M. MITSCHERLICH-NIELSEN
71
relations a t all. For Helene Deutsch , as for Freud, masochism was a
specificall y female a ttribute tha t helped women to have ecstati c experi –
ences; h ence Deutsch described the act of giving birth as the greatest
masochisti c ecstasy, the climax o f a woman 's life. For thi s, women
would gladl y sacrifi ce an y chance of creativity. Femini sts have reacted
strongly aga inst thi s account of a woman 's supreme bliss.
In
Th e N ew
Chastity,
Midge Decter reports that femini sts now no longer struggle
onl y for the same rights as men but expect society
to
bring about
libera ti on from the burden of child-bearin g itself and the social
restricti on s connected with it. Since Aristo tl e men have regarded
women as imperfect bein gs- or as incompl ete men , as Thomas Aqui–
nas maintained .
It
is, I think, possibl e to detect in such negative
judgments a male defense aga in st feelings of deficiency: for example,
against an unconscious birth en vy. And it often seems tha t women
today are depriving themselves of precisely those opportunities for
sati sfacti on and self-rea li za tion for whi ch men uncon sciously envy
them. One asks oneself, therefore, whether some femini sts, in their
attack on mo therhood and giving birth, have no t made an unconscious
identifi ca tion with th e envi ous aggressor.
There is no doubt tha t it is valuable to get to know oneself and
one's feelings better. Man y young women , however, now devote
themselves to forms of p seudo-emancipa tion tha t threa ten to come to a
dead end in na rcissisti c stri ving fo r a life o f " their own ," for a form of
"self-rea li za ti on " based u pon mi sunderstanding . They often fall into a
kind of anti -maternal a ttitude, if no t rejection o f all loving partner–
ships. Wha t was fo rmerl y an uncritical adoption of male judgments,
combined in man y cases with a tendency of wives to mother their
husbands, has in th ese youn g women turned into a narciss isti c impa–
tience with regard to the male partn er's weakness, whether great or
small. Onl y fantasy, no t a real rela ti on to the man , seems to promise
sati sfaction.
In
genera l, these fantas ies a re concerned either with pure
sex with masculine super-po tency, or with a longing for a partner who
represents their own idea l self or an admiring, protecti ve parent figure.
Male feti shi sti c needs, in whi ch women serve onl y to compensate for
male narcissisti c deficiencies, are all too obviously adopted whol esale
by these young women themselves in their female self-realiza tion. Not
onl y unenli ghtened males but some psychoanalysts as well have
declared tha t women a re unable to be crea ti ve or
to
achi eve anything
significant in matters of intell ect, in politics or the p rofessions, or that
they have rejected such endeavors as forms of "phallic" beh avior.
In
contrast, when a man has sublima ted hi s mo ther-identifi ca ti on , as in
