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In this paper I do not intend to put forward any supposedly new notion of maleness, or even to lay out a systematic approach to the area (for something more along those lines, see May, 1980). Rather, I wish to offer some more or less connected observations on the problems involved in developing a psychoanalytic theory of maleness, with a particular focus on two of its underpinnings: the concepts of identity and gender identity.
In recent years public discussion of the topic of sex differences has been characterized by an extraordinary and alarming degree of acrimony. A stereotyped battle is repetitively replayed: the confrontation between Feminism and Psychoanalysis. Why should useful talk in this area be so difficult? Clearly, the male-female boundary is currently a social fault line that carries great cultural and economic strain. In addition, the very notion of talking about differences between the sexes provokes a characteristically American uneasiness that any distinction may be an invidious distinction, and the accompanying American illusion that homogeneity is the only guarantee of equality.
But beyond this, it seems to me that we often end up in these polemical stalemates out of an unwillingness to distinguish between different sorts of theories. We slip into the conviction that there is a reality out there, one “True Theory” of what it is to be male or female. But there is no “Psychology of Men.” There are, rather, many legitimately different theories we may adopt in thinking about this topic. A theory is a particular worldview embodied in a particular language. We adopt a theory on the basis of personal experience, out of the commitment lodged in our training and our work, or even out of