The sex which is

From This Sex Which Is Not One by Luce Irigaray the opening sentence capsulizes the excerpt in its entirety “Female sexuality has always been conceptualized on the basis of masculine parameter”. Although this is a serious piece I read the piece as Irigaray have a sarcastic tone. Irigaray says men view female vaginas as “not comparable to the noble phallic organ, or a hole-envelope that serves to sheathe and massage the penis in intercourse”.

 

Irigaray also makes example of Freudian theory to present the absurdity of the thought. Freud says women have “penis envy” and “she attempts by every means available to appropriate that organ for herself”. Because of the subjugation women have had to endure through society I do agree that anyone would want the power associated with a symbol, including the phallus, I nor do I believe that Irigaray believes that most women want an actual penis. I speak for Irigaray because she replies to Freud by saying his theory is “masochistic [and leads her] to a desire that is not her own [and to] dependency upon man.”

 

Irigaray also present that man does not understand the female sex organ and this lack of understanding has been a factor in the degradation of women. From the male prospective the woman has more than one sexual organ with the clitoris and the lips, which confuses and eludes males understanding, in Irigaray’s theory, which has made men hold little value in her pleasure. Irigaray says that a woman should not try to boxer pleaser in to “simply one” but instead (re-) discover and “identify herslf with none” in particular.

 

Donzell Evans

Momma’s babies. The reproduction of Mothering

The reproduction of mothering: psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender is according to different reviews one of the best contributions to the feminist psychology, but while reading this essay I couldn’t help but feel a bit angry at the many imbalanced stereotypes of men and women. Through all my readings I couldn’t and don’t understand why the author has chosen to base all of her opinions on the Freudian Oedipus theory.  I have never been one to agree with that theory in itself and less in what Chodorow’s idea of what a mother daughter relation is based on. While reading her theories I couldn’t help but think of precious and the role that her parents played in her life.

 

According to Chodorow, the daughter falls both in love with the mom and the dad and then falls into some triangle with both parents because the daughter also becomes worried about the relationship with the father with the mother, Can we truly say that this was the case with Precious in Push?

 

While reading this essay I truly couldn’t help but ask my self as a modern women and as a daughter is it envy the underlies my heterosexuality or that my desire for men is a result from the desire for my mother? I think not.  I would have to say that the authors ideas are a bit far fetched for my taste, yes I might want my mothers approval and for her to love me but it isn’t because I desire her or want to go back to being one with her. I can say that I identify with my mother as mother rather than an object of desire.  I disagree with the author’s idea of what a female/ male role is and how masculinity come s about. My brother is a mommas boy but he is also very much a man, I have heard him many a times saying that because of my mother strong willingness he was able to become the man he is.

I rather think is funny that the author feel the need to associate the female sex drive with mothering instead of two separate beings. Why can’t women have a sex drive and enjoy it without the quilt that they must at some point through the process reproduce. Where is the true feminist?

Women & the Unlearning of Our Social Roles

Nancy Chodorow’s essay The Reproduction of Mothering is an exposition of how gender socialization originates and is perpetuated through a women’s mothering. The mother as “the salient parent and caretaker” is responsible for the upbringing of her children, in addition to the reinforcement of their gender identity. It is the mother that conveys the information and indicators to her children about their identity. However, the way in which boys and girls learn about their gender identity is different.

The mother is able to the channel information to her female child about her female identity through their “ongoing relationship”. The female child is to “develop a personal identification with her mother… She learns what it is to be womanlike in the context of this personal identification with her mother and often with other female models.” The male child will learn of his masculine gender identity in a different way from the female child. His identification processes are not “continuously embedded in and mediated” by his mother.

The male child is free to maturate and evolve in his learning about the masculine role. He does not have to be like his mother or father. The male child is “taught to be masculine more consciously”; aware of his surroundings and his place in the world. This is not the case for the female whose “taught the heterosexual components of her role.” She does not receive the freedom to develop her role in society more consciously. For her very existence serves a purpose, and that is to be a parent.

Chodorow reveals her understanding of the culture of mothering in order to expose what is wrong with the way social roles of women are fixed and flat. I believe that she wants to invoke a feeling in her reader to examine family organization, as well as the ideologies that dictate these social roles. For we must learn these embedded ideologies in our culture in order to unlearn our social roles.

