Freud is not a Sexist

A detailed Summary of Freud is not a Sexist

Many feminist critics have perceived Freud to be an active force in Victorian gender politics that claim women's inferiority. His attitudes towards women, as reflected in his psychoanalyses, consciously reflect the patriarchal assumptions of Victorian society, but unconsciously reject gender roles and stereotypes about women. Freud is therefore complicit in accepting sexist perceptions of women, but is not a perpetrator who attempts to entrench patriarchy by portraying women as inferior. Because Freud is a victim of the prevalent stereotypes of society, feminist critics are unwarranted in characterizing him as an instigator of female degradation. Rather, his skewed perceptions reflect the male-chauvinist beliefs of his surroundings and influences. Freud's relationships with his female patients indicate that he simultaneously identifies with and fails to understand women. In identifying with women patients, Freud demonstrates concern for the underlying causes of psychological affliction, namely the constricting nature of gender roles. This fixation with the feminine complaint is exemplified in particular by Freud's dream of Irma and his case study of Dora, two recalcitrant female patients who refuse to accept his theories. F

Freud's preoccupation with his female patients' resistance is reflected in the dream of Irma's injection. However, beyond frustration with their recalcitrance, he is extremely concerned with their complaints. Upon this point, Shoshana Felman states:

Like Freud, Dora is ahead of her time, yet a product of it. She desires to get out of the oppressive role that a woman must take-to be desired until motherhood and then to be forgotten. However, like women of her time, she tries to 'resist the system' by the Victorian feminine means of hysteria; Dora uses it to turn the tables on the domineering men in her life. Equipped with hysteria as her weapon, she stops the conspirators dead in their tracks.

As Freud attempted to exert control through his position as doctor, Dora was able to gain control by manipulating his personal weaknesses. Because she was not completely cured when halted treatment, Dora fed Freud's fears of being an inadequate healer: "For how could the patient take a more effective revenge then by demonstrating upon her own person the helplessness and incapacity of the physician?" (110). Freud's extensive commitment to Dora led him to unknowingly invest an incredible amount of emotion into their rapport. Freud's personal involvement in Dora's case allowed her to gain the upper hand and left Freud vulnerable: "Her breaking off so unexpectedly...this was an unmistakable act of vengeance on her part... No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhibit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through unscathed" (100). Freud has taken Dora's story and departure on a personal level because she was able to turn the tables and conjure up Freud's own demons. The intellectual arrogance that he has presented to the world is simply a front. Freud's constant fixation on Dora, the fact that, "he had still not done with Dora" (Marcus, 64), was because she was able to strike a chord with his greatest professional fear. Her abandonment without being fully cured reinforced Freud's inner conflict over his inability to heal as well as demonstrating his failure of the male gender role of "protector". By retaining the Victorian definition of a woman, Freud fails both at controlling and curing Dora.

Dora...resists the system, the one who cannot stand that the family and society are founded on the body of women, on bodies despised, rejected, bodies that are humiliating once they have been used...it is by questioning them (men), by ceaselessly reflecting to them the image that truly castrates them, to the extent that the power they have wished to impose is an illegitimate power of rape and violence, the hysteric is... the typical woman in all her force (285).

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Approximate Word count = 3040
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics