Reflections on a Psychoanalytic Theory of Gender Difference

In this article I draw on the work of Nancy Chodorow (1974, 1978, 1979), Dorothy Dinnerstein (1976), and Miriam Johnson (1988) to suggest some ways in which gender asymmetries in early childhood development lead to gender differences in later life. Interpreting these differences, I strike a distinction between narrow differences (differences of degree) and wide differences (differences of dualistic opposition) and argue that the gender differences deriving from early childhood are narrow rather than wide, but are nonetheless perceived and acted upon in patriarchal society as if they were wide rather than narrow. This exaggeration of narrow differences into wide, I propose, is at the basis of the double standard that, as Dinnerstein has shown, so pervasively afflicts adult gender relationships.

Chodorow argues that the division of labor that assigns responsibility for child care almost exclusively to women has effects that are significantly different for boys and girls. Given the gender identity existing between mothers and daughters, the mother-daughter relationship tends to be closer and to last longer than the mother-son relationship. Mothers identify more with their girl children, and, correspondingly, girls experience a longer and closer connection with the mother and come to identify with the kinds of capacities associated with her. In contrast to the mother-daughter