Feminine and Masculine Roles: a Mother’s Influence

 

The Sexual Sociology of Adult Life from The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender by Nancy Chodorow breaks down the relationships in a family and how a child’s relationship with their mother is in direct relation to their gender and gender roles.

In the piece, Chodorow explains through the view of social scientists that “Because the first identification for children of both genders has always been with their mother, and because children are first around women, women’s family roles being feminine are more available and often more intelligible to growing children than masculine roles and being masculine. Hence male development is more complicated than female…”

It is interesting to think that because a girl’s first identification is with her mother and that they are both female, that would make female development less complicated than it would for male development. I am not sure that I agree with this idea. What if a girl does not identify with the gender role possessed by her mother? What if she takes on a gender role that is not expected from society? Would it still be less complicated?

Another interesting passage in Chodorow’s piece is:

“When men do “women’s” chores–this activity is often organized and delegated by the wife/mother, who retains residual responsibility (men babysit their own children; women do not).”

This statement resonated with me because I often hear things like a father “babysitting” his children, or doing the “woman’s” work for the day. Does this have to do with a child’s first relationship being with its mother? Do these feminine roles exist because of this?

Chodorow later says, “A boy’s oedipus complex is directly tied to issues of masculinity, and the devaluation of women is its “normal” outcome. A girl’s devaluation of or hostility toward her mother may be a part of the process, but its “normal” outcome, by contrast, entails acceptance of her own femininity and identification with her mother.”

This is particularly intriguing because this explains that although two children, one male, and one female identify with their mother at first, this later develops into two different relationships. One where the male child devalues women, and the other where the female child accepts women and identifies with women because she is a woman and can relate to her mother. Though I think that this is too much of a black and white way of looking at things, it does explain an overall thinking of society.

Woman make me a man?

“The Sexual Sociology of Adult Life from The Reproduction of Mothering:Psychoanalysis and the sociology of Gender” by Nancy Chodorow presents the theory of gender roles and development by the basis of beginning with the mother as role model for males and females. Chodorow explains that mother is the first teacher and “being feminine [is] more available”, and through her teachings females learn how to be woman, while “A boy, must distinguish and differentiate himself from others in a way that a girl need not.” A females readily identify with the mother and build their identity by mimicking the example of the mother. Males that have a working father or an absent father after learning how to be woman from the mother must then learn how to be men and this is done by defining masculinity by that which is not feminine. The male learns this from short periods of time spent with a working father or by “a positive affective relationship to a person who is there.”

The effects of males striving for the non-femanine he is”taught to be masculine more consciously than girls are taught to be feminine.” Masculinity stresses being different that female/ feminine, “whereas females tend to identify with aspects of their own mothers role specifically.”

Males not having a specific role model as females idealize and fantasize what masculinity should be, “whereas femininity and feminine role remain for a girl…real and concrete.”

 

Males in attempting to find themselves place importance on societal differences, separating different social activities as feminine and masculine. Through the use of Freud, Chodorow explains that the male view of females as the lesser sex has become “what we (society) have come to consider the normal male contempt for woman.”

 

Through this article the overexertion of masculinity in society is from the male attempting to find himself. While the mother is a role model she is not able to teach a male how to be masculine. How males are taught to be masculine can be seen as a shock to him by making him negate all that he has learned.

Donzell Evans

Sharon O’Brien on Chodorow’s The Reproduction of Mothering

By Frank Miller

For Professor Veeser’s Biography class “Feminist Theory and Biography” by Sharon O’Brien was assigned over the weekend. In the article O’Brien asks her audience why the feminist biographer has failed to write a form of what she calls the “anti-biography,” which for many offers an outlet from the traditional biography that is connected to a “patriarchal as well as Western humanist definition of the individual self – a self imagined, although frequently not admitted, to be male” (126). To answer this question, she proposes that a tension between strains of feminist theory that both support and contradict traditional biography prevent women from writing biographies. O’Brien suggests that “more biographies of women are [needed]” and that “Women’s lives have been erased, unrecorded, or represented by patriarchal stories, and biography can be a powerful means for reinscribing women in history” (128).

In forming her argument, O’Brien touches on Nancy Chodorow’s The Reproduction of Mothering. She writes: “The psychoanalytic and literary theory derived from the work of Nancy Chodorow is opposed to deconstruction’s dismantling of the unified subject and the category ‘woman.’ This strain of feminist theory seeks to disrupt the equivalence of the masculine with the universal by defining women’s ‘different voice'” (127). O’Brien states that  various forms of the “different voice” have gained popularity in the United States because “many American feminists resist abandoning the notion of the ‘real’ or authentic self, even when they modify the definition of individualism in contending that the female self is more defined in relationship than in separation” (127).

