The abortion of female foetuses and the killing of newborn girls in China—the power of unconscious phantasies

Abstract

In China, the one-child policy has cemented the imbalance between male and female newborns, the social and psychological consequences of which are difficult to assess. The targeted abortion of female foetuses goes back to traditions anchored in Confucian culture. This article examines the tensions in gender relations and in the inner representation of gender that are linked to the practice of gender-specific abortion. Using examples from psychoanalytic self-experience groups, the article shows how such conflicts can break out and be expressed in the individual psyche, but also between the group participants. With the help of the distinction between an ethnic and an idiosyncratic unconscious, an attempt is made to better understand the specific inner representation of gender in men and women in China. The author explores male reaction formations against women, male fear of castration, and of control by women through men's mothers, as well as a kind of ongoing unconscious "duel between the sexes" that involves gender discrimination that continues to this day.