Sigmund Freud Essays -- Papers

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud was the first of six children to be born into his middle class, Jewish family. His father was a wool merchant, and was the provider for the family. From the time Freud was a child, he pondered theories in math, science, and philosophy, but in his teens, he took a deep interest in what he later called psychoanalysis. He wanted to discover how a person's mind works, so he began to explore the conscious and unconscious parts of one's psyche. Freud's parents and siblings were directly involved in allowing him to pursue this unexplored area of psychology. He was given his own room so that he could study his books in silence, and was only disturbed when it was time to eat. Freud eventually married Martha Bernays. She was cooperative and completely subservient to her husband. She was simply filling a role that the society during that time insisted was proper for all women. Freud himself derived his attitudes toward women and his beliefs about the roles of individual sexes from personal experiences in the strict culture of the time. In the middle to late eighteen hundreds, Central European society distinguished clearly between the roles of men and women. Cultural norms dictated that men be responsible for work outside of the home, and the financial well being of the family, while the women's responsibilities were in the home and with the children. With these specific gender roles came the assumption of male dominance and female submission. Females were pictured as serene, calm, creatures that were lucky to have the love and protection of their superior husbands. It is in this form of the family where most children first learn the meaning and practice of hierarchical, authoritarian rule. Here is where they l... ...pabilities as humans. This narrow-minded nature only succeeded in making women more and more determined to prove their "worth" to members of the opposite sex. Although Freud was leading the pack of male chauvinists in the late nineteenth century he has since been overpowered by females that are no longer afraid to say what they feel or act on their impulses. Bibliography: BIBLIOGRAPHY Bell Hooks; Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. c.1984 by bell hooks; South End Press 2) Freud, Sigmund; "Femininity" from Juanita H. Williams, ed. Psychology of Women. NY: W.W. Norton, 1979 3) Hunter College Women's Studies Collective; Women's Realities, Women's Choices NY: Oxford University Press, 1983 4) Smithsonian World; Gender: The Enduring Paradox NYC: UNAPIX Entertainment Inc., 1996 5) Williams, Juanita H.; Psychology of Women NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987