The Sexual Solipsism of Sigmund Freud

Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique and igniting spark of second-wave feminism, did not like Freud.

Friedan's bestselling book, The Feminine Mystique, has a chapter called "The Sexual Solipsism of Sigmund Freud," (based off ideas presented in Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex). The book itself is awesomely feminist, introducing the completely revolutionary idea that women are do not exist to be housewives. Moreover, she discusses the "problem that has no name," which was the widespread discontentment women had in the 50s and 60s. Back to her chapter on Freud, she argues that he saw women as immature, future housewives. She also argues against Freud's unsubstantiated (to say the least) idea of penis envy, stating that Freud created the concept as a means to call women with ambition neurotic, propagating a widespread "religion" that any form of female empowerment was none other than a psychological condition.