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The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender
When this best-seller was published, it put the mother-daughter relationship and female psychology on the map. The Reproduction of Mothering was chosen by Contemporary Sociology as one of the ten most influential books of the past twenty-five years. With a new preface by the author, this updated edition is testament to the formative effect that Nancy Chodorow's work continues to exert on psychoanalysis, social science, and the humanities.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Nancy J. Chodorow
11 books42 followersNancy Julia Chodorow is a feminist sociologist and psychoanalyst educated at Radcliffe College and Brandeis University. She has written a number of influential books, including The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (1978); Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory (1989); Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond (1994); and The Power of Feelings: Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Culture (1999).
She is widely regarded as a leading psychoanalytic feminist theorist and is a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association, often speaking at its congresses. She spent many years as a professor in the departments of sociology and clinical psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. She retired from the University of California in 2005.
(from Wikipedia)
She is widely regarded as a leading psychoanalytic feminist theorist and is a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association, often speaking at its congresses. She spent many years as a professor in the departments of sociology and clinical psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. She retired from the University of California in 2005.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 19, 2016
Painfully Freudian
December 12, 2015
This is a psychoanalytic tour de force and a feminist classic, published in 1978. Much has changed for women in America since then, but the thrust and the force of her argument is as important as ever.
Chodorow argues that "the sexual division of labor and women's responsibility for child care are linked to and generate male dominance." A family dynamic in which the mother is the primary caretaker (primary object for the infant, as well as it's primary love), is bad for the psychological development of children, but worse for boys. Insofar as the family unit produces children who are un/fit for society, this must also be understood as a cultural problem. If mothering produces boys who are independent, averse to connection, prone to fear of women (in short patriarchal men), then Chodorow wonders if co-parenting might produce less anxiety about the feminine in boys, and therefore less hatred of women?
Chodorow denies that there is a biological imperative for mothers to mother (in a strong sense) beyond lactation. Technology makes it possible for a variety of others to participate in "mothering" practices.
The bulk of the book is a very careful analysis of the formation of the self from infancy to adolescence (through adulthood). Chodorow employs an object relations theory of psychoanalysis. Briefly object relations stresses the mental personality as an object, not a subject. If we feel out of control, we internalize, or "introject" objects (here, people or certain aspects of people) into ourselves, to try exercise some control within our mental life.
The primary object each infant seeks is the primary source of care, or love they encounter. In the current climate that is still typically the mother. The experience of oneness and identity with the mother is followed by an individuation from her (the end goal of the Oedipus Complex). This individuation occurs differently for boys and girls in the Mothering context. I'll try to be short. For boys, it is easy to turn from their mother and individuate because they are repressing their Oedipal desire for her. Similarly it is easy for them to idealize their (mostly absent) fathers, and their independence. However, girls do not have a pre/protosexual desire for the mother. Instead they see her as a model of relationality and connection, and as modeling mothering practices for her. Chodorow claims that the Oedipus complex happens differently (and much more slowly) in girls, because girls can love their (mostly absent) father alongside their mother. A consequence is that girls are actually more psychosexually developed than men. Another intriguing consequence, Noddings tells us, is that adult Mothered women will find it difficult to achieve sexual satisfaction because the sex act cannot recreate their cathected object of desire. Instead, she will have children, to recreate her triadic relationship between her mother and father.
Although much has changed both in women's positions in society since 1978, I anecdotally find that women still tend to be the primary caretakers, even among the more egalitarian couples I know. This is a very clever argument that women as sole care givers is bad for men, bad for women and bad for society.
Chodorow argues that "the sexual division of labor and women's responsibility for child care are linked to and generate male dominance." A family dynamic in which the mother is the primary caretaker (primary object for the infant, as well as it's primary love), is bad for the psychological development of children, but worse for boys. Insofar as the family unit produces children who are un/fit for society, this must also be understood as a cultural problem. If mothering produces boys who are independent, averse to connection, prone to fear of women (in short patriarchal men), then Chodorow wonders if co-parenting might produce less anxiety about the feminine in boys, and therefore less hatred of women?
