Gynophobia

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Gynophobia

Gynophobia (also spelled as gynephobia) is an abnormal fear of women. In the past, the Latin term was used, horror feminae, literally meaning "fear of women".
The word caligynephobia is also coined to mean the fear of beautiful women. For the latter one the expression venustraphobia is also used.

It should not be confused with misogyny

Misogyny

Misogyny is hatred of women or girls. It is parallel to misandry?the hatred of men. Misogyny is also comparable with misanthropy which is the hatred of humanity generally....
, which is dislike of or prejudice against women, although the term may be seen used in this meaning as well.

Gynophobia used to be considered a driving force toward homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality refers to human sexual behavior or same-sex attraction between people of the same sex or to homosexual orientation. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "having sexual and romantic attraction primarily or exclusively to members of one?s own sex"; "it also refers to an individual?s sense of personal and social identi...
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Misogyny

Homosexuality

Havelock Ellis

Henry Havelock Ellis was a United Kingdom sexology, physician, and social reformer....
in his 1896 Studies in the Psychology of Sex wrote:

It is, perhaps, not difficult to account for the horror — much stronger than that normally felt toward a person of the same sex — with which the invert
Sexual inversion (sexology)

Sexual inversion is a term used by sexologists, primarily in the late 19th and early 20th century, to refer to homosexuality. Sexual inversion was believed to be an inborn reversal of gender traits: male inverts were, to a greater or lesser degree, inclined to traditionally female pursuits and dress and vice versa....
often regards the sexual organs of persons of the opposite sex. It cannot be said that the sexual organs of either sex under the influence of sexual excitement are esthetically pleasing; they only become emotionally desirable through the parallel excitement of the beholder. When the absence of parallel excitement is accompanied in the beholder by the sense of unfamiliarity as in childhood, or by a neurotic hypersensitiveness, the conditions are present for the production of intense horror feminae or horror masculis, as the case may be. It is possible that, as Otto Rank
Otto Rank

Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's publishing house and a creative theorist...
argues in his interesting study, "Die Naktheit im Sage und Dichtung," [sic] this horror of the sexual organs of the opposite sex, to some extent felt even by normal people, is embodied in the Melusine
Melusine

Melusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit#Metaphysical and metaphorical uses of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers....
type of legend.

Wilhelm Stekel

Wilhelm Stekel was an Austrian physician and psychologist, who became one of Sigmund Freud's earliest followers, a self-described apostle. He later had a falling-out with Freud....
in his book "Sadism and Masochism: The Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty" discusses horror feminae of a male masochist.

Some authors consider the myths about Amazons

Amazons

The Amazons , ) are a nation of all-female warriors in Classical and Greek mythology, who were possibly historical. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatians....
(Eva Keuls argues that violent amazons are the evidence of gynophobia in Classical Athens

Classical Athens

The city of Athens during classical antiquity was a notable polis of Attica, Ancient Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League....
.) and medieval witch-hunt

Witch-hunt

A witch hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and mob lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials....
s to be manifestations of gynophobia in human culture.

Both misogyny and gynophobia, as well as oppression and discrimination of women, have at times been present in the practices of the monotheistic religions of Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
, Judaism

Judaism

Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts....
and Islam

Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
.

Gynophobia

See also