Some Thoughts on Phallocentric Bias

This essay reflects an ‘in between’ stage in my analysis. Reduced defences leave me feeling acutely oppressed by even the most subtle expressions of sexism, while I have yet to establish that immediate appreciation of unconscious factors which will make me less vulnerable. One reason for writing about it now, therefore, is to clarify exactly what I do feel in order to identify the best way of moving on. Another is that if I wait until I am better qualified, not only will I not need to write about it in quite the same way, but it might be difficult to reach back across an internal change to describe an emotional state that is no longer experienced.

I can see now that what started out as a protest ends up by chronicling the beginning of just such an internal shift, spread over two weeks. For this reason I have resisted the temptation to clean up some of the embarrassingly facetious bits or rewrite ingenuous passages with the benefit of hindsight. It is important to me to be able to look back on what I really felt at the time, not an expurgated version of it. This is not to say, however, that I have passed up the opportunity - thoughtfully provided by the editor at a later date - to excise some theorising of almost breathtaking banality to anyone except me.

Another good reason for writing this now or never is that I have been given limited access to that Aladdin's cave the Tavistock library, and the deadline for the return of the relevant books is nearly upon me. There is no breast so passionately seized as the one about to disappear.

Most of my life has passed in the country, being physically active while brain and emotionally dead. Then one fine September day I dropped by happy accident into the lap (metaphorical, alas) of my therapist, and nothing was ever the same again.

At that time I did not know psychotherapy existed and thought he was just a kind, unbelievably understanding friend of a friend. In the event, he turned out to be a nonsexist analyst - a rare co