I watched one night in horror as Bay Buchanon, a conservative female pundit lambasted Hillary for being a 'cry baby' for suggesting that she was not benefitting from the same treatment from the media as her rival Barack Obama. She roasted her for what she characterized as "whining and complaining, something she has always done! It's classic Hillary!" I noted the vitriolic nature of her comments and thought to myself 'well you can disagree with Hillary but why hate and demoralize her this way.' Would John McCain or Barak Obama be accused of whining? Bay Buchanon is an articulate and educated woman in her own right. It got my analytic juices flowing. Why do women turn against a strong female leader just as some male counterparts?
Sigmund Freud wrote a paper, some may be familiar, "Female Sexuality." In it he explains how the female baby comes to turn away from the mother and pursue the father. In opposition to the male baby who never gives mother up and essentially competes with father to win mothers partnership: The Oedipal struggle. The first piece of this dynamic describes the phenomena of penis envy and the mothers lack of penis. The female child comes to notice this that reflects poorly on the mother. Mother is regarded as weak, inferior, perhaps even mutilated, grotesque. At the risk of being horribly reductionist, could this be part of the explanation for the abandonment of Hillary as a potential leader by women?
