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

Unleashing Our Unknown Selves begins with a critique of central paradigms in contemporary social science and ends with a provocative new theory of psychosexual development. Dr. Morrow brilliantly demonstrates why men are just as damaged as women by our present patriarchal sex/gender system. . . . I highly recommend [it] as a primary text for graduate courses in human development, psychology of gender, and cultural studies. Joseph L. White, Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Comparative Culture, University of California, IrvineDescribed as a hopeful book, Unleashing Our Unknown Selves presents a new theory of psychosexual development and, concurrently, of psychosocial evolution. France Morrow claims that the sexual division of nature was a primordial organizing principle for all cultures. However, evolving qualities and psychological characteristics have been assigned by culture to women and men. Real biological differences have, over millennia, been incorporated, absorbed, or superceded by cultural differences.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 on the future of femininity and masculinity, and the internal repression of the majority self. Morrow's study affirms the dependence of human survival on the integrating of our feminine selves with our masculine selves. Her work is particularly directed to courses in developmental and social psychology, gender studies, sociology, and women's studies.