ABSTRACT
This chapter comments on the contributions by John Ross and Ellen Sinkman, whose chapters show how fathers, male mentors, and the overall male power structure, help or impede the psychological and social development of young girls, teenagers, and women. Identifying with the father of power shores up the daughter’s power; identifying with weak fathers like Hushpuppy’s can lead to grandiosity. The implications for the psychoanalytic psychotherapist of conflicts particular to young girls, teenagers, and women are highlighted. Ross’s spicy paper brings up a very important issue in the analysis of women. Foremost is the issue of female aggression. Modern men complain about female aggression. In some traditional societies, women could hardly confront this dilemma. Women were best off being as passive as possible. Passive was feminine, aggressive was masculine. For a female patient, the question of how aggressive is too aggressive is crucial.
