Just about everyone acknowledges there are gender and societal differences between men and women, including many writers in the course text. For example, many experts agree that women are taught passivity and non-assertiveness from an early age, while men are taught to be strong, protective, and assertive. Susan Griffin, in he

While Dinnerstein sees early childhood as key to development and growth, much like Freud did in his love/hate hypothesis with the mother and the son, Dinnerstein does not blame the mother for her role in the upbringing and gender development of her children. While she acknowledges the role Freud's theories played in her own theories, she does not simply blame the male ego on the mother. She writes, "Feminist preoccupation with Freud's patriarchal bias, with his failure to jump with alacrity right out of his male Victorian skin, seems to me wildly ungrateful. The conceptual tool that he has put into our hands is a revolutionary one" (Dinnerstein xxix). Rather than blame Freud and his convictions, she has a different view of child rearing in general. She encourages families to blend the child-rearing options, including men more openly in the raising and molding of the children from an early age.

Some critics may note that in modern society, many men are indeed more involved in raising their children. More men are staying home with their children while the wife is the main provider for the household. More fathers are actively involved in their children's activities and schedules, and parents are sharing many responsibilities that were once simply considered "women's work." However, the fact remains that even today, in most couples, the woman holds down a full-time job, and continues to work at home at a majority of the child-rearing and housework type tasks.

While men may pitch in and help with a few items, women still are the main cooks, cleaners, and laundresses of the home, and so, they form a lasting image in their children's minds as the strong, vibrant woman who manages to work, work some more, and always be there when they are needed. The child forms an emotional and physical bond with the mother as soon as it is born, as Dinnerstein notes "It is in a woman's arms and bosom that the delicate-skinned infant -- shocked at birth by sudden light, dry air, noises, drafts, separateness, jostling -- originally nestles. In contact with her flesh it first feels the ecstasy of suckling, of release from the anguish of hunger and the terror of isolation" (Dinnerstein 33). Thus, children naturally turn to their mothers for nurturing, and their fathers for little in their first few months and years. Mothers are the backbone of the family, and because of this, gender issues begin early, as a result of the mother's nurturing and the father's relative absence.

In conclusion, Dinnerstein's thesis may be controversial, but the issue remains, there are extreme differences between male and female roles and situatio

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