ABSTRACT
Men's psychological masculinization is analogous to the fetal androgynization that takes place in the womb. They begin their emotional lives in the orbit of women, whom they are like in many respects. Like hormones, psychological male principles have to be introduced into their experience and their psyches if they are to feel like men one day. In the case of the mind, it is largely the father who is the agent of a boy's masculine development. A consideration of fathers, like mothers before them, is essential to an understanding of the psychology of men. Moreover, a conventionality seemed to be built into the very notion of adult development, which in the 1980s had seemed so radical and liberating to psychoanalysts. In the absence of clearly defined biological maturation, adult men's negotiation of both potential milestones and unique challenges in the unfolding of their lives seemed less driven by a pre-wired epigenesis than by adaptation.
