Psychoanalysis shows us that the little girl very often can develop fantasies of an extremely odd kind at this juncture. In some children, for example, the idea that they can somehow magically grow a penis and turn into a boy is too often quite conscious. But even if such ideas do not become conscious, the yearning of the little girl to become a boy to win her father's esteem can remain as part of the total equipment of her unconscious mind. Later, although hidden and disguised, this wish can be at the root of much of her sexual problems with men, causing her to be neurotically competitive with them and to reject her own female role as unworthy.
We saw that the girl in puberty and in adolescence had a formidable task to achieve. She must learn to accept and to love the "dangerous" role of the woman—she must, in effect, be willing to reverse the natural law of self-preservation and put childbirth and the welfare of the child ahead of her own needs and safety.
If she is not encouraged to believe that the feminine role is a worthy one, if she is taught that the male role is superior, then she will be highly motivated to reject her femininity and, almost literally, try to be a boy. It is frequently exactly this that occurs when a woman's fear and rejection of femininity result in an inability to respond vaginally in sexual intercourse. In a curious and of course unconscious manner she may hold onto the sensual responses of her clitoris as if she had a small penis, but feel unable to allow the sensual feelings to be experienced within the vagina.
The young girl may be influenced to reject her feminine role by the mother as well as by the father. If the mother herself has a strong resentment of her own femininity and, like so many women, has been reared to feel that the role of wife and mother is a degraded and worthless one, she can pass this attitude on to her daughter without speaking a word.
