Liz and the Mighty Organ.....

We can't be too literal in our interpretation of today's strip. Liz probably doesn't actually want to have a penis as much as she wants what it symbolizes: the power to do whatever she wants. It's not possible for her to have lived in that house all her life and not come away with the notion that women have less freedom of action than men. For good or ill, she'll always think to some extent that she, as a woman, can't resist the will of the patriarchy, that to do things on her own for her own purposes is somehow wrong. Worse still is acting as if one has a mind of one one, to not be infantilized by a manipulator. The most resistance allowed, you see, is to live a frustrated life like her mother, to ill-naturedly serve a man afforded by his gender with the will and permission to dare and to do. She has, by her refusal to question her indoctrination, given them permission to dominate her. Given that she is surrounded by what behavioral psychologists call omega males, the weakest, most ineffectual members of the social order, this should come as no big surprise. Passive-aggressive bullies like John, Mike and Anthony love that way of thinking because it allows them to coast through life, propelled by the mighty momentum of unearned authority; encouraging and reinforcing it is what they do best.