difference feminism

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Dear Katha,
After learning of the brouhaha over your book at amazon.com, I decided to
revist it, and the first essay I re-read was the one about difference
feminism, wittily titled "Marooned on Gilligan's Island", referring here to
Carol Gilligan. What struck me this time around is your reminder that
perhaps the most sophisticated of the difference theorists Nancy Chodorow
does not sentimentalize the gender duality of 'relational'  women and
autonomous men--indeed you note that she argues that the traditional
mothering (mother only child rearing) reuslts in 'sexual inequality,
misogyny and hostility between mothers and daughters, who, like sons,
desire independence but have a much harder time achieving it.'
Of course while you underline the critical nature of Chodorow's theory
(shared by Dorothy Dinnerstein? Isaac Balbus?), you go on to argue that
there is no firm empirical basis for the claim that relational
women/autonomous men are the norm. My question for you however is whether
you accept Chodorow's causal claim that traditional mothering does tend to
create some kind of gender duality (Sudhir Kakar has tried to lay out a
similar theory for the Indian family structure which may as well falsely
generalize behaviors found in the middle class). As I remember it, Chodorow
is not arguing for difference feminism, as Gilligan may be but for the
reorganization of child rearing, right?
Yours, Rakesh