Cross-cultural perspectives on penis envy

From the outset, Freud's notion of penis envy stirred controversy within and outside the psychoanalytic movement (Fliegel 1973; Moulton 1975). charges leveled at the theory ranged from biological improbability to lack of clinical support, but the most compelling challenge has always been Clara Thompson's formulation that what women really envy is not male anatomy but male status and power, for which the penis is a convenient symbol (1941, 1942, 1943, 1950). But despite the inherent plausibility of Thompson's argument, empirical evidence has never been adduced to confirm it. This paper reports a cross-cultural investigation that lends support to Thompson's view. In this study, the extent of penis envy imagery in the dreams of women from 20 cultures was correlated with a measure of female status in those cultures; an inverse relationship was found demonstrating that the higher social position of these women, the less they manifested penis envy fantasies in their dreams. For the men from these cultures, penis envy fantasies varied not with the status of women but with the visibility of sex differences, suggesting that penis envy may have a different and more literal meaning for men than for women. The clinical and social implications of these findings are discussed.