When he actually began to write about human sexuality and legitimize it as an up
and coming field of study, Freud stated that women were indeed beings with
sexual needs. He also suggested that the repression of sexual expression was a
major cause of neurosis in women. His theories evolved out of his own personal
interpretation of these women?s underlying emotions and unconscious motives.
While he believed women should express our sexuality, he also believed that our
fulfillment could only come about in the form of a vaginal orgasm (distinct from
the clitoral orgasm, which Freud considered "masculine" and
"childish") and the resulting bearing and nurturing of children.
Although in many ways Freud began a "liberation of female sexuality,"
his theories had certain stigmas attached which passed on yet another set of
masculine standards against which women were to judge themselves. Freud
unsympathetically analyzed many women but none so in depth as an
eighteen-year-old girl named Dora. He had treated Dora?s father for syphilis a
few years before. The reason that Dora was brought for the consultation was a
letter that her parents had found. The letter basically just said goodbye to her
parents, and made clear that her intention was to take her own life. Her parents
thought that she didn?t really mean it, but were concerned enough to force her
to see a doctor. Other symptoms of apparent illness were: a "nervous
cough", a history of fainting spells, loss of voice, headaches, and
depression that could be traced back to her early childhood. Freud diagnosed her
collection of symptoms as a typical case of hysteria, and made it his business
to figure out the cause. Freud was convinced that it was a deeply rooted
leftover from her early sexuality. Freud?s observation was that Dora was
"tenderly attached" to her father. Her mother was the sort of woman
who spent most of her time obsessively cleaning the house and performing other
mindless and typical "female" activities. Dora was extremely critical
of her mother and the two did not generally get along. Dora?s older brother
sided with the mother in all of the arguments, and that left the family divided
in a constant mother/son vs. father/daughter confrontation. A governess had been
part of the household and was very close with Dora until the girl began to
suspect that the reason they got along so well was that the woman was trying to
attract her father. Dora?s father told Freud that he believed he knew what had
caused his daughter?s latest symptoms and the suicide note. The family had
formed a close friendship with another married couple, Herr and Frau K. Frau K,
and energetic and very attractive woman, had nursed Dora?s father through a
long illness, and Herr K was very fond of Dora. He took her on walks and bought
her presents, and his wife acted as Dora?s confidant. She took on a role
virtually like a mother figure for Dora (which was something that the child
lacked while she was growing up). Two years before, Dora told her father that
Herr K had made an indecent proposal to her while they were walking past a lake.
She had slapped him in the face and had gone home alone. When confronted by her
father, Herr K denied that the incident ever happened, and insisted that books
with explicit sexual scenes had affected the girl, and that she had fanaticized
the entire thing. The father was convinced by Herr K?s explanation and left it
at that. Dora continued to insist that he break off relations with the K?s,
especially Frau K. Her father refused to do so on the grounds that Herr K was
innocent and that his relationship with Frau K was completely non-sexual. Dora
was convinced of two things: her father and Frau K had been having an affair for
years, and Herr K had tried to seduce her. "I came to the conclusion that
Dora?s story must correspond to the facts in every respect," stated Freud
in reference to Dora?s interpretation of reality. Analysis of her dreams was
consistent with Freud?s theory of the girl?s Oedipal love for her father. He
believed that Dora was reacting to her father?s affair with Frau K as if she
were a wronged wife or a betrayed lover- as if she were the woman her father
once loved, or the woman he now loved. Since she was neither, her reaction,
which Freud interpreted as jealousy, was inappropriate. He also thought that her
reaction to Herr K?s advances was "entirely and completely
hysterical." Dora had felt disgust as a reaction towards Herr K. Disgust is
an "oral phenomenon", and this along with her throat symptoms of
coughing and loss of voice, led Freud to the absurd conclusion that her symptoms
were related to her fantasies of her father and Frau K having oral intercourse.
