Featured Fear: Gynophobia (Fear of Women)

Have you ever seen 'The Bad Seed'? Perhaps you grew up with a little girl just as evil as little Rhoda, or knew an old woman as mad as Norman's 'mother'. Whatever the reason, the fear of women is more than simple romantic anxiety. It's more than a desperate need to hide when the girl you like or want to meet is in the room. It's sheer, desperate terror.

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One might argue that film noir is inspired just a little by the fear of women. Some sexual dynamo of a female tricks a young schmuck into doing something for her, leading him down a dark path that more often than not ends up with more than one death along the way.

Gender and sex are a funny thing. I'm not sure if gynophobia usually translates into fear of transgendered women as well, but I wouldn't be too terribly surprised. A lot of these fears tend to stem from a history of abuse suffered at the hands of a mother figure, another female relative, or even a spouse over time. I'd like to say it's easily treated by a simple interaction with one very nice woman to allay all your fears, but this deep-seated issue requires therapy, as with all other phobias.

With that, I'd like to leave all of you with perhaps one of the most sexist quotes, and an example of one of many men who seems to have feared women as deeply as he may have feared his own death...

Woman is a misbegotten man and has a faulty and defective nature in comparison to his. Therefore she is unsure in herself. What she cannot get, she seeks to obtain through lying and diabolical deceptions. And so, to put it briefly, one must be on one's guard with every woman, as if she were a poisonous snake and the horned devil. ... Thus in evil and perverse doings woman is cleverer, that is, slyer, than man. Her feelings drive woman toward every evil, just as reason impels man toward all good.

- Albertus Magnus