Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/33

 MANIFESTATIONS OF THE FEMALE CASTRATION COMPLEX 25

exaggeration is comprehensible if we remember that that operation carried out in phantasy in early chUdhood makes the girl a 'cripple'.

VII

A tendency with which we are well acquainted and which has already been mentioned leads in the sphere of the female castration complex to modifications of the aversion, to conditional admission of that which is tabooed, and to compromise formations between impulse and repression.

In some of our patients we come across phantasies which refer to the possibility of a recognition of the man and to the formula- tion of conditions under which the patient, after their fulfilment, WQiJd be prepared to reconcile herself to her femininity. I mention first of all a condition I have met with many times; it runs: 'I could be content with my femininity if I were absolutely the most beautiful of all women'. All men would lie at the feet of the most beautiful woman, and the female narcissism would consider this power not a bad compensation for the defect so painfully perceived. It is in fact easier for a beautiful woman to assuage her castration complex than for an ugly one. However, the idea of being the most beautiful of all women does not have this effect in all cases. We are well-acquainted with the expression of a woman, 'I should Uke to be the most beautiful of all women so that all men would adore me; then I would show them the cold shoulder'. In this case the craving for revenge is quite clear; this remark was made by a woman of an extremely tyrannical nature which was based on a wholly unsublimated castration complex.

However, the majority of women are less blunt, they are inclined to compromise and to satisfy themselves with relatively harmless expressions of their repressed hostility. In this connection we can understand a characteristic trait in the conduct of many women. Let us keep in view the fact that sexual activity is essen- tially associated with the male organ, that the woman is only in the position to excite the man's libido or respond to it, and that otherwise she is compelled to adopt a waiting attitude. In a great number of women we find resistance against being a woman dis- placed to this necessity of waiting. In marriage these women take