Men are strong, chivalrous protectors, and women are meek, unassertive and passive "damsels in distress" who look to their storybook heroes for protection, safety, and sustenance. These damsels however, are the main nurturers of the family, and even though this is a great responsibility, there is little recognition or celebration when they do their job well.

             Early in the book, Dinnerstein acknowledges this diversity among the sexes and the very different roles men and women assume in society, and states her basic thesis, that this is the most important issue facing women. She notes, "Under the arrangements that now prevail, a woman is the parental person who is every infant's first love, first witness, and first boss, the person who presides over the infant's first encounters with the natural surround and who exists for the infant as the first representative of the flesh" (Dinnerstein 28). Thus, if women are to ever gain equality with men, and live their lives empowered, as men do, our society must change the way we look at child-rearing and family responsibilities, before important and radical change can occur.

             While Dinnerstein sees early childhood as key to development and growth, much like Freud did in his love/hate hypothesis with the mother and the son, Dinnerstein does not blame the mother for her role in the upbringing and gender development of her children. While she acknowledges the role Freud's theories played in her own theories, she does not simply blame the male ego on the mother. She writes, "Feminist preoccupation with Freud's patriarchal bias, with his failure to jump with alacrity right out of his male Victorian skin, seems to me wildly ungrateful. The conceptual tool that he has put into our hands is a revolutionary one" (Dinnerstein xxix). Rather than blame Freud and his convictions, she has a different view of child rearing in general. She encourages families to blend the child-rearing options, including men more openly in the raising and molding of the children from an early age.