Gender and Narcissism

Gender Narcissism is a term developed by American psychoanalyst Gerald Schoenewolf to describe males and females who have obsessive or inflated attitudes regarding their gender. Individuals who suffer from gender narcissism have unconscious feelings of inferiority about their gender or their gender anatomy and compensate for that inferiority by erecting a bubble of gender pride.
Development of the concept
Sigmund Freud did not use the term "gender narcissism," but he alluded to gender and narcissism in his writing. He noted that a certain kind of narcissism was linked to the male and female castration complexes that led, in extreme cases, to a homosexual orientation. With regard to male homosexuals, the castration complex (castration fear) causes them to become strongly fixated to their mothers (whom they fear) and identified with them, while seeking love and approval from men who would help them reclaim their masculinity. "The choice is towards a narcissistic object which is readier at hand and easier to put into effect than movement toward the opposite sex" (1922, p. 233). He observed that in taking a love object similar to themselves they symbolically actualized their narcissistic fixation while avoiding the opposite sex and the incestuous feelings that might be aroused in the transference. Female homosexuality likewise grows out of the female castration complex (penis envy) and results in a narcissistic attitude toward sexuality, which Freud termed a "masculinity complex." "Psychoanalytic research has recognized the existence and importance of the masculine protest, but it has regard it, in opposition to Adler, as narcissistic in nature and derived from the castration complex" (1920, p. 92). He added that this masculine protest begins before the age of three and is "more closely allied to primal narcissism than to object-love" (1918, p. 104).
Karen Horny (1950) was one of the first to mention the term gender narcissism, but she focused only on males. She used the term "male narcissism" to describe men who exhibit phallic pride (an obsessive and exalted view of their masculinity). Such masculine pride is often associated to "phallic narcissism" and refers to the phallic narcissistic stage of development, which occurs at around the age of three; it is a stage in which boys discover the difference in male and female sexual anatomy and take pleasure and pride in touching themselves and in the magic acts (erections) their penises can do.
Schoenewolf's Expansion of Gender Narcissism
Schoenewolf expanded the concept of gender narcissism, adding to Horny's one-side view and returning to Freud's original formulations. He introduced his idea of gender narcissism in 1989 and expanded it in 2013. Noting the controversial nature of his and Freud's ideas on gender, Schoenewolf is critical of those who have dismissed Freud through attacks on his character. In response to one of Freud's critics, he affirms that although her "interpretation of Freud may or may not be correct, this represents a continuation of ad hominem refutations of Freud and does not engage Freud's assertions or offer a substitute theory of superego formation" (2013, p. 47). Concerning gender narcissism, he agrees with Freud's notion that it is rooted in the Oedipal stage of development, its genesis due to inappropriate responses by parents and others to the child's discovery of his or her sexuality. He further defines it as manifesting itself in an idealization of gender, gender identity and gender anatomical characteristics and a disparagement of the opposite sex. These factors result an inability to form genuine emotional bonds with either sex, and instead keep intimate relationships on a narcissistic level. Gender narcissism can range from mild to severe; to the degree that people are afflicted by it, their relationships will stay on a superficial level and will be more an alliance designed to feed gender narcissistic needs than a genuine intimate bond with mutuality and respect for gender differences. "Since they are primarily geared to obtain narcissistic needs, the relationships of gender narcissists tend to be shallow and to deny reality" (2013, p. 119) Schoenewolf implies that gender narcissism is an unconscious attribute and is resistant to psychodynamic therapy due to "the intractability of gender grandiosity and to strong identificational bonds with idealized mothers" (2013, p. 119)

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