It seems as if Chodorow highlights O’Brien’s “resistance to abandon the real self” in The Reproduction of Mothering. Chodorow proposes that young girls “can begin to identify more directly and immediately with their mothers and their mothers’ familial roles than can boys with their fathers and men” (265) based on the more “nurturing” role that a woman takes on than that of a man. At first glance the constance presence of a mother guiding them may appear as a benefit to girls; however, it is not. Chodorow contends that femininity is established at birth for girls, and is an inherent quality that cannot be escaped. Masculinity on the other hand is not inherent, but rather achieved or learned through some process. Chodorow writes that boys: “develop a sense of what it is to be masculine through identification with cultural images of masculinity…[they] are taught to be masculine more consciously than girls are taught to be feminine” (266). These “cultural images” may take the form of figures such as the legendary Stanford standout and Broncos quarterback, John Elway (goodlooking, tall, athletic, rich) or maybe even Batman (my favorite superhero as a child). Nevertheless which figure a male child picks, Chodorow points out that males have the opportunity of choice to “define themselves in seperation” while girls must define their female self “in relation” to their mothers without question. It is through “the different voice” that the American feminist is allowed to establish her “authentic self” and in essence break from her maternal-bound feminine qualities and develop her own identity similar to that males. Such freedom to form identity is an extension of self independence and expression that so many have fought so hard for, why would American feminists, or any person for that matter give something so precious up?

Should women become masculine to get success?

Early on in Nancy Chodorow’s essay “The Sexual Sociology of Adult Life” I was bothered by the following passage:

…because children are first around women, women’s family roles and being feminine are more available and often more intelligible to growing children than masculine roles and being masculine. Hence, male development is more complicated than female because of the difficult shift of identification which a boy must make to attain his expected gender identification and gender role assumption. (265)

Though I agreed with Chodorow’s logic, I did not like the determination that femininity is “more available” while masculinity is “more complicated”. The presumption that females assumed a role that was simple and accessible bothered me. But what confused me more is that males somehow got to have  a deeper understanding of gender. If males had to make this transition, then they somehow were more mature in their understanding of their gender. This right of passage made being male more mature and more advanced than the female; this process produced an automatically infantilized women.

I do not like to think of being feminine as being immature, especially since though being feminine is not a role I think is perfect, it is role that I think has its benefits. This got me thinking, especially as Chodorow elaborated on the masculine persona being the public and more economically productive persona. Would I have to become “male” to be a true, independent, productive, member of the larger society? And more importantly, if I determined this was necessary, would masculinity be a true possibility for me as a woman?

First, I do think that it is somewhat necessary for women to develop a certain “fluency” in masculinity to participate to the fullest in a public domain. Based on Chodorow’s explanation of masculinity being attained through assertion of otherness, independence, and  superiority, masculinity does seem to be a precedent for success in capitalist society. Since I would like to also be successful in society, it does seem that becoming masculine would be a benefit.

Based on the idea that being masculine would provide a mindset that would breed social success, the question becomes if  a woman can actually adopt the masculine persona for the work world. My previous answer to this question has always been that there is a certain extent to which women can adopt the masculine persona, but there is a limit, because of the conflicts of home obligations and feminine identification. But Chodorow’s descriptions of masculinity as repressive, based on an absentee father’s model, and elusive and stereotypical, it seems that masculinity is even more of a performance than femininity. If masculinity’s power emerges from a feminine gender identity, and masculinity is a largely fabricated concept, it seems that women would have no problem being masculine. Actually, since women have the foundation of having truly integrated their femininity through personal relationships, and have a true model of performing gender, their gender performance is more natural, mastered and second nature. Though women might be more attached to femininity, they would be a better population to identify the opposite of their gender and reject it. They have more comfort and practice acting their gender. Women, it seems, would be better at being masculine than many men might be.

That being said, this lack of a nuanced, real, human models for masculinity for men struck me an very sad. Women have models of oppressed and limited women,  but they have complete models to watch, while men have a fictitious concept to base their gender on. It brings into question how much both genders are problematic and oppressive, but based on the fact that I have come to completely paradoxical conclusions in this post, it seems like an area worth further exploration.

