Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory

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Nancy J. Chodorow

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In this long-awaited book, a leading psychoanalytic feminist traces the development of her views on the psychodynamics, sociology, and culture of gender. Expanding upon her pathbreaking work in The Reproduction of Mothering and combining significant new writings with previously published essays, Nancy J. Chodorow elucidates how the unconscious awareness of self and gender we develop from earliest infancy continues to shape both our experience as men and women and the patterns of inequality and difference that exist throughout our society and culture.

"Chodorow is an exceptionally intelligent and serious writer, and her contribution to the debate on gender and sexual identity is substantial. . . . Through her deepening reflections on gender issues and her study of the reality of women's lives, Ms. Chodorow puts both Freud and feminism to the test."—Stuart Schneiderman, New York Times Book Review

"In [a book] teeming with ideas, Chodorow . . . explores issues such as the influence of maternal care on the emerging self, social oppression of women on the basis of presumed gender differences, Oedipal conglict, heterosexual identification, and women analysts."—Publishers Weekly

"These essays are as good a statement of the issues in feminist psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic feminism as I have seen, reflecting the knowledge and questions of an 'insider' in both areas. One is impressed by the richness of the implications drawn from observed constellations or relationships. This is book that should be of interest to a wide audience."—Malkah T. Notman, M.D., Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association

"All readers will profit from reading all of the articles in historical sequence. Her own changes reflect some general trends in feminist and social science thought."—Miriam M. Johnson, Contemporary Sociology

"There is no more important voice in psychoanalytic feminism than Nancy Chodorow’s. In Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory she brings together a series of essays that trace the evolution of her thinking about self, society, and gender from its early beginnings to its mature development. This book will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in both feminism and psychoanalysis."--Lillian B. Rubin, author of Intimate Strangers and Just Friends

“This work is a valuable contribution to students and practitioners of feminism and of psychoanalytic theory. . . . According to Chodorow, psychoanalysis is a theory that enables people to examine their life situation, to make sense of it and therefore to act to change it.”—Marilyn Newman Metzl, Psychologist-Psychoanalyst Division 39 Newsletter

"As possibly the only candid and succinct explanation of the connection between Feminism and the theory of Psychoanalysis, Chodorow’s book will bee welcomed both by newcomers to this area and those clinicians who have had actual experience of it. Chodorow, first carrier of these ideas, leads us ever onwards."—Anne McGown, American Journal of Psychoanalysis

"As a psychoanalytic feminist, Chodorow offers an incisive critique and a penetrating analysis of this perspective. . . . In this rich and varied but intense and tightly reasoned volume, Chodorow brings us up-to-date on a range of contemporary psychoanalytic thinking in an area that is often not so available in the psychoanalytic literature. . . . The book is a substantial work, to be read carefully by those interested in psychoanalytic thinking and practice."—Carol C. Nadelson, American Journal of Psychiatry

"Of the academic feminists interested in psychoanalysis, perhaps no one is better known than Nancy Chodorow, whose 1978 book, The Reproduction of Mothering, seized the imagination of feminists and was widely accepted by them as the definitive account of female gender identity and development. Yet this book and the vast amount of discussion it generated in feminist circles have been largely ignored by psychoanalysts, just as contemporary analytic thinking about female psychology has been largely ignored by the feminists. In the 10 essays that make up Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory, Nancy Chodorow sets out to bridge the gulf between the two groups. Chodorow is perhaps the ideal person to attempt this."—Margaret Schaefer, Psychoanalytic Books

"A perspicacious appreciation of Freud and psychoanalysis as such a resource characterizes Nancy Chodorow’s now classic The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (1978) as well as her new collection of essays, Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory. . . . While her new book builds directly upon her earlier work, it also demonstrates the maturation of a more complex "psychoanalytic feminism" that speaks to the ideological, emotional, and social situation and addresses the needs of contemporary feminism."—Sam B. Girgus, American Quarterly

"Psychoanalysts, feminists, sociologists—serious students of human behavior—should find Chodorow’s work thought provoking and worthy of attention."—Dorothy Rudy, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

"Those in the field of feminist/psychological/psychoanalytic theory will find this book required reading. . . . [An] ultimately stimulating read."—Alexandra G. Kaplan, Contemporary Psychology

"What is Chodorow doing and thinking now? And how has her thinking developed and changed? These questions are answered in rich detail in [this] book. . . . All readers will profit from reading all of the articles in historical sequence. Her own changes reflect some general trends in feminist and social science thought."—Miriam M. Johnson, Contemporary Sociology

"Much of the territory these essays traverse is by now familiar, a measure of Chodorow’s importance in shaping the feminist project."—Elizabeth Lunbeck, Tikkun

"A valuable collection of her essays on feminism and psychoanalytic theory. . . . Highly recommended for upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and professional readers."—Choice

"Nancy Chodorow’s work has been of the utmost importance to both psychoanalysis and feminist theory. A large readership will be grateful for this new book documenting her shifting perspective over the last decade. It provides a retrospective overview that will inevitably be of enormous interest to both her followers and her critics."—Evelyn Fox Keller