The Mermaid and the Minotaur (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Dorothy Dinnerstein
- First Published: 1976
- Type of Work: Social criticism
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction, Sociology, Psychology
- Subjects: Child rearing or parenting, Children, Mothers, Parents and children, Sexism, Gender roles, Human behavior, Child care
Form and Content
An emotionally charged work intended to enrage the reader, The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise analyzes the way in which female-dominated child-rearing arrangements lie at the roots of masculinity and femininity. Dorothy Dinnerstein argues that the “human malaise,” the deeply pathological and fundamentally life-threatening attitude that the species has toward itself and nature, arises from the same sexual arrangements that are intended to alleviate the pain of that malaise. The division of labor into male and female...
[The entire page is 1965 words long]
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