The Rule of Negative

A few weeks ago I discussed Cixous’ “Laugh of the Medusa,” in which the writer explains that society defines woman by their lack of a phallus. Woman is defined in the negative, by what she’s doesn’t have. In reading the excerpt from the Chodorow piece, it became obvious to me that there is a pattern or a rule of negative that governs gender role learning. Although Cixous’ man has a phallus, Chodorow’s mother-reared boys define men by all of the feminine characteristics that the idealized man lacks. This negative conditioning of Chodorow’s boys is just a damaging as the negative definition of women, and not just because it is these boys that grow up to become men who are proponents of oppressive relationships with women.

Unlike girls, who learn feminine roles from a personal relationship with their mothers, “boys must attempt to develop a masculine gender identification and learn the masculine role in the absence of a continuous and ongoing relationship with their fathers.”(323) From early childhood, boys must forage for masculine models, and generally find them in cultural images. This separates the boys from familiar relations and to reject identification with mothers or feminine traits. This divide is further stimulated by society’s idealization and superiority of masculinity, which makes the male role even more desirable to developing boys.(324) Boys are willing to not only suppress their own femininity, but to reject their mothers who care for and raise them.It is certainly not a stretch to imagine that this early hostility of women in boys is a factor in the fear of woman that Cixous describes in “Laugh of the Medusa.”

To further look at the negative’s influence in social roles, I’d like to draw attention to Chodorow’s examination of Mothering, Masculinity, and Capitalism. Parson explains that there is a close oedipal relationship between mother and son, one which the mother has the most power and can manipulate. The son is naturally very dependent on the nurturing mother, who eventually withdraws her support in order to make her male child more independent. This negative relationship does indeed produce males that are independent of family, although it does leave an influential subconscious level of obedience and need to please. (326) Society values this in males who eventually need to strive to succeed in a capitalistic society, while obeying their superiors in a corporate structure.

This pattern of negativity should cancel out itself as double-negatives do in a sentence of standard English. If woman is woman because she lacks a male phallus but boys do not directly inherit their “maleness” from their fathers, then what exactly are gender roles based off of? It is obvious to me that both of these pieces thoroughly destroy the idea that we are inherently born into our gender. Society wounds us by trying to define who or what we are in the negative.

The Idealized Absentee

Kaydian Campbell

In “The Sexual Sociology of Adult Life” Nancy Chodorow explains that women’s roles and feminine behavior are more readily available to children of both sexes because of the mother’s place in the home. Conversely, it is the male role that is idealized in the home, in spite of and because of its physical absence. According to Chodorow, “Boys are taught to be masculine more consciously than girls are taught to be feminine” (323). Because a female role model is present, girls have the opportunity to learn femininity through interaction with and imitation of their mothers. Boys however, must compensate for their father’s absence and appropriate a male role model, and as a result, “Males tend to identify with a cultural stereotype of the masculine role” (323). Not only does a boy need to develop a basic gender identity without a male role model, he must learn to do so against the oppositional female roles presented to him, “he defines masculinity negatively as that which is not female” (322).  Therefore, “Dependence on his mother, attachment to her, and identification with her represent that which is not masculine; a boy much reject dependence and deny attachment and identification” (325). This active repression of perceived feminine attributes ironically creates a negative view of feminine traits, and is compounded by the idealization of the absentee male figure. Learned masculinity, therefore, seems to be a constant struggle to detach oneself from the female role model in order to achieve the idea of what one imagines to be the male role in contrast to the female role.

Because the male role is less accessible and seemingly less attainable than the female role presented by the ever present mother figure, “masculinity is idealized, or accorded superiority,and thereby becomes even more desirable” (324).  In reading this chapter, I thought of the superheroes we tried to emulate as children, the majority of which were male, and the fact that one of the reasons we wanted to be like them was that we had never seen or heard of anyone doing anything as fantastic as they had done. The effect is similar with an absentee parent, since the parent is not present, the child necessarily creates an idea of what they imagine that parent to be doing, however, as a result, the parent who is present seems only capable of doing what we see them doing everyday. Chodorow’s expresses the idea that, “mothers and children often idealize [fathers]and give them ideological primacy, precisely because of their absence and seeming inaccessibility, and because of the organization and ideology of male dominance in the larger society” (325). As a result, “Given that masculinity is so elusive, it becomes important for masculine identity that certain social activities are defined as masculine and superior, and that women are believed unable to do many of the things defined as socially important” (325). This idealization of the masculine role, not only affects the boy searching for a role model to identify with, but the girl also experiences a negative reaction to her prescribed roles by the realization that she cannot be like her father because she is too much like her mother. According to Chodorow, these feelings of hostility that manifest during the oedipal period, develop into self-depreciation. However, although the female role model is associated with “regression and lack of autonomy”, the girl’s “acceptance of her own femininity and identification with her mother” results from her hostility toward her mother while the boy develops a general devaluation of women.

