeks to analyse the similarities and differences in Freud’s formulation of the penis envy and Horney’s theory of womb envy (Nevid, 2009; John, 2010). Comparisons Horney concurred with Freud leading to the belief that personality is shaped by unconscious conflicts. Horney however focused less on sexual and aggressive drives, giving more emphasis on the various roles of social and cultural forces. Like Freud, Horney believed that fear makes children repress their hostility towards their parents. The repression of the fear is because the children are afraid of losing their parents. The repressed hostility in the children makes the children generate more anxiety and insecurity. In his formulation, Freud observes that women will always look upon their fathers for compensation of a penis. The young girls have the mentality that their penises were castrated by their mothers, leaving them with a vagina, which they consider as a wound. The mentality of the wound makes the young girls feel dissatisfied with their sex. Resultantly, the girls are envious of their fathers, whom they consider more aggressive and authoritative from the fact that they possess penises. Coincidentally, Horney agrees with the observation that women especially at their young stages are dissatisfied with their sex. She acknowledges the significance of the penis envy and the castration complex which contribute to the oedipal development of women. Both Freud and Karen Horney agree to the fact that femininity was incarnate and biological, though shaped and influenced by various psychological issues. For instance, Horney insisted that women’s envy of the men’s penis is due to the sexual gratification it provides; that is why the women consider it powerful. On his part, Freud agreed to this view during meeting of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. From Freud’s theory of penis envy in men, women are portrayed as inferior. Coupled with the cultural issues belittling women, the women unconsciously find themselves accepting the inferiority feeling. Unexpectedly, Horney agrees to this inferiority in men as expressed by Freud. She admitted that women may view themselves as inadequate compared to men (Duane & Sydney, 2012). Both penis envy and the womb envy have some similarities. The developers of the theories, Freud, and Horney are of opposite genders, and each of them tends to defend his or her gender using the theory. Freud on his part insists that men are superior in that they have a penis which women lack. He continues to give an observation that it is not the existing cultures that dictate a woman’s position in the society, but is due to the biological makeup. Horney on the other side counters Freud’s ideas by arguing that women are envied by men because of their capacity for motherhood. The theories have the prevailing effect of creating competition between the two sexes. The womb envy drives men into believing that women are inferior. The inferiority denies women equal rights, minimizing their contributions in the society. Out of this, men retain their superiority status. The penis envy in women, on the other hand, drives women into accepting their inferior status as a result of lack of a penis. Clearly, it is amazing how the two psychoanalysts hold on to their opinions, none of them willing to change. Horney pointed out that both men and women develop various fantasies to deal with their biological makeups. In her work, she suggests that both the womb envy and the penis envy complement each other. The two theories reflect a mutual attraction and envy developed by the two sexes (Barbara, 2013). The other similarity of the two theories is the way the female personality was reinterpreted. Horney bases her reinterpretation on a set of needs aimed at achieving security, in the same way, as males. Such thinking gave a significant contribution in the equalization of the psychology of the two sexes. Likewise, eliminating the gender biases in Freud’s formulation of the penis envy, both sexes could be equal in terms of production. The other similarity was on the emphasis on how culture contributes to moulding a person, regardless of sex. Horney observed that culture has a lot to do with how a particular individual is regarded in the society. For a fair conclusion to be made on the abilities of any sex, considerations have to be made on the social forces operating within the individual. Freud on his part observed that culture has a lot of significance in defining the role and ability of a given sex (Carducci, 2006). Contrast Freud asserted that women suffer from inferiority complex as a result of their penis’ envy towards men. Honey, on the other hand, rejected this observation. She instead claimed that women envy men because of their power and authority in the social platform but not for their penises. She even raised the observation that men may also experience womb envy. According to Horney, men strongly believe in women’s womb power to bring life to the world (Nevid, 2013). Horney questioned the notion of Freud that the penis envy was a universal characteristic of women. Though not disputing the existence of the notion, she observed that the penis envy could only be due to social and other cultural factors that make the male gender be preferred by many. According to Horney, most women tend to idolize men to a point of being unable to live without a man. Horney however attributed this perception to patriarchal domination. The domination makes men develop an inferiority complex. She, therefore, developed a masculine complex encompassing all the feelings harboured by women as a result of sexism (Buhle, 1998). Freud focused so much on genital differences between sexes. Horney on her part disagreed with the emphasis. She instead focused on the various roles played by men and women in the process of reproduction. Men’s understanding of these differences is what generates the womb envy and the unconscious wish to give birth. Horney was uncomfortable with men’s overcompensation in their achievements as a result of their small role played during procreation (Dianne & Carolyn, 2012). Freud also stated that women’s problems begin right from childhood. Freud described possible internal and external attributions with respect to envy. A girl may at first interpret her failure to possess a penis as a punishment for wrongdoing. Such a girl may later on blame her mother for the lack of a penis. Horney disagreed with this statement. She argued that women’s problems start in adulthood when they become part of a cultural double-bind. Conflict occurs between women’s expectations of being affectionate, cooperative, nurturing and supportive towards achievement of security in the current world where the women are required to succeed financially. To this effect, the primary problem of women is dependency but not penis envy (Paul, 2013). Freud held his view that penis envy is universal and biological in all women. He stated that all women feel inferior about their sex. According to him, women especially in their early years believe that their vagina is a wound that resulted