Freud's profoundly phallocentric perspective distorts not only his conceptions of female gender development but his view of male gender organization and the place of parents in structuring children's femininity and masculinity. Recent explorations of developmental transitions out of infantile narcissism suggest an alternate framework for understanding gender development in both girls and boys. This article addresses the theoretical and clinical implications of this framework for three major phases of gender development, the period prior to children's recognition of sex difference, the period in which they become aware of the differences between the sexes, and the subsequent (oedipal) period.