Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

Curtiss Ewing

Publication Date

1-12-1975

Abstract

Three issues growing out of the Freudian paradigm repeatedly have been raised in connection with the history of the female sex role: (1) Freud's neglect of the existence of the mother goddesses, (2) his downplaying of the cultural stage of the matriarchy, and (3) the effect of these two issues on the potential for a good outcome in psycho-analytic therapy for women. The dissertation takes up the three issues through a comparison of two works that draw upon much of the same anthropological data: Freud's Totem and Taboo and Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. The method of comparison is the use of dialectical materialism as an analytic tool as well as a conceptualization of women's history and role which is in opposition to the Freudian theory. The methodology of dialectical materialism involves the exposure of contradictions in the opponent's argument as well as the posing of a contradictory position on the issues. It was found that Freud was the heir to Ludwig Feuerbach in his theory of religion -- that he adopted the view that the gods are projections of human feelings. Further, although the anthropological data supporting the idea of an historically matriarchal stage was covered in his reading, Freud chose from the material of the evolutionary anthropologists only items which negated this idea. Freud's view of the human psyche involved the Social Darwinist position, and since he ignored the species history of women, he did not expect to find business acumen or political talent among women in the therapeutic milieu. It was seen that the philosophical and epistemological position taken by Freud places him in the ranks of the agnostics and idealists such as Kant and Schopenhauer, and that this -- in part -- accounts for his findings pertaining to women. Engels, on the other hand, fitted the findings and theories of the evolutionary anthropologists into the Marxist theory of social change which views social evolution in terms of cultural stages. For Engels, the oppression of women may be accounted for by the historical development of the capitalist system which developed in stages from the democratic matriarchal gens into the patriarchal state and finally into feudalism and capitalism. The matriarchy was a politically democratic society until the advent of the first surplus which fell into men's hands as the natural result of the division of labor. Remnants of previous stages still exist in the modern middle class family through the pattern of polygamy of men and the serfdom of women. In the middle class family, the husband is the bourgeois and the wife the proletarian, thus leading to the conclusion that consciousness for middle class women means the growing awareness of their lack of actual middle class status and their more proper alliance with the working class. The differences as to women's role between the two theorists are accounted for on the basis of the sociology of knowledge: that both Freud and Engels were members of the petty bourgeoisie but that the fate of that class in Engels' Germany and Freud's Austria was historically different, that Freud became the spokesman for the late imperialist stage of capitalism during which there was a need for a theoretical justification for the oppression of non-whites and women, that Engels' origin in the radicalized middle class in Germany and his tenure as an industrialist in Manchester exposed him to the proletarianization of the population and hence to the social history that led to that process.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Educational Leadership

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy

First Committee Member (Chair)

David Lawrence Bachelor

Second Committee Member

Louis Andrew Rosasco

Third Committee Member

Joseph J. Fashing

Fourth Committee Member

Vera Polgar John-Steiner

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