Nancy Chodorow

Last updated

Nancy Chodorow
Born
Nancy Julia Chodorow

(1944-01-20) January 20, 1944 (age 80)
New York City, New York, United States
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Radcliffe College
London School of Economics and Political Science
Harvard University
Brandeis University
Known forPsychoanalytical feminism
Scientific career
FieldsPsychoanalytic theory and clinical methods, psychoanalysis, gender and sexuality, psychoanalytic sociology and anthropology, feminist theory and methods
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley; Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School Wellesley College
Doctoral advisor Egon Bittner [1]
Other academic advisors Philip Slater

Nancy Julia Chodorow (born January 20, 1944) is an American sociologist and professor. [2] She began teaching at Wellesley College in 1973 and at the University of California, Santa Cruz,from 1974 until 1986. [3] She was a Sociology and Clinical Psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley until 1986. [4] [5] Subsequently, she taught psychiatry at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance.

Contents

Chodorow has written several books on contemporary feminist thought, [6] including The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (1978); [4] [7] [8] 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). In 1996, Contemporary Sociology named The Reproduction of Mothering one of the ten most influential books of the past 25 years. [4] [8]

Biography

Personal life

Chodorow was born to a Jewish family on January 20, 1944, in New York City, New York. [9] Her parents were Marvin Chodorow, a professor of applied physics, and Leah (Turitz) Chodorow, a community activist who helped establish the Stanford Village Nursery School and served as its first parents board president. [10] [11] In 1977, Chodorow married economist Michael Reich, with whom she had two children, Rachel and Gabriel. They separated in 1996. [12] [13]

Education

Chodorow graduated from Radcliffe College in 1966, where she studied under Beatrice Whiting and W.M. Whiting. She was influenced by Beatrice Whiting, an American anthropologist specializing in child development. [14] Chodorow's undergraduate work focused on personality and cultural anthropology. [10] She received her Ph.D. in sociology from Brandeis University in 1975. [15] Philip Slater was an influence on her studies, directing her focus to the unconscious phenomena of psychoanalysis. [10] Chodorow later cited Slater's book, Glory of Hera (1968), as influential on her thinking about men's fear of women and its manifestation in culture. Following her Ph.D., Chodorow received clinical training at the University of California, Berkeley, Dept. of Psychology (1984-86) and the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute (1985-1993). [3]

Influences

Sigmund Freud

Freudian psychoanalysis is a major influence on Chodorow's work. She critiques Freudian analysis from a feminist perspective to understand the mother-child relationship. [16] Chodorow draws on the Freudian model of female development to suggest a link between a girl's gender development and her closeness to her mother. She theorizes that girls pursue a privilege already achieved by boys, who are valued by the mother as objects of her Oedipal gratification. [17] Boys, however, possess both the need and ability to detach from their mothers. Chodorow suggests that females resolve their inner conflict by converting envy of male privilege into heterosexual desire. [17] Based on Freudian theory, Chodorow argues that the Oedipus complex symbolically separates male children from their mothers, while young girls continue to identify with and remain attached to their mothers. [6] Chodorow posits that Freud's theory of the Oedipal conflict and revolution depends on the father being present at the right time. [18] Her analysis hypothesizes that a female's desire for men is a consequence of her strong desire for her mother. [18]

Chodorow also uses Sigmund Freud's theory to argue that differences between men and women are largely due to capitalism and the absent father. [19] She acknowledges economic changes occurring around 2003 and their psychological impact on both sexes with regard to shared parenting. [5] She argues that the development of shared parenting has challenged the traditional mothering role, leaving mothers and children with less time together. [18]

Chodorow contends that Freudian theory suppresses women. She draws on Freud's concept of how nature becomes culture, creating a "second nature," to argue that gender is formed and organized through both social institutions and transformations in consciousness and psyche. [17] She uses Freud's idea of intrapsychic structures—the id, ego, and superego—to argue that the internal workings of males and females are structurally different due to socialization, not inherent differences. [19]

Contributions

The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (1978)

