ABSTRACT
It was in the wake of the mass feminist struggles for women’s suffrage that
the first significant controversy over female sexuality broke out within the
psychoanalytic movement. The egalitarian demands of the suffragists
formed a backdrop for the entire debate. Between 1919 and 1935 at least
nineteen prominent analysts wrote papers on the topic, arguing vigorously
with each other and with Freud. This debate, which centred on Freud’s
theory of female penis envy, set the agenda for discussions of sexual
identity for the rest of the century.
