One can easily understand the socioeconomic reasons for the subjugation of women in the past and explain their current rebellion in terms of technological development. There is, however, an important aspect of the male-female relationship which defies such an interpretation, namely, the mother-whore complex, that is, the idealization and debasement of women by men.
The reasons for this ambivalent attitude go beyond the economic exigency.
All men, whether they like it or not, were carried and fed by women through the periods of conception, pregnancy, birth, infancy, and many years thereafter. Not all men resent this fact, and what will be said below concerning the mother-whore complex is not a generalization.
To every human being, male and female alike, the mother is the prototype of a friendly power. The mother is the main if not the only source of life and bulwark of survival. The adoration of the mother is ontogenetically typical in all infants and phylogenetically typical in periods of oppression and despair. The adoration of the Holy Mother is a case in point.
One seeks support of a friendly power as long as one feels weak and expects to receive unconditional support, but such an ideal relationship may not last long. Infants “love” the “good” mother who unconditionally satisfies their wishes, but they hate the same mother when she refuses to meet their demands. Ambivalent feelings toward powerful protectors are an inevitable product of dependence, and they often carry the seeds of a rebellion against weakness and dependency. Welfare recipients do not waste love on their benefactors, and poor relatives often resent their wealthy supporters.
The ambivalent feeling toward the mother is shared by little boys and little girls, and this attitude has been perpetuated throughout generations taking on various forms and shapes. Rarely if ever can a woman resolve completely her antimother feelings. In Freud’s times, it was acceptable for young women to direct hatred toward their mothers-in-law. Freud interpreted this phenomenon as a residue of the castration complex; be it, as he wrote, the symbolic loss of a penis representing a loss of power and of the privileged male status.
Boys’ ambivalent feelings toward their mother often have been channeled into the “mother-whore” complex. Even most cowardly and ineffectual men can play the role of a strong man and discharge brute force toward someone weaker than themselves. Women were the choice target, and male-controlled public opinion has been and perhaps still is in favor of “masculine assertion” towards women and children (Wolman).
The possession of a penis has given the men an additional tool for the humiliation of women and for self-aggrandizement. The sexual act as such is neither beautiful nor ugly and, like almost everything else in human life, it can be performed in either lofty or base manner. However, the allegedly aggressive and domineering sexual insertion was often represented as a way of debasing women.
Discrimination against women follows the same rationale as any other discriminatory behavior. All those who discriminate, abuse their power against some people, and they usually choose their targets carefully. The history of humanity, with its conflicts, clashes, international wars, and fratricidal murders, shows that people discriminate against and persecute only those who cannot defend themselves. In the time of the Crusades, Christian nations fought Moslem nations, and the Crusaders, on their way to the Holy Land, persecuted the Jews. The Turks had a great many wars with other nations, but they discriminated against the Greeks and Armenians. Persecution is a particular type of hostility related not to competition and fighting among equals, but related to the desire to destroy those who can be destroyed easily. There was never persecution of majority groups, of powerful individuals, or of strong political organizations. The persecution was always directed against those who could be easily and safely persecuted. In the United States not the WASPS but the Blacks were persecuted. In Europe not the Protestants but the Jews were persecuted.
The fact that somebody is powerful does not protect him or her against hostility. People can love and hate each other; nationalities and organizations can fight one another. But persecution always has been directed toward those who cannot fight back. Defenseless victims, scapegoats, and innocent bystanders are easy targets for discrimination and persecution.
Whoever intends to deal realistically with discrimination against women must be aware that in most instances those who discriminate try to overcome their inferiority feelings not by fighting their equals but by an unfair use of power against those who cannot defend themselves. There is another issue which is no less important and certainly more realistic: defenseless people invite persecution. Weakness invites discrimination, and those who cannot defend themselves are easy targets for prejudiced people and oppressors. The increasing rate of crime against children in our times is perhaps one of the signs of our Zeitgeist, when so many people suffer from feelings of inadequacy and lack of purpose; they act out their phony superiority feelings against innocent children. A great many children have been beaten and tortured by irresponsible, drunken, and drug-addicted individuals, many of them parents of the victims. The abuse of children is largely determined by the fact that they cannot defend themselves.
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