Chodorow denies that there is a biological imperative for mothers to mother (in a strong sense) beyond lactation. Technology makes it possible for a variety of others to participate in "mothering" practices.
The bulk of the book is a very careful analysis of the formation of the self from infancy to adolescence (through adulthood). Chodorow employs an object relations theory of psychoanalysis. Briefly object relations stresses the mental personality as an object, not a subject. If we feel out of control, we internalize, or "introject" objects (here, people or certain aspects of people) into ourselves, to try exercise some control within our mental life.
The primary object each infant seeks is the primary source of care, or love they encounter. In the current climate that is still typically the mother. The experience of oneness and identity with the mother is followed by an individuation from her (the end goal of the Oedipus Complex). This individuation occurs differently for boys and girls in the Mothering context. I'll try to be short. For boys, it is easy to turn from their mother and individuate because they are repressing their Oedipal desire for her. Similarly it is easy for them to idealize their (mostly absent) fathers, and their independence. However, girls do not have a pre/protosexual desire for the mother. Instead they see her as a model of relationality and connection, and as modeling mothering practices for her. Chodorow claims that the Oedipus complex happens differently (and much more slowly) in girls, because girls can love their (mostly absent) father alongside their mother. A consequence is that girls are actually more psychosexually developed than men. Another intriguing consequence, Noddings tells us, is that adult Mothered women will find it difficult to achieve sexual satisfaction because the sex act cannot recreate their cathected object of desire. Instead, she will have children, to recreate her triadic relationship between her mother and father.
Although much has changed both in women's positions in society since 1978, I anecdotally find that women still tend to be the primary caretakers, even among the more egalitarian couples I know. This is a very clever argument that women as sole care givers is bad for men, bad for women and bad for society.
September 21, 2013
While I appreciate Chodorow's approach and attempt to deconstruct "naturalized" definitions of motherhood and mothering, I find some of her truths to be gender essentialist and wrong. Some key quotes include:
“[This book] analyzes the reproduction of mothering as a central and constituting element in the social organization and reproduction of gender” (7).
“What I wish to question is whether there is a biological basis in women for caretaking capacities specifically and whether women must perform whatever parenting children need” (16).
“Both her identification with her mother and her re-experience of self as child may lead to conflict over those particular issues from a mother’s own childhood which remain unresolved” (90).
“Women’s mothering, then, produces asymmetries in the relational experiences of girls and boys as they grow up, which account for crucial differences in feminine and masculine personality, and the relational capacities and modes which these entail” (169).
“[This book] analyzes the reproduction of mothering as a central and constituting element in the social organization and reproduction of gender” (7).
“What I wish to question is whether there is a biological basis in women for caretaking capacities specifically and whether women must perform whatever parenting children need” (16).
“Both her identification with her mother and her re-experience of self as child may lead to conflict over those particular issues from a mother’s own childhood which remain unresolved” (90).
“Women’s mothering, then, produces asymmetries in the relational experiences of girls and boys as they grow up, which account for crucial differences in feminine and masculine personality, and the relational capacities and modes which these entail” (169).
December 24, 2019
the content is useful , but the result concluded isn't clear and satisfying , eventhough , we all feel (intuitively ) that there is something unseen connect and relate mother to her children ? gender would have to do with early personality development , recent studies on brain functioning clarify the secrets of motherLchild biological relatin which stress the labour division between male and female for the sake of the family interests & society .
January 11, 2015
This is the scariest nonfiction book I have ever read.
recommended summer reading from the MIT anthropology department head.
This was recommended to me because I had been very forthcoming with proffering what I thought were my weaknesses in our initial 1/2 hour meeting during admit days in March 2013.
Some serious theory and explication up in this book. slow reading though.
recommended summer reading from the MIT anthropology department head.
This was recommended to me because I had been very forthcoming with proffering what I thought were my weaknesses in our initial 1/2 hour meeting during admit days in March 2013.
Some serious theory and explication up in this book. slow reading though.
