For girls:
Soon after the libidinal shift to the penis, the child develops her first sexual impulses towards her mother.
The girl realises that she is not physically equipped to have a heterosexual relationship with her mother, since she does not have a penis.
She desires a penis, and the power that it represents. This is described as penis envy. She sees the solution as obtaining her father’s penis.
She develops a sexual desire for her father.
The girl blames her mother for her apparent castration (what she sees as punishment by the mother for being attracted to the father) assisting a shift in the focus of her sexual impulses from her mother to her father.
Sexual desire for her father leads to the desire to replace and eliminate her mother.
The girl identifies with her mother so that she might learn to mimic her, and thus replace her.
The child anticipates that both aforementioned desires will incur punishment (by the principle of lex talionis)
The girl employs the defence mechanism of displacement to shift the object of her sexual desires from her father to men in general.