Chodorow's The Reproduction of Mothering delves into four primary concepts: the unique personality traits of women, the pattern of male dominance and its potential for change, the reasons behind most women's identification as heterosexual, and the reasons behind women's innate desire to mother. Chodorow sees mothering as a dual structure, shaped by childhood experience and the social structure of kinship. She posits that becoming a mother is not solely biological or instinctual. [20] [16] She argues that "mothering" is socially constructed and part of female personality because women are mothered by women. [21] In the book, Chodorow argues that gender differences arise from formations of the Oedipal complex. While both male and female children experience closeness with their mothers, females seek gratification from this connection in a way that males do not. [21] She contends that women's mothering, a common element of the sexual division of labor, positions them in the domestic sphere while men occupy the public sphere. [21] One critique of this assertion is that it might suggest women are not psychologically suited for the public sphere. [21] Chodorow builds on Freud's assertion of bisexuality at birth and the mother as the child's first sexual object. Drawing on Karen Horney and Melanie Klein, she suggests that the child's ego forms in reaction to the mother. Male children achieve independent agency easily, identifying with the father and emulating his interest in the mother/wife. This process is more complex for female children, who identify strongly with the mother and attempt to make the father the new love object, thus hindering their ego formation. [8]

The mother-infant bond shapes the child's identity and enables recognition of the father as separate, unless the father provides similar primary care. [22] This separation can lead to ambivalence toward the father. [22] Consequently, children are more obedient to their father, not because of his authority but because of the nature of the initial father-child relationship. [8] [17]

Nancy Chodorow and The Reproduction of Mothering Forty Years (2021)

The influence of The Reproduction of Mothering led to its revisiting in 2021, forty years after its initial publication. [23] In this work, Chodorow writes, "The mother is the early caregiver and primary source of identification for all children ... A daughter continues to identify with the mother," [8] explaining that this strong bond inhibits the daughter's identity formation. While the initial bond with the mother applies to both sexes, boys break away earlier to identify with their fathers, thus perpetuating the mother-daughter identification. [17]

Gender personality

Chodorow connects the contrasting dyadic and triadic first love experiences to the social construction of gender roles, citing the universal degradation of women in culture, cross-cultural patterns in male behavior, and marital strain in Western society after Second Wave feminism. She argues that in marriage, women prioritize children over sex, which drives men away. Upon reaching sexual maturity, women devote their energy to children. [8]

Chodorow suggests that the psyches of men and women differ due to dissimilar childhood experiences. [19] She argues that women's less fixed ego boundaries explain their greater empathy and hypothesizes that if society perceives women primarily as mothers, female liberation will be experienced as traumatic. [18]

"The centrality of sex and gender in the categories of psychoanalysis, coupled with the tenacity, emotional centrality and sweeping power in our lives of our sense of gendered self, made psychoanalysis a particularly apposite source of feminist theorizing." [24]

Chodorow argues that masculinity is learned consciously in the absence of the father, while femininity is embedded in the ongoing relationship with the mother. [18] She states, “Masculinity is defined as much negatively as positively,” [8] [18] arguing that while female identification is a rational process, male identification is defined by rejection. [18]

Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory (1991)

In Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory, Chodorow argues that men's suppression of their need for love leads to an inability to tolerate others expressing that need. [25] Women, having not suppressed this need, tolerate emotional unresponsiveness in exchange for some love and care. [26] Men, unable to silence this desire through repression, protect themselves from women while maintaining heterosexual relationships. [25] Chodorow suggests that a more involved father figure could rectify these emotional ambiguities. [25]

Chodorow posits that closeness to the mother diminishes women's sex drive toward men, while men's repressed needs result in a stronger sex drive and more romantic love. [25] She suggests this may be the basis for male aggression toward women. [25] She also focuses on how society values women for "being" and men for "action," tying this to women's relationship-oriented nature. [25] She links this to Freudian theory by arguing that men pay a price for detachment from their mothers and repression of their feminine selves. [25]

"I part company with most American psychoanalysts in my reliance on object relations theory and in that I have always seen psychoanalysis as an interpretive enterprise (not medical nor scientific). I differ from many academic humanists in seeing psychoanalysis as a social science that is theoretically grounded but, nonetheless, empirically infused study of lives. "

The Power of Feelings: Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender; and Culture (1999)

In The Power of Feelings, Chodorow addresses the relation between culture and individual identity, the role of unconscious fantasy, and the epistemology of psychoanalytic theories. [27] She combines theoretical approaches, focusing on psychoanalysis and feminist theory, while acknowledging their shortcomings regarding gender psychology. She argues that gender identity develops through a combination of personal and cultural meanings. [28]

