Penis envy (German: Penisneid) is a stage theorized by Sigmund Freud regarding female psychosexual development, in which female adolescents experience anxiety upon realization that they do not have a penis. Freud considered this realization a defining moment in a series of transitions toward a mature female sexuality and gender identity. In Freudian theory, the penis envy stage begins the transition from an attachment to the mother to competition with the mother for the attention, recognition and affection of the father. The parallel reaction of a boy's realization that women do not have a penis is castration anxiety.

Feminists argue that Freud's developmental theory is heteronormative and denies women a mature sexuality independent of men and for privileging the vagina over the clitoris as the center of women's sexuality. Freud's sociosexual theory has additionally come under criticism from feminists for privileging heterosexual sexual activity and penile penetration in defining women's "mature state of sexuality". Counter-critics have responded that feminists misunderstand penis envy, which was not intended by Freud to refer literally to the envy of the male physical penis but to be understood as an abstract, evolving force in psychosexual development. Penis envy is theorized as a discrete event and reoccurring force in psychosexual development, not as "envy of the penis," but is sometimes used inexactly in contemporary culture to refer to women who are presumed to wish they were men.

She disagreed with Freud about inherent differences in the psychology of men and women, and she traced such differences to society and culture rather than biology. As such, she is often classified as Neo-Freudian. (..) Horney's mother died in 1911, an event which put much strain on the young Karen. Her marriage with Oscar proved consistent with the optional Freudian theory; he was just as authoritarian and strict with his children as Karen's own father was with his. During these years, Karen was receptive to having her children raised in this atmosphere; it was only later, during the 1920s, that her attitude towards rearing children changed. (w-kh)

Karen Horney (1885–1952) proposed that men experience womb envy more powerfully than women experience penis envy, because "men need to disparage women more than women need to disparage men." As a psychoanalyst, Horney considered womb envy a cultural, psychosocial tendency, like the concept of penis envy, rather than an innate male psychological trait.

Furthermore, in Eve's Seed: Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History (.CA, .UK, .FR, .DE, .IT, .ES, w), historian Robert S. McElvaine extended Horney’s argument that womb envy is a powerful, elementary factor in the psychological insecurity suffered by many men. He coined the term non-menstrual syndrome (NMS), denoting a man's insecurity before the biologic and reproductive powers of woman; thus, womb envy impels men to define their identities in opposition to women. Hence, men who are envious of women's reproductive power insist that a "real man" must be "not-a-woman", thus they seek to socially dominate women — what they may or may not do in life — as psychological compensation for what men cannot do biologically. (w-wve)

(..) believed that the male bias in psychoanalysis actually reinforced and reproduced the devaluation of women. She changed her focus from the Freudian infantile origins of personality formation, distanced herself from Freud's belief that “anatomy is destiny” to develop a psychoanalytic system in which society and conflicting human relationships replaced biology as the main causes of neurosis (emotional disorder), and wherein social and cultural factors were considered the bases of gender identity and women's issues. (1) Horney rejected the concept of “penis envy” as both flawed and derogatory to women, and suggested a female view on girls’ sexual development and disturbances in the relations between women and men. She argued that lack of penis did not make women deficient, but in fact it was the other way around: men’s inability to bear children and women’s power of motherhood deeply troubled them, causing them dread, resentment and an anxiety that she called “womb envy.”

Karen Horney‘s theories of psychoanalytic feminism established the foundation of our current understandings of gender.  Contrary to Freud’s view that no major development occurs after the age of five, she believed in individuals’ ability to develop throughout their lives. She argued that penis envy and its concurrent envy of men in some women was a reaction to the manner in which girls were brought up by their parents. (ir-cogen)

What they fail to understand is that “life begins at conception” is a misogynist statement. It’s the erasure of a woman’s role in making new people, and a claim that the only effort that counts is the effort a man put into ejaculating.  Abortion is horrifying because it’s a reminder that men do not actually make babies, but that women do through a 9 month process, and that if a woman chooses to interrupt that process, there will not be a baby.  Which is pretty conclusive proof that men don’t make babies.  Which directly contradicts the misogynist belief that only men are capable of really doing jobs worth doing.

What Marcotte is describing here [pand-mrctt] is the phenomenon that psychoanalyst Karen Horney (1885-1952) called “womb envy.” Basically, boys and men are jealous of women because women have the ability to go through pregnancy and nursing. Women can find fulfillment from creating new life and from enhancing their own lives through work outside the home. Since men can’t give birth, they can only turn to the outside world for personal fulfillment. She believed that the womb envy that is experienced by males is the source of denying women equal rights, blaming women for the perceived downfall of society, and demonizing women’s sexuality. Whatever your feelings about pregnancy, I think Horney makes a clearly pro-choice, pro-woman point. “Life begins at conception” is a way for anti-choice men to claim a piece of the womb they secretly covet by claiming sole responsibility for the creation of the next generation. I think Marcotte applies the concept of womb envy beautifully in the passage I quoted, even if she didn’t mean to.