penis envy
in the classical psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud, the hypothesized desire of girls and women to possess the male genital organ. Freud believed that it originated in the phallic stage, between ages 3 and 6, when the girl discovers that she lacks this organ, and he further posited that the girl feels “handicapped and ill-treated,” blames her mother for the loss, and wants to have her penis back. Karen D. Horney, among others, later argued that penis envy is not an envy of the biological organ itself but represents women’s envy of men’s superior social status. In any sense, the concept has been actively disputed from the beginning and is rarely considered seriously in current psychology. See also castration complex.