from castration of their penis. This feeling makes the young girls blame their mothers for the lack of the penis. The girls tend always to look upon their fathers. The males compensate the girls’ lack of a penis by giving them a child, after which the girls feel contented. Freud’s view sounded biased and driven by male chauvinism. It is out of this chauvinism that Horney comes in strongly and objects the Freud’s formulation. Horney denies that the castration complex and oedipal development period in women as Freud suggests. She strongly disagrees with the conclusion that the repudiation of their womanhood is based on their envy of the penis. She deduces that the Freud’s theory is male biased and should not be used to discriminate against women who are portrayed as dissatisfied with their sex (Gerhard, 2001). Freud is considered a male genius whose contribution in psychoanalysis is great, though masculine biased. The role of penis envy in personality development created a lot of debate, especially with the female psychoanalyst, Horney, whose theory of the womb envy challenges that of Freud. He believed that out of their castration, women turned to their fathers before they fully accepted their feminine nature. The women only admitted the fact of their gender after they bore children. Horney noted that the contributors and supporters of Freud’s formulation were men. According to her, it was only easier for men to develop a more masculine than a feminine psychology. In her view, the idea, that women felt castrated thus turning to their fathers, was totally misguided. Moreover, she believed and affirmed that femininity is a basic biological being into which women were born. Contrary to Freud’s assertion, Horney believed that women were not end-products of developed from self-disappointment and envy of men. They were instead biologically meant to be that way (Judith, 2013). Quoting German sociologist, Georg Simmel, Horney observed that the modern society is essentially masculine, that forced women develop an inferiority complex. The lack of social equality had caused women to envy men, who appeared strong and domineering. In her view, male and female were biologically equal but different. According to her they were equal in the sense that men took the front part in everything, leaving no room for women to exercise their strengths. In her bold suggestion, the deprecation of women was related to men’s envy of the women’s reproductive ability, referred to as the womb’s envy. Freud, on the other hand, strongly believed in women being the source of their inferiority feeling. He did not attribute their inferiority to men’s influence. According to him, women were the only ones to blame for their inferiority (Fiorini & Abelin-Sas, 2010). As written by Slipp and Gore (1995), Jones, Freud’s biographer, a boy child envied a girl’s sexual organs due to their capacity to reproduce, symbolizing instant creativity. He insisted that women’s femininity was a development of their genetic constitution. Taking a different direction on this, Horney believed that men had little appreciation of the women, despite their ability to deliver. She held the view that men would always hold on to their positions of superiority while women, on the other hand, would remain down-trodden (p. 17). In his concept of the penis envy, Freud paints all women as subjects to the penis envy. He ignores all the other prevailing factors such as existing cultures, beliefs and taboos. Out of this, he draws women people whose penises are castrated and therefore do not have any power or authority in the society. Horney challenges Freud’s concept of penis envy. To substantiate her disagreement, she argues that during the development of Freud’s viewpoint, women were envious of and desired an equal quality of life with men. Unlike what Freud stated as penis envy, Horney notes that women were only trying to express natural needs for success and security, something which is characteristic of both sexes. In her view, Horney dismissed Freud’s concept as baseless and biased. The biases manifested itself in the way Freud’s viewpoint was developed. He had only interacted with the neurotic women who were patients under his care. She attributed men’s belittling of women to womb envy. Since men wanted to be creative, they could not bear children. Out of that jealousy, they engaged in various discriminatory practices which made it difficult for women to succeed in their social lives (Carducci, 2006). Conclusion The penis envy appears to disturb most girls. The envy may extend into maturity leading to women’s belief that men are superior. Resultantly, the lack of a penis makes girls hate their mothers for bearing them ill-equipped. The result is that such women will always look upon their fathers for security, since they have a penis that is symbolized as a source of power. The lack of a penis is however compensated for when the women give birth. The compensation explains why women, who forsake child-bearing roles, continue living with the penis envy (Raab, 2000). Men, on the other hand, envy women’s ability to give birth, popularly known as the womb envy. Horney came up with this theory in response to Freud’s theory of penis envy. She asserted that the male are envious of the females, out of their ability to bring life. The womb’s envy in men is driven by men’s lack of a womb and therefore inability to bear children. To compensate for the inability, men work extremely hard so as to achieve in the social perspective. Womb envy is accompanied unconsciously by behaviours that tend to belittle women, reinforcing their inferior status (Edward, 2002). Horney insists that women will not feel inferior because they were born women as Freud had suggested in his formulation of the womb envy. Instead, Horney notes that the inferiority feeling in women is totally contributed to by men and their ego. She says that women feel inadequate as a result of societal reasons. The various cultures condemn women giving them little or no room for growth. They have been treated in an inferior way by the males who take dominance in most cultures. Generations after generations have treated women as incomplete. The women have been discriminated in terms of socially, economically and culturally, pushing them to believe they are inadequate (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). The both sexes require each other. Therefore, ignoring the cultural issues, both sexes need each other equally. The male have the penis, and the female have the womb. For reproduction to take place, the two have to come together. Therefore, there is the need for both sexes to appreciate each other, for proper personal development. References Barbara Engler (2013). Personality Theories. Cengage Learning. Buhle, M. J. (1998). Feminism and its discontents: A century of struggle with psychoanalysis. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Carducci, B. J. (2006). The psychology of personality. Oxford: Blackwell. Duane Schultz, Sydney Schultz (2012).Theories of Personality. 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