The "battle of the sexes" that rages on today is just as strong as it has always been. Although an ever-increasing number of opinions are being heard and made known, many people are still ignorant and hold on to traditional views that can sometimes be damaging. Even though there has been much progress in the ways of communication and understanding, much is still needed to be done and improved upon. Colette Dowling is a well-respected author on women's psychological issues who uses her personal experiences and insights to enlighten women about themselves. In Dowling's excerpt of The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence, she provides a clearly written and rational explanation on the psychological issues of dependency women exhibit, but lacks in supporting evidence and examples.

One night she is lying miserable in bed, sick. She then becomes conscious of the fact that she is not despondent because she feels ill, but because there is no one there to comfort her. She realizes now that this is the way it has always been, she has known no other way. Throughout her childhood she was raised with the notion

that someday somehow she would be whisked away by her prince charming and live happily ever after. She did not know what it was like to be truly independent. Nor was she raised to be comfortable with it. Boys were trained to be self-sufficient early on while her parents and society taught her that she did not need to be self-reliant; that she only needed to hold on until her "savior" came.

As her need of dependency deepened, she soon found herself asking Lowell (her partner) for consent of her activities and desires. During this time her sense of self-worth diminished drastically. She saw herself as inferior to him and felt justified in feeling this way. After all, was she not raised to feel this way? Finding all of her thoughts of inadequacy very disturbing, she resorted to what she always did when she had a problem. She expressed her anxieties and fears on paper. Persistently, she searched for a editor that would publish her book. Finally she found one and discovered that she was not alone, by any stretch of the imagination, in her need for dependency on men and all of the feelings that go along with them.

Dowling only includes one example in her book to provide for the theory that she proposes. In this example she realizes how truly dependent she is on others for her sense of security and peace of mind. Although this insight disturbs her, she finds it very difficult to stray from the path that was so clearly laid out for her throughout her lifetime. In her argument she reasons that it is not biology but cultural training that has made true independence so difficult for women. Her personal experiences certainly contribute to the persuasiveness of her argument but since there is only one of them, it can be easily shrugged off as mere opinion. What about women who were not raised as she was? If she had perhaps went about inquiring women from different walks of life, and then based her argument on that; it would have been much more effective.

Dowling does all of this while maintaining a simple and straightforward style. She is clear and concise with what she has to say. Knowing what she wants to say and how to say it, she does not waste anytime trying to persuade her audience. Nor does she include irrelevant or obscure examples as is so common in the literary world. Eric Fromme for example with his use of Antig

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Approximate Word count = 1586
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)