The Gendering of Social Theory: Sociology and Its Discontents
Author(s)
Laslett, Barbara
Abstract
Nancy J. Chodorow argues that mothering occurs at an intrapsychic level in women and cannot be explained by theories of socialization, sex-roles or by force in a male-dominated culture. In her 1978 work ‘The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and Sociology of Gender,’ she associates the development of gendered personalities in men and women to women’s desire to mother, to women’s inequality, and to problems in their relations between the genders. Chodorow validates the use of psychoanalysis to analyse gender relations, thus challenging the feminist outlook based on a patriarchal interpretation.
