“Do Not Let the Boys Win”

This was from the Triennial Exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria which was exceptionally PC with this being even more exceptionally offensive. This is modern feminism in a single meme. And on the same day we had visited the exhibition, I happened to be reading a collection of essays by Sigmund Freud and this one in particular: Some Character-Types Met with in Psycho-Analytic Work which had been published in 1916. And there I came upon this para (which interestingly is not available on the web so far as I can tell):

As we learn from psycho-analytic work, women regard themselves as wronged from infancy, as undeservedly cut short and set back; and the embitterment of so many daughters against their mothers derives, in the last analysis, from the reproach against her of having brought them into the world as women instead of as men. (Freud 1916: 162)

The passage was found in a discussion on why some forms of therapy can never bring about change because the subject is so filled with such deep set anger and resentment that nothing can persuade them to move on and get on with life. That was in 1916. What would he think today, you have to wonder.

This, by the way, was the book in which that passage was found. I could not find that passage anywhere on the net using google as the search engine.

Freud, Sigmund. 1916. “Some Character-Types Met with in Psycho-analytic Work.” In Freud, Sigmund. 1963. Character and Culture: Psychoanalysis Applied to Anthropology, Mythology, Folklore, Literature, and Culture in General. With an Introduction by Philip Rieff. New York: Collier Books.

3 thoughts on ““Do Not Let the Boys Win”

  1. Pingback: “Do Not Let the Boys Win” - The Rabbit Hole

  2. If the rest of the exhibit is as artistically disppointing as this work, it’s hardly worth viewing or discussing. I appreciate the quote from Freud, which I’d not previously seen; however, in considering anything he said about women, it’s helpful to recall that he believed men acquire morality through fear of castration. As women cannot be castrated, it is thus impossible for them to be other than amoral and uncivilized. While elements of the quotation may (or may not) apply to this particular artist, I categorically deny that it applies to all women.

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