ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to psychoanalytic theories of masculinity. Although Freud’s ideas on the development of masculinity can be criticized in many respects, they cannot be disregarded, as he managed to bring attention to crucial processes in the formation of this identity, in particular his theories concerning the processes of identification in boys as a way to understand gender development. This chapter offers, among other things, a criticism to Freud’s neglect of the mother’s significance as an object of identification for the boy. Furthermore, a discussion is presented of contemporary psychoanalytic ideas on understanding the masculine gender, which is founded on a host of complicated identification processes as well as identity-forming processes, such as meanings ascribed to gender features and cultural norms and values transmitted by the parents and the society. If both Freud and contemporary psychoanalytic gender theorists emphasize the difference between boy and mother, then the question should be asked: what is the significance of this difference? Nowadays, this difference is considered to constitute a painful experience and forms the basis for the boy’s or man’s compensatory and narcissistic phallic strivings and ideals, which is an approach quite alien to Freud’s way of thinking.
