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The Electra complex is a psychiatric concept which attempts to explain the maturation of the human female. The concept is largely based on the work of Sigmund Freud.

Contents 1 Origin 2 Electra Complex In Popular Culture 3 References 4 See also

Freud's research on female psychology, sexuality in particular, was limited by social conventions of gender and class; women were considered the 'second-sex' and many of his female patients were labeled "degenerates".^[1] The Electra complex was created as the female counterpart to the Oedipus complex in males. Its name comes from the Greek myth of Electra, who wanted her brother to avenge their father Agamemnon's death by killing their mother Clytemnestra.

Carl Jung proposed the name Electra complex for Sigmund Freud's concept of the "feminine Oedipus attitude" in young girls.^[2] According to Sigmund Freud, the girl is originally attached to the mother as well; however, when she discovers that she lacks a penis during the phallic stage the daughter becomes libidinally attached to her father and imagines that she will become pregnant by him, while becoming more hostile towards her mother. This is due mostly to the idea of "penis envy" - that the girl is envious of her father's penis. She believes that the pregnancy would replace the missing penis which she envies and would allow her to gain equal status with the father.

According to this theory, a young girl's penis envy leads to resentment towards her mother, whom the girl believes caused her "castration." Some psychologists claim the male psyche is the dominant entity in human relations. This has been refuted by recent studies, as women have less castration anxiety than men and are able to deal with their frustration more openly because of societal conventions.[1]

The belief that women are psychologically subordinate may be due in part to the phallocentric belief that females have a weaker superego, where theorectically morality is developed and values internalized. This judicial component of human personality is developed during the phallic stage. A dominant view of the male psyche may also be rooted in the habits of a phallocentric social system, such as those descended from patriarchal cultures and family systems. In later life, so the theory goes, the girl will grow into the character type that her mother has developed as a means to attracting a man similar to her father.

Furthermore, if there is a "perversion" in the development of females or if their aggression is somehow stifled, resentment can in turn be displaced towards the dominant male (the father) or patriarchal cultures in general. Some say this explains lesbianism and feminism (though this is far from universally accepted, as it unsupportedly assumes that women loving and/or supporting equality for other women requires an animosity toward men and an inherent perversity in their nature).

• In the popular television crime drama CSI: Las Vegas, the episode Got Murder? features a mother who abandons her husband and children and turns up dead. The daughter has an Electra complex involving her father and killed her own mother when she caught the mother sleeping with father.
• The Electra complex is also mentioned in the movie "Mona Lisa Smile".
• The poet Sylvia Plath may have exhibited an Electra complex.^{[citation needed]}
• The movie Wicked with Julia Stiles, is based around a girl who kills her mother and eventually attempts to seduce her father, while maintaining homicidal tendencies to all the other women who sleep with him.

1. ^ Brom, Suzanne. Freud, the Feminist?. Duquesne University. Retrieved on March 16, 2007.
2. ^ Jung, Carl (1970). Psychoanalysis and Neurosis. Princeton University Press. 

• Breuer, J & Freud, S. Studies on Hysteria. (1909). Basic Books.
• DeBeauvoir, S. (1952). The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books.
• Freud, S. (1905). Dora: Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. New York: WW Norton & Company.
• Freud, S. (1920). “A Case of Homosexuality in a Woman”. The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. New York: Hogarth Press.
• Lauzen, G. (1965). Sigmund Freud: The Man and his Theories. New York: Paul S. Eriksson, Inc.
• Lerman, H. (1986). A Mote in Freud’s Eye. New York: Springer Publishing Company.
• Mitchell, J. (1974). Psychoanalysis and Feminism. New York: Vintage Books.
• Tobin, B. (1988). "Reverse Oedipal Complex" Analysis. New York: Random House Publishing Company..

• Oedipus complex
• Psychoanalysis
• Electra
• Genetic sexual attraction
• feminism and the oedipus complex