psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

, phallic woman is a concept to describe a woman with the symbolic attributes of the

phallus A phallus (: phalli or phalluses) is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history, a figure with an erect penis is described as ''ithyphallic''. Any object that symbo ...

. More generally, it describes any woman possessing traditionally masculine characteristics.

Phallic mother

Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in t ...

considered that at the

phallic stage In Freudian psychoanalysis, the phallic stage is the third stage of psychosexual development, spanning the ages of three to six years, wherein the infant's libido (desire) centers upon their genitalia as the erogenous zone. When children become ...

of early childhood development, children of both sexes attribute possession of a penis to the mother—a belief the loss of which helps precipitate the

castration complex The castration complex is a concept developed by Sigmund Freud, first presented in 1908, initially as part of his theorisation of the transition in early childhood development from the polymorphous perversity of infantile sexuality to the ‘infan ...

. Thereafter males may seek

fetishistic A fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the attribution of inherent non-material value, or powers, to an object. Talismans and amulets ...

substitutes in women for the lost penis in the form of high heels, earrings or long hair to alleviate the castrative threat—terrifying phallic women such as witches (with their broomsticks) representing the failure of such substitutes to cover the underlying anxiety. The female, whose love (in Freud's view) was originally "directed to her ''phallic'' mother", may thereafter either turn to her father for love, or may return to an identification with the original phallic mother in a neurotic development. The phallic mother ''can'' be (though need not necessarily be) an actively castrative figure, stifling her children by pre-empting all room for autonomous action. Elements of the phallic mother concept may persist in men through the misconception of one's mother as castrated rather than ''naturally'' non-phallic, which the gives rise to

castration anxiety Castration anxiety is an overwhelming fear of damage to, or loss of, the penis—a derivative of Sigmund Freud's theory of the castration complex, one of his earliest psychoanalytic theories. The term can refer to the fear of emasculation in ...

in oneself, embodied in turn by the castrating mother and

vagina dentata ''Vagina dentata'' (Latin for 'toothed vagina') is a folk tale tradition in which a vagina is said to contain teeth, with the associated implication that sexual intercourse might result in injury, emasculation, or castration. The topic of ''vagin ...

Phallus girl

Rather than seeking or identifying with the phallic mother,

libido In psychology, libido (; ) is psychic drive or energy, usually conceived of as sexual in nature, but sometimes conceived of as including other forms of desire. The term ''libido'' was originally developed by Sigmund Freud, the pioneering origin ...

may instead be directed at the figure that has been termed the phallus girl. For the male, the phallus girl may be represented by a younger (perhaps boyish) girl, in whom he can find an image of his own adolescent self. For the female, such a position may either entail a submissive merger with the male partner (identification with a body-part), or an exhibitionist display of the self as phallus: as Ella Sharpe put it of a dancer, "she was the magical phallus. The dancing was in her".

Soft porn Softcore pornography or softcore porn is commercial still photography, film, imagery, or even audio that has a pornographic or erotic component but is less sexually graphic or intrusive than hardcore pornography, defined by a lack of sexual p ...

marks out the phallus girl through such symbols as whips, bikes and guns; while she also underpins the action heroine such as Ripley or

Lara Croft Lara Croft is a character and the main protagonist of the video game franchise ''Tomb Raider''. She is presented as a highly intelligent and athletic British adventurer and archaeologist who ventures into ancient tombs and hazardous ruins arou ...

Later developments

The twenty-first century

ladette Lad culture (also the new lad, laddism) was a media-driven, principally British and Irish subculture of the 1990s and the early 2000s. The term ''lad culture'' continues to be used today to refer to collective, boorish or misogynistic behaviour by ...

can be seen as a phallic girl—her emphasis on light-hearted, recreational sex serving as a passport to being 'one of the boys'.

Artistic analogues

Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

in the interwar years produced many paintings of women with phallic attributes. *

Buffy the Vampire Slayer ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' is an American supernatural fiction, supernatural drama television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon. The concept is based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film), 1992 film, also written by Whedon, a ...

demonstrates an ambivalent relationship to her phallic power as slayer/staker.

References

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External links

Phallic woman
Freudian psychology Human penis Psychoanalytic theory Women and psychology