Though Chodorow applies the idealized male roles and repressed female roles into the development of personality traits of workers in the capitalist world, the idea of the idealized male figure really resonated with me. The idea of young boys appropriating  male role models of their own made me think of the media, and the “cultural stereotype of the male role” (323). This immediately led me to think of the male role models I saw growing up, which included Jean Claude Van Damme, Jet Li, Sylvester Stallone and Steven Seagal. Like Chodorow claims in this chapter, I absolutely devaluated women’s roles, which were seemingly weak and unexciting in comparison those to a martial arts champion. This in turn made me emulate male roles, played “male” games, and favor male friend for fear the girls would “ruin the fun”.

Where’s Daddy?

“All social scientist who have examined processes of gender role learning and the development of a sense of identification in boys and girls have argued that the asymmetrical organization of parenting in which women mother is the basic cause of significant contrasts between feminine and masculine identification processes” (265)

When I first read the above quote my mind jumped to the idea that in some cultures it is believed that in order for a boy to become a man he must be stripped away from his mother in order to gain an idea of masculine roles. In this context it is assumed that mothers prevent male children from realizing the role they ought to play in society. Although Chodorow does not elude to this idea in any way my mind could not help recalling this information. Chodorow in fact talks about how for children, the role of male and female is different for each sex. And the way that they learn about it is different. She states that,

“boys are taught to be masculine more consciously than girls are taught to be feminine. When fathers or men are not present much, girls are taught the heterosexual components of their role, whereas boys are assumed to learn their heterosexual role without teaching, through interation with their mothers. By, contrast other components of masculinity must be more consciously imposed. Masculine identification, then, is predominantly gender role indentification” (266).

While girls “can be based on the gradual learning of a way of being familiar in everyday life, exemplified by the relationship with the person with whom a girl has been most involved” (266). Chodorow shows that girls are more equipped with the information on how to be feminine because your mother is “always” around. Being that your mother is the “caregiver” and “nuturer” little girls automatically cling to this idea and become more adapted to it. While boys on the other hand do not have this opportunity. Although they see the exact same thing as a female child they learn to be masuline though other things. Like T.V. or music. It is easier for a girl to identifiy herself in the houshold while for a boy it is not. “Masculinity becomes an issue as a direct result of a boy’s experience of himself in his family-as a result of his being parented by a woman. For children of both genders, mothers reporesent regression and lack of autonomy. A boy associates theses issues with his gender identification as well” (267).

I agree with Chodorow’s statement that boys learn masculine roles through interation with their mothers. My best friend is a single mother raising her 5 year old son. When I observe the interation between them I notice that my best friend always play fights with him and tells him “throw your hands” meaning lets fight. Her goal in doing this is to instill a sense of no fear or the ability for Karmello to stand up for himself. She also allows him to decide what he wants to wear, eat and go. It is remarkable to observe him because he walks as if he were a grown man, hands in his pocket and very demanding. His attitude isn’t one of a five year old. And to be honest I have no idea what my best friend did to produce this behavior without a father present.

In Relation to Objects: Parents

Reading the excerpt from The Reproduction of Motherhood by Nancy Chodorow reminded me of information that I acquired in my junior year of high school. The passage titled “Gender Identification and Gender Role Learning” can be identified with a psychodynamic theory within psychoanalytic psychology referred to as: Objects Relation theory. The theory explains the course of developing a psyche as one grows in relation to others in the environment. The foundation of the theory is that the way we relate to people (and experiences) in our adult world was encoded into us by the way we experienced our parents when we were infants.

