72
PARTISAN REVIEW
the case of an arti st, a tail or, o r a baker, or in the ca ring and educa ting
profession s of doctor and teacher (and pass ive ly li stening analyst),
nobody has deni gra ted him as feminine or even as " vaginal" as a
consequ ence.
In sum, psychoanalysis revea ls exampl es no t onl y o f female penis
envy, but also of male birth envy; moreover, we are increas ingl y
confronted with the fact tha t just as often as a woman wants to be a
man, so too the man also has th e un conscio us wi sh to be a woman.
This wi sh makes him enviou s o f the women who can be wha t is denied
lO
him.
It
is well kn own tha t envi ous people begrudge respect and
success to the people they envy. Opinions and modes of behavio r bo rn
of unconscious en vy are no t infrequentl y ra tionali zed , as when men
adopt current prejudices about women 's bodil y and intell ectua l inferi–
ority and use them as a justifi ca ti on fo r their own altitudes. The young
men of the leftist student subculture are no excepti on to thi s. The same
tendencies to disdain and degrade women occur among them as in all
other social groups: and thi s is remarkable onl y insofa r as the libera–
tion from antifeminist prejudices and the struggle aga inst
oppression-including tha t of women-a re pa rt of their avowed
political credo. Here,
LOO,
the causes can often be traced back to
repressed envy. These young men behave unreli abl y- and often coldl y
and cruell y-in their sexual rela ti onships, because their unconscio us
wi sh to be a desirable woman is unfulfill ed.
It
is often onl y poss ible for
them
lO
love themselves in young, altracti ve g irl s; and such rela tion–
ships can go well for onl y a short time. As soon as they recogni ze tha t
these women are independent human beings whose feelings, o pini ons,
or bodily shapes do not correspond exactl y to the picture of the
beautiful young girl they unconsciously wi sh to be themselves, they
lose interest. An exampl e: A student asks for psychoana lyti c trea tment
becau se h e suffers from sta tes of anxi ety and depress ion . He is a
member of a left-wing organi za ti on and lives in a community of several
men and women. He g ives hi s full support to those o f hi s female
comrades who work for the improvement o f the po litical and social
situation of women. Like them, he is very indi gnant when confronted
with typical social injusti ce and contempt towa rd women . But hi s own
personal relationships with women are more compli ca ted . H e is
incapabl e of having a uni on with a woman for any len gth of time,
however agreeabl e she may h ave seemed
LO
him a t th e beginning of
their relationship. Every time he breaks off a rela tionship, he is
without an y feelings for the cruelty o f hi s behav io r. The young
woman 's gri ef and mi sery leave him mo re or less cold. He a rgues that
