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Dorothy Dinnerstein (April 4, 1923 – December 17, 1992) was an American academic and activist, best known for her book The Mermaid and the Minotaur (1976) (also published in the UK in 1987 as The Rocking of the Cradle and the Ruling of the World). Drawing from elements of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, particularly as developed by Melanie Klein, Dinnerstein argued that sexism and aggression are both inevitable consequences of child rearing being left exclusively to women. As a solution, Dinnerstein proposed that men and women equally share infant and child care responsibilities. Her theories were not widely revered at the time they were published . Dorothy Dinnerstein was also a feminist, expressing her position by stating that “it's easier for women than for men to see what's wrong with the world that men have run".

Biography

Born on April 4, 1923 in The Bronx, Dinnerstein was raised in a Jewish community with her two parents, both progressive Jews. Dinnerstein went to Brooklyn College for her undergraduate degree and earned the Ph.D. in psychology from the New School for Social Research in 1951. After graduating in 1943, Dinnerstein then started her graduate studies at Swarthmore College earning a PhD in Psychology. Dinnerstein worked as a research student under Solomon Asch, a prominent social psychologist, and later recruited Asch and co founded the Institute of Cognitive Studies where she worked at Rutgers University.A resident of Leonia, New Jersey, she taught at Rutgers–Newark in New Jersey as a professor of psychology from 1959 until 1989, just three years before her death in Englewood, New Jersey after an automobile accident. Beyond her work as a professor, Dinnerstein was well known for her book The Mermaid and the Minotaur, which became a classic and was later translated into seven languages. Her book contributed to the women’s movement; working within the theories of the Freudian mode, she made important statements about men having the responsibility to raise children. In addition to Dinnerstein’s passion for teaching and writing she also had a fervor for feminist politics. Dinnerstein was involved (1970s) in the Seneca Falls Women's Peace Camp and was an active participant. Before her death in 1992, Dinnerstein was involved in a new project about environmental issues called “Sentience and Survival” which explored the ways in which human cognitive structures interfere with taking appropriate actions. She was survived by a daughter and two step-daughters.

Theories and Contributions

In The Mermaid and the Minotaur, Dinnerstein takes a multidisciplinary approach to analyzing the ways in which sexist habits develop out of a society in which childcare is handled chiefly by women. She wrote from the perspectives of a microsociologist, a feminist, a humanist, an ecologist, and a psychoanalyst. Dinnerstein’s theory recognized a series of long-term societal consequences that result from women being the sole childcare providers. Women are infantilized and degraded as a result of false perceptions that they are associated with the realm of childhood as opposed to the world of adulthood . Women become the scapegoats of adult resentment towards authority figures because they they served as controlling authority figures during childhood. Women are blamed for life’s pitfalls because of the early-childhood perception one’s mother takes care of everything, so if something is wrong, it’s the mother's fault for not making it all right. Men must use sexism and patriarchal means to control resented authority figures (women). Men are isolated from the world of emotions and interpersonal relations usually associated with childhood, creating an impossible and harmful standard of male infallibility, invincibility, and invulnerability. Dinnerstein concluded her book by saying that she recognized that families have started to move toward shared parenting for reasons unrelated to the consequences of female-dominated childcare, nonetheless, she wanted shared parenting to be “fortified by full awareness of these considerations. This effort of theirs, moreover, is supported by all the forms of action now being taken toward equity in the economic, political, legal, etc., spheres".

Bibliography of Dinnerstein's Works

• Dinnerstein, D. (1965). Previous and concurrent visual experience as determinants of phenomenal shape. The American Journal of Psychology, 78(2), 235-242.
• Dinnerstein, D. (1976). The mermaid and the minotaur: Sexual arrangements and human malaise. New York: Harper & Row. Dinnerstein, D. (1988). What does feminism mean? Women & Environments, 10, 7-8. Dinnerstein, D. (1990). Survival on earth: The meaning of feminism. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 2(4), 7-10.
• Dinnerstein, D., Gerstein, I. & Michael, G. (1967). Interaction of simultaneous and successive stimulus groupings in determining apparent weight. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73(2). 298-302.
• Dinnerstein, D. & Wertheimer, M. (1957). Some determinants of phenomenal overlapping. The American Journal of Psychology, 70(1), 21-37.