Womb envy

Womb envy, a term coined by Karen Horney, is the neo-Freudian feminist equivalent of penis envy. Horney suggests that it is the unexpressed anxiety felt by some men over women's ability to give birth, leading them to dominate women or driving them to succeed in order for their names to live on. Horney claims 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'.

Horney considers it likely that Womb envy is a psychosocial tendency, just as penis envy is, rather than a quality inherent in men. Womb envy has been criticized as 'a backlash against Freudian ideas with little or no basis in fact'.

Examples in Fiction

 * In the 1979 film Monty Python's Life of Brian the character Stan/Loretta played by Eric Idle displays womb envy.
 * In the American animated television series Family Guy an episode called I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar contains a scene in which Peter shows envy over Motherhood and attempts to breast feed his infant son Stewie.