The Psychoanalytic Ear and the Sociological Eye: Toward an American Independent Tradition (2019)

In The Psychoanalytic Ear and the Sociological Eye, Chodorow explores the relationship between social relationships and individuality, arguing that sociology and psychoanalysis have suffered from not exploring their interconnectedness. She focuses on Erik Erikson and Hans Loewald, reflecting on her own cultural and psychoanalytic journeys. [29]

Rankings

Chodorow's ranking as the "2,017th Most Influential Person" and her rankings within sociology, feminist sociology, psychology, and psychoanalysis require reliable sourcing.[ citation needed ]

Works

Books

Related Research Articles

Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field now overlaps with queer studies and men's studies. Its rise to prominence, especially in Western universities after 1990, coincided with the rise of deconstruction.

Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, communication, media studies, psychoanalysis, political theory, home economics, literature, education, and philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Womb envy</span> Male envy of womens biological functions

In psychology, womb envy denotes the envy that men may feel of the biological functions of the female. The neo-Freudian psychiatrist Karen Horney (1885–1952) proposed this as an innate male psychological trait. These emotions could fuel the social subordination of women, and drive men to succeed in other areas of life, such as business, medicine, law, and politics. Each term is analogous to the concept of female penis envy presented in Freudian psychology. In this they address the gender role social dynamics underlying the "envy and fascination with the female breasts and lactation, with pregnancy and childbearing, and vagina envy [that] are clues and signs of transsexualism and to a femininity complex of men, which is defended against by psychological and sociocultural means".

Juliet Mitchell, Lady Goody is a British psychoanalyst, socialist feminist, research professor and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of gender</span> Branch of the discipline of sociology

Sociology of gender is a subfield of sociology. As one of the most important social structures is status. One of the most important statuses an individual claims is gender. Public discourse and the academic literature generally use the term gender for the perceived or projected (self-identified) masculinity or femininity of a person.

<i>The Dialectic of Sex</i> 1970 book by Shulamith Firestone

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution is a 1970 book by the radical feminist activist Shulamith Firestone. Written over a few months when Firestone was 25, it has been described as a classic of feminist thought.

<i>Sexual Politics</i> 1970 book by Kate Millett

Sexual Politics is the debut book by American writer and activist Kate Millett, based on her PhD dissertation at Columbia University. It was published in 1970 by Doubleday. It is regarded as a classic of feminism and one of radical feminism's key texts, a formative piece in shaping the intentions of the second-wave feminist movement. In Sexual Politics, an explicit focus is placed on male dominance throughout prominent 20th century art and literature. According to Millett, western literature reflects patriarchal constructions and the heteronormativity of society. She argues that men have established power over women, but that this power is the result of social constructs rather than innate or biological qualities.

Feminine psychology or the psychology of women is an approach that focuses on social, economic, and political issues confronting women all throughout their lives. It emerged as a reaction to male-dominated developmental theories such as Sigmund Freud's view of female sexuality. The original work of Karen Horney argued that male realities cannot describe female psychology or define their gender because they are not informed by girls' or women's experiences. Theorists, like Horney, claimed this new feminist approach of women's experiences being different than men's was required, and that women's social existence was crucial in understanding their psychology. It is suggested in Dr. Carol Gilligan's research that some characteristics of female psychology emerge to comply with the given social order defined by men and not necessarily because it is the nature of their gender or psychology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feminist views on the Oedipus complex</span> Feminist psychoanalytic response to Freuds model of gender identity

Feminists have long struggled with Sigmund Freud's classical model of gender and identity development, which centers on the Oedipus complex. Freud's model, which became integral to orthodox psychoanalysis, suggests that because women lack the visible genitals of the male, they feel they are "missing" the most central characteristic necessary for gaining narcissistic value—therefore developing feelings of gender inequality and penis envy. In his late theory on the feminine, Freud recognized the early and long lasting libidinal attachment of the daughter to the mother during the pre-oedipal stages. Feminist psychoanalysts have confronted these ideas and reached different conclusions. Some generally agree with Freud's major outlines, modifying it through observations of the pre-Oedipal phase. Others reformulate Freud's theories more completely.