            When I was first introduced to the components of this theory I understood that the interactions with parents (especially the mother) were a dysfunctional factor for a child’s developing identity; if and only if the parental figures were absent. For example, a man apprehensive of his boss at work (without reason), one might conceive that the man is viewing his boss through the stencil of his exasperating mother when he was an infant. Maybe the mother had to work long hours and the child did not like being separated from her. The experience with his mother frustrated him, so that feeling became embedded in him and affects his relation to authority.

            After reading Chodorow’s ideas I understood that the relationship with ones parents can also construct strong identities as well as constructing traditional gender roles.

“Personal identification according to Slater and Winch, consists in diffuse identification with someone else’s general personality, behavioral traits, values, and attitudes. Positional identification consists, by contrast, in identification with specific aspects of another’s role and does not necessarily lead to the internalization of the values or attitudes of the person identified with.” (266)

Identification contributes to the normal development of a child, including identity formation, gender roles and the development of object relations; a child is able to relate to others that are not entirely separate from themselves. Although “positional identification” contributes to the normal development of the identity and object relations, it somewhat splits the fairly organized structure. It becomes a split concept because the way one chooses to internalize the experiences with these objects can either develop a healthy identity or a faulty one.

Secondhand Masculinity.

Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” surely wasn’t a love song directed at the Queen of Soul’s mother, but a close reading of Nancy Chodorow’s “The Sexual Sociology of Adult Lifefrom The Reproduction of Mothering” explicitly states that a girl owes her entire personal identification to the woman who bore her. Chodorow writes how femininity is essentially innate, while masculinity is much more often adapted than learned first hand from fathers.

On one hand, this stark developmental difference does not seem like it can be true. After all, “much of a girl’s and boy’s socialization is the same, and…both go to school and can participate in adulthood in the labor force and other nonfamilial institutions.” However, if a qualifier like that meant anything, all children would grow up free from gender roles, and anyone living in modern society can attest that this could not be further from the truth. Chodorow explains that with a woman as a primary caretaker, girls “can begin to identify more directly and immediately with their mothers and their mothers’ familial roles than can boys with their fathers and men.” (265) Logically, this makes sense; why wouldn’t a boy have a harder time developing when his primary masculine role model works 40 hours a week? What makes this realization more interesting, however, is the fact that Chodorow is positing femininity as the default, and masculinity the deviation from the default, calling child development an irony of biblical proportions.

It does beg the question: how can masculinity be the concept to which all aspire when men cannot even call themselves its innate possessor? It would appear as if boys would be as consigned to identifying with the traits of his mother as his sister is. For Chodorow a girl’s development is indeed rather simple: “a girl’s mother is present in a way that a boy’s father, and other adult men, are not. A girl, then, can develop a personal identification with her mother.” (266) A personal identification “consists in diffuse identification with someone else’s general personality, behavioral traits, values and attitudes,” and with a constant feminine role model, a girl can whole-heartedly identify herself with her caretaker and take on all that her mother is as she continues to develop.

For boys, the situation is less concise. With a comparatively more absent masculine role model, the boy engages in positional identification, which, “consists, by contrasts, in identification with specific aspects of another’s role and does not necessarily lead to the internalization of values or attitudes of the person identified with.” Per Slater and Winch, personal identification for a boy is nearly impossible in the absence of a consistent male role model. If masculinity does not depend on a caretaker to imbue itself into a male child, how does it continue to perpetuate itself?

The answer could not have been more obvious, but in a roundabout way, Chodorow looks to the media: “boys…develop a sense of what it is to be masculine through identification with cultural images of masculinity and men chosen as masculine role models. Boys are taught to be masculine more consciously than girls are taught to be feminine.” (266) Surely a girl would engage in the same positional identification in a mother-absent home, but more often than not she has a mother, to quote Glinda from Wicked, “as so many do,” and this gender development grid does a great deal to illustrate how the vast majority of children are brought up from birth.

When explained in that matter, it is harder to question why it is so difficult for women to break from their gender role. Femininity is ingrained, the concept of a wife/mother are instilled in girls from birth involuntarily and unconsciously. At the same time, one can argue that it is equally difficult to transcend the masculine gender role, one that would seem to be less stringent in its development. Chodorow answers that question as ominously as she does questions aimed at girls: “boys appropriate those specific components of the masculinity of their father that they fear will be otherwise used against them…” Like Rubin and Lévi-Strauss before her, Chodorow addresses what anyone in the gender or sexual minority could tell you: the yolk of the gender role is hard to ignore and even harder to bear, regardless of whether one is male or female.

