The Sin of the Father: Reflections on the Roles of the Corporation Man, the Suburban Housewife, Their Son, and Their Daughter in the Deconstruction of the Patriarch

Human Relations · 1996 · Volume 49 · Issue 8

Abstract

The roots of the postmodernist denigration of the patriarch are traced to the postwar middle class family. The premise of this family was that the father would work and make possible a sphere of family life in which maternal influences, based on a primordial image of the mother, could operate without constraint. But identification with the primordial mother was psychologically insupportable for the mother, who blamed the father and enlisted the son in her antagonism. This deprived the son of the possibility of forming a superego and resulted in his aliention. The daughter raised the antagonism to the level of social program and carried it forward.

Keywords

patriarchy, alienation, postmodernism, women's studies, corporation man, feminine mystique, feminism

Enable JavaScript for citation tools and additional paper interactions.