Unleashing Our Unknown Selves: An Inquiry Into the Future of Femininity and Masculinity

This volume presents a theory of psychosexual development and, concurrently, of psychosocial evolution. The author claims that the sexual division of nature was a primordial organizing principle for all cultures. However, evolving qualities and psychological characteristics have been asssigned by culture to women and men. Real biological differences have, over millennia, been incorporated, absorbed or superseded by cultural differences. The resultant schism between femininity and masculinity represents the deepest cleavage in the human species, crippling both men and women through the cultural subordination of women. Morrow believes that to be truly whole , both sexes must be allowed to release the repressed qualities of the opposite sex. France Morrow’s interdisciplinary focus finds hope in the explanatory power of a theory which systematically explores the crippling of both sexes by the cultural invisibility of women. The book’s chapters explore, among other subjects, the structure of gender evolution, Sigmund Freud’s impact of the future of femininity and masculinity and the internal repression of the majority self . Morrow’s study argues that the dependence of human survival depends on the integrating of people’s feminist selves with their masculine selves. Her work is particularly directed to courses in developmental and social psychology, gender studies, sociology and women’s studies.