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We are in the midst of a revival of interest, questions, and attacks on Freud's statements, formulations, epigrams, and questions about the psyche of women. He has been the particular target of feminists and of some male analysts, like Robinson, who, in The Freudian Left, refers to “Freud's misogyny.” As is well known, Freud's interpretation of the nature of women formed one basis for dissidence and separation from orthodox Freudianism, as typified by the secession of Karen Horney — granted that many women analysts remained in the fold and, indeed, by the late '60's contributed to a radical change in concepts about female psycho-sexuality and physiologic sexuality.
In a recent study, “Psychoanalysis and the Role of Women,” I noted some paradoxes between Freud's formal statements of position and his actual behavior concerning women — and promised myself further exploration. On the one hand there appears to be a demeaning of women in his professional statements, while on the other hand he manifested deep and genuine respect and love in informal statements, letters, and behavior toward a range of woman-kind from family to students and colleagues. To the talented women analysts associated with him, he was most generous in opening professional opportunities; to some of his women colleagues he turned for solace in illness and discouragement. It was a woman's devotion to him that culminated in the life-saving aid given him and Anna (by Marie Bonaparte) in fleeing the peril of the Nazis. Such apparent paradoxes call for a re-thinking of Freud and his relationship to the world of women.