Page 195 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes at the genital stage the experiences are different. Freud says that the development of female
sexuality is complicated because she has two sexual zones. A man has only one leading sexual
zone, one sexual organ, whereas woman has two sexual organs—the vagina, the female organ
proper and the clitoris, which is analogous to the male organ. The vagina possibly does not
produce sensations until puberty. Hence the main genital occurrences of her childhood must take
place in relation to clitoris. The woman’s sexual life is regularly divided into two phases, of which
the first has a masculine character (in the sense of being active) while the second is feminine (in
the sense of being passive). In her childhood a girl’s clitoris takes on the role of a penis entirely.
In the proedipal situation, the autoerotic activity of the erotogenic zones is the same in both the
sexes. The little girl, like the boy is first very much attached to her mother. But at the genital stage,
the child becomes attached to the parent of the opposite sex.

Freud calls this ‘Oedipus complex’ for boys and ‘Electra Complex’ for girls.

In the case of a boy, his mother becomes his first love-object as a result of her feeding him and
looking after him and the mother remains so until she is replaced by someone who resembles her.
A female’s first love-object is the mother but at the end of her development, her father becomes
her new love-object. Thus the change in her own sex (because she becomes famine in the sense of
being passive) has to correspond with a change in the sex of her object.
At a later stage a male child has to overcome the oedipal complex (Electra complex in case of a girl
child). This phase of overcoming the oedipus complex is a very difficult one and the child makes
use of the mechanisms of repression, identification and sublimation in overcoming his incestuous
impulses. At this stage, the discovery of the possibility of castration, as proved by the sight of the
female genitals forces on the boy the transformation of his oedipic complex and leads to the
creation of his super-ego. This initiates him into the cultural community.
The girl on the other hand acknowledges the fact of her castration and with it the superiority of
the male and her own inferiority. Freud states that a girl feels greatly at a disadvantage owing to
her lack of visible penis. She envies boys for possessing a penis and wishes to be a man rather than
a woman. That becomes the hope of her life. But the process of becoming a woman depends on the
clitoris passing on the sensitivity to the vaginal orifice in good time and completely. So in the end
she takes her father as her love object and finds her way to femininity. In the case of a girl, the
Electra complex is not destroyed by the influence of castration but it is created by castration. In the
case of a boy the Oedipus complex is destroyed by the fear of castration.
For Freud, femininity is neither inborn nor culturally conditioned but in every culture the process
of becoming a woman requires the repression of the active (masculine) side of her sexuality. This
repression almost becomes a fact of nature and an inherent attribute of womanhood.
Most of the feminists have criticized Freud and rejected his psychoanalysis as male-oriented. He
has said to have taken for granted the inferiority of woman and have tried to provide a pseudo-
scientific basis for woman’s subordination. Simon De Beauvoir does not criticize psychoanalysis
as a whole but examines its contribution to the study of woman. She criticizes Freud for not
having much concern with the destiny of woman.
She feels that he has extended his account of the destiny of man to woman. She says that Freud
has based his analysis of the Oedipus, the castration and the Electra complexes upon the masculine
model and it is derived from the current social practices and values. She feels that in woman the
inferiority complex takes the form of rejection of femininity but it is not the lack of penis that
causes this complex but rather the total situation in which a woman is placed. In her opinion the

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