Mothering, Object-Relations, and the Female Oedipal Configuration

Abstract

Many feminists have come to recognize that psychoanalysis, as a theory of the social production of gender and sexuality, must be a central component of feminist understanding.1 My own work within this tradition argued for the importance of the fact that women, and not men, are primary caretakers of children.2 I have suggested that the mother-daughter relationship contributes in fundamental ways to the character of the feminine psyche, as well as contributing to the creation of a male-dominant psychology in