A Sense of Inferiority As A Neurotic Defense in Women*

Freud,2 in 1925, described the origin of a feeling of inferiority in women. He wrote, “The psychical consequences of penis envy, insofar as it does not become absorbed in the reaction formation of the masculinity complex, are various and far reaching. After the woman has become aware of the wound to her narcissism, she develops, like a scar, a sense of inferiority.” The present paper contains some observations on the effects of this feeling in certain women. These patients depreciated themselves, complained of something missing in their personalities and of lacking the ability to think and understand as well as other people. Their chief complaint was of intellectual inadequacy.

Freud4 described, in addition, the development of this sense of inferiority:

The castration-complex in the girl, as well, is started by the sight of the genital organs of the other sex. She immediately notices the difference, and—it must be admitted—its significance. She feels herself at a great disadvantage, and often declares that she would ‘like to have something like that too,’ and falls a victim to penis-envy, which leaves ineradicable traces on her development and character-formation….

When the universality of this negative character of her sex dawns upon her, womanhood, and with it also her mother, suffers a heavy loss of credit in her eyes.†