Although she denied it, Freud insisted that Dora was sexually attracted to Herr
K as well. Freud stated "Her feeling for him reflected both her feeling for
her father and her feeling for Frau K. That is, she identified Herr K with her
father, and herself with Frau K. Thus her attraction to Herr K was a
recapitulation of her father?s love affair with Frau K." Freud believed
that the two men were involved in an unspoken conspiracy in which Dora was a
pawn: her father would ignore Herr K?s attempted seductions of his daughter in
exchange for Herr K?s pretend ignorance of his wife?s affair with Dora?s
father. Freud also knew the father?s motive for bringing Dora to see him. He
wanted Freud to talk her out of believing that there was anything more than
friendship between him and Frau K. Dora was a young girl caught in a web of lies
and betrayal, where she could not turn to anyone for help. Her parents were
directly involved in deceiving her, and Freud was trying to brainwash her into
thinking that it was her fault for feeling the way she did, and that it was all
in her mind. Freud knew the real situation, yet he consistently hid the truth
from Dora, and led her to believe that she had deeply rooted problems that
started in her childhood. In reality, Dora was having a very normal reaction to
the harsh truth of what her father was doing. Freud?s treatment of Dora lasted
for three months, until she abruptly terminated it, much to Freud?s
disappointment. Freud interpreted her unexpected termination of her therapy as
evidence of his newly developed theory of transference. This theory states that
the patient transfers to the therapist old feelings and conflicts, which she
once felt for people in her past, such as her mother and father. Freud believed
that in the same way that she had transferred her love for her father to Herr K,
she now transferred some of the same feelings towards Freud. But these feelings
were positive and negative, and as a result of the treatment she received at the
hands of Herr K and her father, she would take revenge on all of them by
deserting Freud. Freud thought that Dora was saying, "Men are so detestable
that I would rather not marry. This is my revenge." Nearly a year and a
half later, Dora revisited Freud for treatment of facial neuralgia. Freud told
her that her pain was a self-punishment for a "double crime": the
long-ago slap at Herr K when he had made advances toward her, and her revenge on
Freud by terminating the treatment before it was completed. Freud never saw her
again after that but in 1905, he published "Fragment of an Analysis of a
Case of Hysteria," better known as the case of Dora. Dora was not actually
a hysterical patient. She was simply a young woman in shock due to her
father?s affair, her constant fighting with her mother and brother, and the
fact that a married man (who was also a friend of the family) was hitting on her
and no one really believed it. Freud could have said to her "You are right,
and they are wrong," but instead, he chose to manipulate Dora?s mind and
make her believe that the whole scene was a result of her childhood sexual
insecurities. Freud related neurosis and hysteria in women to marriage and
sexual frustration in most cases. His explanation is vague and it seems as
though he just tries to make it applicable to the entire gender in any
situation. Under the cultural conditions of today, marriage has long ceased to
be a panacea for the nervous troubles of women; and if we doctors still advise
marriage in such cases, we are nevertheless aware that, on the contrary a girl
must be very healthy if she is able to tolerate it?.On the contrary, the cure
for nervous illness arising form marriage, would be marital unfaithfulness. But
the more strictly a woman has been brought up and the more sternly she has
submitted to the demands of civilization, the more she is afraid of taking this
way out; and in the conflict between her desires and her sense of duty, she once
more seeks refuge in neurosis. -Freud, 1976a, p.195 Evidence shows that men and
women in extreme cases have the same degree of neurosis and hysteria as a result
of marriage and sexual frustration. The symptoms are the same regardless of
gender. Freud was extremely presumptuous when it came to drawing conclusions
about women. For example, Freud said "One might consider characterizing
femininity psychologically as giving preference to passive aims?It is perhaps
the case that in a woman, on the basis of her share in the sexual function, a
preference for passive behavior and passive aims is carried over into her
life?" He is assuming that a woman?s role in the sexual function is a
passive one. It seems to me that the males have the passive role in this
situation considering that it is the woman who carries and gives birth to
babies. Feminists who have been arguing against Freudian theory for many years
all come to the same basic conclusion about his philosophies on women: Freud was
greatly influenced by the societal norms of his time, and that factor had a
great impact on his theories about women?s roles. Since the days of Sigmund
Freud, our society has progressed a great deal, and women have been gradually
accepted as more than the property of their husbands. It is the freedom to
decide her own destiny; freedom from sex-determined role; freedom from
society?s oppressive restrictions; freedom to express her thoughts fully and
to convert them freely into action. Feminism demands the acceptance of woman?s
right to individual conscience and judgment. It postulates that women?s
essential worth stems from her common humanity and does not depend on the other
relationships of her life. During the nineteenth century, feminism was virtually
non-existent, and the beliefs of Freud and other great minds were just accepted
as fact. The stereotypical role of women as passive caretakers of the home and
of children that existed throughout Freud?s lifetime, is gradually diminishing
and women are gaining social status as well as respect from the men who at one
time were out oppressors. The feminist movement has played a huge role in
changing the opinions of many people that carried with them the same
philosophies as Freud in regards to women and their capabilities as humans. This
narrow-minded nature only succeeded in making women more and more determined to
prove their "worth" to members of the opposite sex. Although Freud was
leading the pack of male chauvinists in the late nineteenth century he has since
been overpowered by females that are no longer afraid to say what they feel or
act on their impulses.
Bell Hooks; Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. c.1984 by bell hooks;
South End Press 2) Freud, Sigmund; "Femininity" from Juanita H.
Williams, ed. Psychology of Women. NY: W.W. Norton, 1979 3) Hunter College
Women?s Studies Collective; Women?s Realities, Women?s Choices NY: Oxford
University Press, 1983 4) Smithsonian World; Gender: The Enduring Paradox NYC:
UNAPIX Entertainment Inc., 1996 5) Williams, Juanita H.; Psychology of Women NY:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1987