Femininities Masculinities Sexualities is a small volume of three essays taken from lectures Chodorow gave in 1990 at the University of Tennessee. Together they provide a full and clear statement of Chodorow's critique of the psychoanalytic theory of gender and sexuality. Her convincing analysis leads us to wonder whether it is any longer useful to think in terms of a normative boy and girl, man and woman, father and mother, and heterosexual and homosexual. Categorizing in these ways, perhaps once conceptually necessary, now tends to obliterate rather than illuminate the continuum of individuals’ complex and varied gender identifications, object choices, and sexual aims. Chodorow's thinking is original and incisive and these papers should be read by psychoanalysts of all theoretical orientations.

Several themes are reiterated throughout the book: the disparity