Sigmund Freud and Karen Horney

Sigmund Freud and Karen Horney
“You are yourselves the problem,” a quote by Sigmund Freud represented his idea on femininity. However his opinions on the issue were challenged by many. Karen Horney a student of his was one of these people that supported the opposite view about the same subject. Freud’s ideas maintained the notion that women are inferior to men, and that they were at a disadvantage because of their biological structure, suffering from “penis-envy”. This suggestion alleged women of being jealous of men because of their penis, causing them to blame their mother’s for not having one, overall creating a disruptive relationship between mothers and daughters. All of Freud’s ideas worked around his main point of view; women desired to be like men, that they were envious of them, and he refused to recognize external factors as a reason for this envy. Karen Horney confronted these views, by suggesting that this may be very well true, but not because we wished to...