Dorothy Dinnerstein

Dorothy Dinnerstein (April 4, 1923 – December 17, 1992) was an American feminist academic and activist, best known for her book The Mermaid and the Minotaur (1976), published in the UK as The Rocking of the Cradle and the Ruling of the World (1987). Using some elements of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, particularly as developed by Melanie Klein, Dinnerstein argued that sexism and aggression are both inevitable consequences of childrearing's being left more or less exclusively to women;^[1] the issues intrinsic to a child's engagement with and separation from its mother, Dinnerstein thought, end up being conflated with gender relations. As a solution Dinnerstein proposed that men and women share equally in infant and child care.^[2]

Biography

Born in The Bronx, Dinnerstein went to Brooklyn College, CUNY for her undergraduate degree and earned the Ph.D. in psychology from the New School for Social Research in 1951. She taught at Rutgers–Newark in New Jersey from 1959 until 3 years before her death in an automobile accident. She was survived by a daughter and two step-daughters.^[3]

Notes

1. ^ Dinnerstein, Dorothy (1987) (trade paperback). The Rocking of the Cradle and the Ruling of the World (Reprint with new introduction ed.). London: The Women's Press. p. 26 and 33–34. ISBN 0-7043-4027-5. "What is important is the effect of predominantly female care on the later emotional predilections of the child. The point of crucial consequences is that for virtually every living person, it is a woman—usually the mother—who has provided the main initial contact with humanity and with nature." 
2. ^ Dinnerstein, Dorothy (1987). The rocking of the cradle and the ruling of the world. London: Women's Press. ISBN 0-7043-4027-5. 
3. ^ "Dorothy Dinnerstein; Feminist Writer Was 69" (Obituary). The New York Times. December 19, 1992. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/19/obituaries/dorothy-dinnerstein-feminist-writer-was-69.html. Retrieved April 2, 2011. 

Bibliography

• The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise Open Press, 1999. ISBN 1892746255
  • With introduction by Vivien Bar, The Rocking of the Cradle and the Ruling of the World, Women's Press (1987), trade paperback, 288 pages, ISBN 0-7043-4027-5

External links and further reading

• Questia Online Library article (subscription req'd to read entire content) "Dorothy Dinnerstein."
• Review of The Mermaid And The Minotaur by Vivian Gornick in The New York Times Book Review November 14, 1976 (Subscriber paywall)

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Name	Dinnerstein, Dorothy
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Date of birth	April 4, 1923
Place of birth
Date of death	December 17, 1992
Place of death