ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that a crucial differentiating experience in male and female development arises out of the fact that women, universally, are largely responsible for early child care and for later female socialization. It focuses on the ongoing interpersonal relationships in which these various behaviors are given meaning. The chapter proposes a model to account for the reproduction within each generation of certain general and nearly universal differences that characterize masculine and feminine personality and roles. Most traditional accounts of family and socialization tend to emphasize only role training, and not unconscious features of personality. According to psychoanalytic theory, personality is a result of a boy's or girl's social-relational experiences from earliest infancy. Women's universal mothering role has effects both on the development of masculine and feminine personality and on the relative status of the sexes.