Barbara Creed is a professor of cinema studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of six books on gender, feminist film theory, and the horror genre. Creed is a graduate of Monash and La Trobe universities where she completed doctoral research using the framework of psychoanalysis and feminist theory to examine horror films. She is known for her cultural criticism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessica Benjamin</span> American psychoanalyst

Jessica Benjamin is a psychoanalyst known for her contributions to psychoanalysis and social thought. She is currently a practicing psychoanalyst in New York City where she is on the faculty of the New York University Postdoctoral Psychology Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, and the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. Jessica Benjamin is one of the original contributors to the fields of relational psychoanalysis, theories of intersubjectivity, and gender studies and feminism as it relates to psychoanalysis and society. She is known for her ideas about recognition in both human development and the sociopolitical arena.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Horney</span> German psychoanalyst (1885–1952)

Karen Horney was a German psychoanalyst who practiced in the United States during her later career. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views. This was particularly true of her theories of sexuality and of the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis. She is credited with founding feminist psychology in response to Freud's theory of penis envy. She disagreed with Freud about inherent differences in the psychology of men and women, and like Adler, she traced such differences to society and culture rather than biology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electra complex</span> Jungian psychological concept

In neo-Freudian psychology, the Electra complex, as proposed by Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung in his Theory of Psychoanalysis, is a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. In the course of her psychosexual development, the complex is the girl's phallic stage; a boy's analogous experience is the Oedipus complex. The Electra complex occurs in the third—phallic stage —of five psychosexual development stages: the oral, the anal, the phallic, the latent, and the genital—in which the source of libido pleasure is in a different erogenous zone of the infant's body.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oedipus complex</span> Idea in psychoanalysis

In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex refers to a son's sexual attitude towards his mother and concomitant hostility toward his father, first formed during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. A daughter's attitude of desire for her father and hostility toward her mother is referred to as the feminine Oedipus complex. The general concept was considered by Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), although the term itself was introduced in his paper A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men (1910).

Penis envy is a stage in Sigmund Freud's theory of female psychosexual development, in which young girls experience anxiety upon realization that they do not have a penis. Freud considered this realization a defining moment in a series of transitions toward a mature female sexuality. In Freudian theory, the penis envy stage begins the transition from attachment to the mother to competition with the mother for the attention and affection of the father. The young boy's realization that women do not have a penis is thought to result in castration anxiety.

Patriarchy is a social system in which men typically hold authority and responsibility while also excluding women from it. In anthropology, it refers to a family or clan structure where the father or eldest male holds supremacy within the family, while in feminist theory, it encompasses a broader social structure where men collectively dominate societal norms and institutions.

Psychoanalytic sociology is the research field that analyzes society using the same methods that psychoanalysis applies to analyze an individual.

Poststructural feminism is a branch of feminism that engages with insights from post-structuralist thought. Poststructural feminism emphasizes "the contingent and discursive nature of all identities", and in particular the social construction of gendered subjectivities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Male gaze</span> Concept in feminist theory

In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts and in literature from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer. The concept was first articulated by British feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Mulvey's theory draws on historical precedents, such as the depiction of women in European oil paintings from the Renaissance period, where the female form was often idealized and presented from a voyeuristic male perspective. Art historian John Berger, in his work Ways of Seeing (1972), highlighted how traditional Western art positioned women as subjects of male viewers’ gazes, reinforcing a patriarchal visual narrative.

<i>Modern Woman: The Lost Sex</i> 1947 book by Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia F. Farnham

Modern Woman: The Lost Sex is a 1947 work of scientific literature written by Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia F. Farnham, M.D. which discusses the sociological and psychological context of American women in the post World War II era.

References

  1. ↑ Chodorow, Nancy Julia (1975). Family Structure and Feminine Personality: The Reproduction of Mothering (PhD). Brandeis University. p. i. OCLC   217167326. ProQuest   302744378.
  2. ↑ Chodorow, Nancy (1995). "Becoming a feminist foremother". In Phyllis Chesler; Esther D. Rothblum; Ellen Cole (eds.). Feminist foremothers in women's studies, psychology, and mental health. New York: Haworth Press. pp.  141–154. ISBN   9781560247678.
  3. 1 2 "Nancy J. Chodorow". sociology.berkeley.edu.
  4. 1 2 3 "Chodorow, Nancy (Julia) 1944-". Encyclopedia.com.
  5. 1 2 Chodorow, Nancy (1996). "Nancy Chodorow". Feminist Writers. 1996.
  6. 1 2 Luttrell, Wendy (2005). "Chodorow, Nancy". Encyclopedia of Social Theory. doi:10.4135/9781412952552.n41. ISBN   9780761926115.
  7. ↑ "CMPS Annual Conference (December 1, 2012)". Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies, New York, NY. Archived from the original on December 18, 2012. Retrieved July 7, 2017.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "The Reproduction of Mothering by Nancy J. Chodorow - Paper". University of California Press. Retrieved November 25, 2024.
  9. ↑ "Chodorow, Nancy (Julia) 1944- | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved March 1, 2022.
  10. 1 2 3 Pearce, Jeremy (October 31, 2005). "Marvin Chodorow, 92, Expert in the Use of Microwave Tubes, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved November 25, 2024.
  11. ↑ Unger, Rhoda K. (March 1, 2009). "Psychology in the United States". Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Jewish Women's Archive. jwa.org. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  12. ↑ "Chodorow, Nancy (Julia) 1944- | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved February 23, 2022.
  13. ↑ Haber (2002). "Haber's Art Reviews: Nancy Chodorow's Biological Clock".
  14. ↑ "Beatrice Whiting, 89, an Expert On Culture's Role in Personality". NY Times.
  15. ↑ "News and Ideas". Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
  16. 1 2 Lemert, Charles (2018). Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings. New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN   9780429974267.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 Nadeau, Frances A. (December 1, 1995). "The Mother/Daughter Relationships in Young Adult Fiction". The ALAN Review. 22 (2). doi:10.21061/alan.v22i2.a.5.
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Chodorow, Nancy (Winter 2003). "The Reproduction of Mothering; Feminism and Psycohoanalytic Theory; Femininities, Masculinities and Sexualities; The Power of Feelings (Book Reviews)". American Psychological Association. Retrieved February 25, 2019.
  19. 1 2 3 Allan, Kenneth (2005). Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory: Seeing the Social World. Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press. pp.  214. ISBN   9781412905725.
  20. ↑ Allan, Kenneth (2012). Contemporary Social and Sociological Theory: Visualizing Social Worlds. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. p. 380. ISBN   978-1412978200.
  21. 1 2 3 4 Piotrkowski, Chaya (October 1979). "The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender". Sex Roles. 5 (5): 692–697.
  22. 1 2 "Nancy Chodorow". Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (6th ed.). March 2017.
  23. ↑ Bueskens, Petra, ed. (2021). Nancy Chodorow and the Reproduction of Mothering. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-55590-0. ISBN   978-3-030-55589-4. S2CID   243119016.[ page needed ]
  24. ↑ "Nancy Chodorow". faculty.webster.edu. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  25. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Newman Metzl, Marilyn (Winter 2003). "The Reproduction of Mothering; Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory; Femininities, Masculinities and Sexualities; The Power of Feelings (Book Reviews)". American Psychological Association. pp. 55–60.
  26. ↑ Chodorow, Nancy J. (1989). Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory . Yale University Press. ISBN   9780300173376. Nancy Chodorow.
  27. ↑ Tietjens Meyers, Diana (November 2000). "The Power of Feelings: Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis. By Nancy J. Chodorow. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv+328. $27.50". American Journal of Sociology. 106 (3): 850–852. doi:10.1086/318984. ISSN   0002-9602.
  28. ↑ Sheafer, Vicki (September 2001). "The Power of Feelings (Book)". Women's Studies. 30 (5). doi:10.1086/318984.
  29. ↑ "The Psychoanalytic Ear and the Sociological Eye: Toward an American Independent Tradition". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved March 1, 2021.
  30. ↑ Ehrlich, Robert (July 2, 2020). "The Psychoanalytic Ear and the Sociological Eye: Toward an American Independent Tradition.: By Nancy J. Chodorow. New York: Routledge, 2020. 290 pp". The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. 89 (3): 645–659. doi:10.1080/00332828.2020.1776564. ISSN   0033-2828.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.