1 :: GENERAL INTRODUCTION
the reproduction of gender asymmetries in modern societies. Her idea was to focus
on the emotional, social and political ramifications of exclusive female mothering,
giving special attention to the construction of masculinity and femininity. Against the
tide of various socialization theories, Chodorow contends that gender is not so much
a matter of ‘role’ as a consequence of the ways in which mothers emotionally relate
to their children.
In explaining the sex roles to which women and men are expected to conform,
Chodorow argues that the developing infant acquires a core gender identity that
functions as a psychological force in the perpetuation of patriarchy. The core of her
argument concerns gender difference. Mothers, she says, experience their daughters
as doubles of themselves, through a narcissistic projection of sameness. The mother
emotionally relates to her daughter as an extension of herself, not as an independent
person; the daughter, as a consequence, finds it extremely difficult to emotionally
disengage from her mother, and to create a sense of independence and individuality.
Chodorow sees gains and losses here. Empathy, sensitivity and intimacy are the
gains that flow from this narcissistic merging of mother and daughter. Daughters,
she argues, are likely to grow up with a core sense of emotional continuity with their
mother, a continuity that provides for strong relational connections in adult life. In
this account, girls become mothers since their mothers’ feminine selves are deeply
inscribed within their psyche. However the losses are that, because daughters are
not perceived as separate others, women consequently lack a strong sense of self
and agency. Feelings of inadequacy, lack of self-control and a fear of merging with
others arise as core emotional problems for women.
By contrast, Chodorow sees masculine sexual identity as based upon a firm repression
of maternal love. Boys, she says, must deny their primary bond to maternal love – thus
repressing femininity permanently into the unconscious. This is not a psychic task that
boys complete by themselves, however. Mothers, according to Chodorow, assist boys in
this painful process of psychic repression through their own tacit understanding of
gender difference. That is to say, because mothers experience sons as other, mothers
in turn propel their sons towards individuation, differentiation and autonomy. Mothers
thus lead their sons to emotionally disengage from intimacy. The mother, in effect,
prepares her son for an instrumental, abstract relation to the self, to other people and
to the wider society; and this, of course, is a relation that males will be expected to
maintain in the public world of work, social relations and politics.
Chodorow’s work is an important contribution to feminist scholarship; her
psychoanalytically-orientated sociology has influenced many feminists researching