Nancy Chodorow

Nancy Julia Chodorow (born January 20, 1944) is an American sociologist and professor.^[2] She began her career as a professor of Women's studies at Wellesley College in 1973, and from 1974 on taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz, until 1986.^[3] She then was a professor in the departments of sociology and clinical psychology at the University of California, Berkeley until she resigned in 1986, after which she taught psychiatry at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance.^[4] Chodorow is often described as a leader in feminist thought, especially in the realms of psychoanalysis and psychology.^[5]

Chodorow has written a number of influential books in contemporary feminist writing,^[6] including The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (1978);^[4][7][8] Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory (1989); Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond (1994); and The Power of Feelings: Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Culture (1999). In 1996, The Reproduction of Mothering was chosen by Contemporary Sociology as one of the top ten most influential books of the past 25 years.^[4][8]