Psychology 320: Gender Psychology Lecture 20

Neoanalytic Theories of Gender Differences 1. What theories illustrate the neoanalytic, gynocentric view?

By the end of today’s class, you should be able to: 1. distinguish psychodynamic and gynocentric explanations of gender development. 2. review the principle concepts proposed by Karen Horney. 3. discuss Horney’s explanation for the development of personality differences between the sexes. 4. describe Mahler’s process of separation-individuation.

What theories illustrate the neoanalytic, gynocentric view? In contrast to psychodynamic theory, many neoanalytic theories adopt a gynocentric view of gender development. Two theories illustrate the neoanalytic, gynocentric view:

1. Karen Horney’s Theory of Gender Development Horney proposed the first gynocentric theory of gender development.

Karen Horney, 1885-1952

Horney’s theory was designed to explain the Horney’s theory was designed to explain the development of neurotic tendencies. In her theory, Horney proposed five primary concepts: the safety need, basic hostility, basic anxiety, neurotic needs, and neurotic personality types.

She suggested that females are more likely than She suggested that females are more likely than males to develop neurotic personality types because they are more likely to be devalued by their primary caretakers. Thus, Horney attributed gender differences between the sexes to cultural factors, not biological factors.

Other arguments put forth by Horney: Male dominance (i.e., devaluing of females, patriarchy) is the product of feelings of inferiority in relation to females. Competitiveness among males reflects efforts to compensate for feelings of inferiority in relation to females. “Penis envy” among females is symbolic of a desire for the power experienced by males.

“From the biological point of view, woman has in motherhood, or in the capacity for motherhood, a quite indisputable and by no means negligible superiority. This is most clearly reflected in the unconscious of the male psyche in the boy’s intense envy of motherhood. We are familiar with this envy as such, but it has hardly received due consideration as a dynamic factor. When one begins, as I did, to analyze men only after fairly long experience of analyzing women, one receives a most surprising impression of the intensity of this envy of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood.” (Horney, 1926/1973, p. 10)

Later in her career, Horney focused on gender Later in her career, Horney focused on gender neutrality rather than feminism: “We should stop bothering about what is feminine …. Standards of masculinity and femininity are artificial standards …. Differences between the two sexes certainly exist, but we shall never be able to discover what they are until we have first developed our potentialities as human beings.  Paradoxical as it may sound, we shall find out about these differences only if we forget about them. (Horney, 1935).

2. Nancy Chodorow’s Theory of Gender Development Chodorow’s theory emphasizes the early bond between mother and child. In her theory, Chodorow draws upon Mahler’s theory of separation-individuation.

Neoanalytic Theories of Gender Differences 1. What theories illustrate the neoanalytic, gynocentric view?