ABSTRACT
Writing in the 1760s, Rousseau aimed to carve out a sphere of "inwardness" that would be the object of an exhaustive ethical struggle to know and be oneself. The feminist sociologist, Francesca Cancian, argued that American ideas of romantic love have been feminized. In the 1970s and 1980s, the work of second-wave feminist psychoanalysts such as Chodorow and Dinnerstein sought to account for the persistence of a male dominated binary gender order. By the 1980s, a difference-based feminism found widespread support among second-wave feminists. Deconstructive currents among feminists, queers, antiracists and others speak to a revolt against identity-based normalization. Between the 19th century and today, the sociocultural context of intimate life in the US has changed dramatically. Social worlds make demands, impose expectations, and tempt seduction and a loss of self-possession. In contrast to Weber's vision of the ethical self, Freud imagined a "psychological self". He delineated a distinctive arena of life- "the psyche.".
