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Female homosexuality has been a subject for study by many authors who have demonstrated the multiplicity of factors that enter into its development. The meaning of homosexuality in a woman has varied with different historical periods and in different cultures. Cultural patterns very easily affect the ease with which homosexuality may be adopted to solve internal conflicts. In Western civilization affectionate relationships between girls are condoned much more readily than between boys. Within our own society, different segments will exercise a greater or lesser degree of prohibition on such behavior. Society's permissive attitude toward girls allows for homosexual manifestations; therefore they need not exercise the same repression as do boys. Furthermore, mothers and daughters may express their affection more freely than may fathers and sons. It is considered poor taste, or not masculine for a father and his son to kiss—they must have the firm, masculine handshake.
Male authors are busy decrying our mothers but neglect the ineffectuality of fathers in the homes of so-called dangerous “moms.” These sadly abused mothers who are now being heaped with venemous vituperations for their castrating effect on boys may also prolong the infantile, dependent attitude of their little girls. In any study of the homosexual problem, it is difficult to apportion responsibility to only one parent. The individual is always a figure in a constellation of forces all of which interreact.
It is the effect of these forces within the psyche of an individual that can be observed, and from which general theoretical formulations may be obtained. On a ward for the psychiatric observation of adolescents, girls are seen in whom grossly pathological environmental factors are instrumental in the causation of homosexuality. A correlation of the defects in the child's environment with unconscious dynamic pathology will be the goal of this study.
Freud's paper on the development of female homosexuality