Gynophobia

 ( Women In Society ) 

Gynophobia or gynephobia (/ˌɡaɪnəˈfoʊbiə/) is a morbid and phobia of women, a type of specific social phobia. It is found in ancient mythology as well as modern cases. A small number of researchers and authors have attempted to pin down possible causes of gynophobia.

Gynophobia should not generally be confused with misogyny, the hatred, contempt for and prejudice against women, Article title although some may use the terms interchangeably, in reference to the social, rather than pathological aspect of negative attitudes towards women.Susan Gaylard, Hollow Men: Writing, Objects, and Public Image in Renaissance Italy, p. 86 The antonym of misogyny is philogyny, the love, respect for and admiration of women.

Gynophobia is analogous with androphobia, the extreme and/or irrational fear of men. A subset of it is caligynephobia, or the fear of beautiful women.

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Etymology The term gynophobia comes from the Greek language γυνή – gunē, meaning "woman" γυνή, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus and φόβος – phobos, "fear". φόβος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus The Oxford English Dictionary cites the term's earliest known use as an 1886 writing by physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Hyponyms of the term "gynophobia" include feminophobia.The Shattered Mirror: Representations of Women in Mexican Literature, María Elena de Valdés, 2010, p 74 Rare or archaic terms include the Latin language horror feminae.Raymond Joseph Corsini (1999) "The Dictionary of Psychology", , p. 452

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Examples In his book Sadism and Masochism: The Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty, Wilhelm Stekel discusses horror feminae of a male Sadomasochism.

Callitxe Nzamwita, an elderly man who reported a fear of women that had persisted for more than half a century of his life, was interviewed by Afrimax in 2023. He barricaded his house to avoid interactions with women, largely remaining inside for 55 years. He was consequently cited as a possible case of gynophobia by several international media outlets, though he was never formally diagnosed.

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Mythology In ancient mythology, the idea of woman as a, "mysterious, magical body-vessel", or "intimidating Great Goddess" is common. In these myths, woman (sometimes also depicted as a Great World Tree, pomegranate, poppyhead, or mountain) bears all living things, and empties them out of herself into the living world. In the "vessel" analogy, the inside of the vessel is unknown, and all body orifices are special zones, each regarded as idols by artistic representation. The historical permanence of woman as body-vessel, is sometimes artistically depicted to elicit fear. For example, Albert Dubout depicted the Great Goddess as eliciting fear from a short man simply by displaying her large breasts and noting that her breasts survived World War II.

(1968). 9780156304191, Grune & Stratton. . ISBN 9780156304191

In India, the goddess Kali is the mother of the world and a fearsome, gruesome, and bloodthirsty destroyer of human life. She partially expresses her destruction through a wide array of female avatars (or "agents"). Kali's avatars and agents are regarded by believers as responsible for serious maladies such as typhoid fever, whooping cough, epilepsy, delirium, and convulsions. For example, Kali's agent goddess Vasurimala is mythologized as responsible for smallpox and cholera. Believers in the rural Indian town of Cranganore, make symbolic monetary offerings to Kali, to fulfill promises made in fear of being stricken with smallpox or cholera.

Woman as "Great Goddess" was often depicted as a goddess of death in ancient Greek mythology as well. For example, in ancient Greek mythology, at least 7 female goddesses are depicted as both nursing mothers and as queens of the dead.

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Psychology

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Genitalia Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, argued that male hostility towards women stemmed from a subconscious misconception of one's mother as castration, which is then transposed onto the male individual as an irrational fear for one's own genitals. Joseph Campbell explored this in the context of a recurring image of a vagina dentata (the "toothed vagina") that envelops and then destroys the phallus, while Freud himself instead highlighted the Greek myth of Medusa as a manifestation of the fear of female genitalia and sexuality.Freud, Fetishism; Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology; Both quoted by Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis, Routledge, 1993

Karen Horney, a psychoanalytic critic of Freud's theory of castration anxiety, proposed in The Dread of Woman (1932) that gynophobia may instead be partially due to a boy's fear that his genital is inadequate in relation to the mother. She also remarked that she was surprised at the lack of explicit recognition of gynophobia, after she allegedly found ample historical, clinical, mythological, and anthropological evidence of gynophobia.Horney & Humanistic Psychoanalysis, http://plaza.ufl.edu/bjparis/ikhs/horney/fadiman/04_major.html

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Basic resource access barriers and population expansion limitations Extreme examples of universal, cultural gynophobia have been found in the highlands of New Guinea, where widespread anti-masturbation propaganda coincides with notions of, "perilous female sexuality".Ember, C. (1978). Men’s fear of sex with women: A cross-cultural study. Sex Roles, 4(5). doi:10.1007/bf00287331 page 657 The anthropologist Carol Ember argues that such fears were likely caused by limited availability of basic resources that would be required to increase the population.Ember, C. (1978). Men’s fear of sex with women: A cross-cultural study. Sex Roles, 4(5). doi:10.1007/bf00287331 page 659

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See also

• List of phobias

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Further reading

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