The Trope of Irony in the Devaluation of the Other. L.R. Corcoran.

In her work “The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender,” Nancy Chodorow presents a strikingly cogent and serviceable theory on the formulation of gender roles. The basic premise of her theory is the ubiquity and availability of the mother in relation to the general absence of the father. Children then in turn identify more readily and easily with the mother due to her constant presence. This identification with the mother  is presumed equal between boys and girls in the pre-Oedipal stage. The major shift that takes place is when the boy realizes his mother lacks a phallus and is therefore Other; he must now assume the phallus that his father has in order to possess his mother or any other woman. It is here that Chodorow introduces an interesting mechanism into the Freudian argumentation: due to the fact of the relative absence of the father, the boy must define his masculinity in negative relation to his mother. In other words, the boy creates his idea of masculinity by excluding everything from his ken that his mother is, and including everything that she is not. In contrast to this, girls, in their process of gender association, never have to go through this process of differentiation. From here, a theoretical line could easily be drawn that women’s gender identification is therefore more embedded in their psyche, and, in order for it to be examined, the gender identification of women needs to be more fully excavated.

Chodorow sets forth two terms that clarify these different functions of gender identification: personal identification and positional identification. Personal identification is the identification process a person goes through when he or she associates with another’s personality, behavioral traits, and general persona. Positional identification is the identification process that a person goes through when he or she identifies with another’s role, not necessarily their values or attitudes. From this premise, girls will go through the personal identification process–the mother is around, the girl can associate with personal characteristics–and boys, due the relative absence of the father thus their inability to associate with his general  characteristics, will necessarily go through a positional identification process.

I would like to touch briefly on what I consider to be an ironical trope, if you will, at play here. The boy, in a pre-Oedipal state, exists in perfect communion with the Other; he is yet aware of undifferentiation: his bliss is certain. Then his Oedipal shock occurs. He realizes his mother is different than he, and he must gain the phallus–and the discourse which surrounds it–in order to obtain his mother or a like being. From here the irony occurs; for in order to gain the power to regain the thing he has lost, he must deface that which is his original desire. To wit, to win again the pleasure of the Other, the boy must do all things to distance himself from it. This is the Janus-like quality of fetish: the approach to the Other by virtue a mechanism that allows contact with it, and then anxious recoil once the contact has been made. This mechanism is also at work in Karen Horney’s essay, “The Dread of Women.” Chodorow touches on the same idea, stating that since femininity in relation to masculinity for a male represents a time of pre-development, therefore a femininity to a male represents a regression of sorts.

This trope I contend is the fundamental mechanism of discourses that seek to maintain power and is manifested often even in artistic formulations. Expressions of distance to the Other which is sought to be transversed by an act of mortification of the subject or the objectification of the Other–or both simultaneously–are pervasive; a Petrarchan sonnet is a perfect example. These tropes then form a circuitous loop between modes of artistic representation and political societal formulations of power, each providing premise and validation for one another.

The Reproduction of Mothering

Jackie Torres

Nancy Chodrow is a sociologist and psychoanalyst in the 20^th century.  In her excerpt The Reproduction of Mothering Chodrow explains using references and ideas from American society and scientists the importance of a relationship between parents and their children.  She says, “what matters is the extent to which a child of either gender can form a personal relationship with their object of identification, and the differences in modes of identification that result from this” (pg. 323). As I read the essay, I captured the mention of the dissimilarity between the innately learned gender identification between males and females.  For example, in the essay Chodorow states, “Boys are taught to be masculine more consciously than girls are taught to be feminine “(pg. 323). This passage explains how males are trained their roles and it’s implied to them that what they should and should not do as a male. However, for females they acquire this knowledge freely and independently.

However, Slater reports that, all forms of personal parental identification have to do with “freedom from psychosis” yet strangely he feels that this is not applied to a daughter and her mother.   Chodrow contain views from other sociologist. One sociologist Slater notes that in contemporary families in which there is only one parent, (usually the mother) the absence of a male figure does not affect the male. They are still able to identify with their gender and correspond well with their masculinity. However, this contemplation appears to contradict the initiative importance that what matters is the relationship of the child with his or her parent.  For females it is said that she consistently relics motivation and there is a cataleptic accolade to be won.  Chodrow essay concludes with the clarification that all in all the women and men’s personality are influenced by their rearing. The structure of family and each genders personality reveals the reason of today’s contemporary society.