The problem, to which this paper offers a contribution but no solution, is to determine what characterizes male and female. It is not solved by appealing to anatomy, and societal differences cannot be pinned down.

The approach adopted here is that both men and women have both male and female ingredients (which would have been acceptable before World War I to Adler and Jung; it approximates to Plato's Aristophanes), and 'androgynous' is used in this sense. What constitutes man and woman is regarded as societal. Those excellent researchers who study gender-identity do not tell us how to specify what a man is when he is part female. Following Darwin we seek an evolutionary difference, which would admit of the adoption of some of the other's characteristics. This leads to the hypothesis that a man's neurosis may be rooted in being unable to adapt to his femininity.