February 10, 2025
Js ful rada berem psihoanalize in tale je bla zlo zanimiva. Mal prevec freudovska but still. Mi je ful vsec da je ovrgla mit o materinstvu z vidika bioloske sorodnosti, torej, dejstvo da nekdo posvoji otroka niti mal slabo ne vpliva na otrokovo dusevnost, dokler ma z njem ljubec odnos. Sam tko fak, kok je ona mene prestrasla glede materinstva. Ce prehitr otroka vrzes v druzbo bo brezcustven prasec. Ce prepozn otroka izpostavis druzbi bo razvajena mevza. Can i live. Zivimo v neoliberalnem kapitalizmu, taka mentaliteta spada v case, ko so mogle bit zenske doma pa gospodinjit (they still do that ampak to je tema za kak drug review). Tut ni cist res da majo ene zenske zgodi otroke zarad travm iz otrostva, kr kao hocjo skoz svojga otroka svoje otrostvo izboljsat. Ka pa vem ce je to res no.
June 11, 2025
nancy ti voglio bene ma basta ripetere la stessa cosa per 300 pagine per favore
June 11, 2025
Dense. Not written for someone who lacks a background in psychology.
January 27, 2014
I have the impression, maybe mistaken, that despite a ton of recent writing about gender, little of it uses psychoanalysis, even though use is made of postmodernism and Marxism (!). It’s too bad too many analysts have been so conformist (probably the reason psychoanalysis is viewed with suspicion), because as a description of a patriarchal, repressive society where neurosis runs rampant and the nuclear family forms the hinge between private and public, Freudianism is pretty on the mark. Obviously Freud and other analysts could be quite conservative and patriarchal themselves, but in the essentials their work points in the right direction. To me it seems obvious gender would have to do with early personality development, sexuality, a deep emotional life, conflicts and anxieties, fantasies, identifications, projections and introjections, etc. You don’t find that in Marx.
Anyway, Chodorow argues that women mother because they were mothered by women, which is very unsurprising, but when she goes into the details she constructs an interesting and plausible account. Having one primary caretaker that identifies as the same gender as the daughter leads to a long pre-oedipal phase and a different affective life and psychical structure compared to those children who are identified as other than mother, the men who are prepared for the capitalist world of work, and whose tremendous unconscious dread of mother provides an endless resource for ideologies of male domination.
Anyway, Chodorow argues that women mother because they were mothered by women, which is very unsurprising, but when she goes into the details she constructs an interesting and plausible account. Having one primary caretaker that identifies as the same gender as the daughter leads to a long pre-oedipal phase and a different affective life and psychical structure compared to those children who are identified as other than mother, the men who are prepared for the capitalist world of work, and whose tremendous unconscious dread of mother provides an endless resource for ideologies of male domination.
November 11, 2007
With the obvious exception of my darling SF's, this is the only psychoanalytic monograph I've ever actually enjoyed.
Nancy Chodorow is a genius. I don't love this book only because I'm obsessed with gender, but because she really, really, really reaaaaally ties the personal/psychoanalytic process to the macro-level social world in a way that is so CLEAR AND ELEGANT AND COHERENT and LACKING so often elsewhere! Also, the way she describes parenting and gender roles will give you a framework you can use for the rest of your life.
Nancy Chodorow is a genius. I don't love this book only because I'm obsessed with gender, but because she really, really, really reaaaaally ties the personal/psychoanalytic process to the macro-level social world in a way that is so CLEAR AND ELEGANT AND COHERENT and LACKING so often elsewhere! Also, the way she describes parenting and gender roles will give you a framework you can use for the rest of your life.
February 18, 2007
If you want to understand why (most) little boys grow up to men and (most) little girls grow up to be women, read this book. It explains how what we learn from day one really shapes our gender identities.
June 29, 2008
A Western Viewpoint that turns the tables of Freud. It has been a number of years since I read Chodorow. She is simultaneously brilliant and fun to read. I am thinking that I need to dig out this book and read it again.Very thoughtful theorist.
July 7, 2008
I can't say I remember anything out of this book... I had to read it for a psychology class, and it was pretty awful.
November 16, 2011
I get that it was groundbreaking, but this book is problematic on so many levels and so gender-essentializing in so many ways that it just made me itch from start to finish.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews