I got halfway through Nancy Chodorow's The Reproduction of Mothering, and gave up.
Reading the metaphysics of Freudian psychoanalysis is like reading the witch lore of the Trobriand Islanders. I respect it as a rich and intricate culture, but I don't think it actually describes the world I live in.
In my Macrosociological Theory syllabus, I am going to swap it out for The Feminine Mystique.
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Well, you know what they say: if you finish every book you read, you don't read enough. I must say, it (the book, that is) sounds dreadful. Hemingway had a wonderful line, "It was an idiotic idea, a theory, like another."
I believe I said this before, but nonetheless, The Feminine Mystique should at least offer interesting thoughts from a historical perspective. I think, as it is like reading a book from a foreign world, it also is very useful for shedding light on the differences of society today (and what is not so different at all).
I have assigned the parts of The Feminine Mystique that review the history of first-wave feminism. It is a heroic history that has been largely blotted out, even for feminists, by the successes of second-wave feminism.
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