Page:The Power of Sexual Surrender.pdf/164

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not all cases show such an obvious masculinization. Nor am I making the point that the woman who succeeds in the market place is necessarily dominated by masculine motives. A woman can be a stay-at-home, apparently performing all her duties as a wife and mother, and still be suffering from the same kind of basic problem that confronted Toni. Perhaps we can put it this way: many women of this kind have never learned to imitate men as successfully as Toni did.

Helene Deutsch has said, ". . . the masculinity complex is characterized by the predominance of active and aggressive tendencies that lead to conflict with the woman's environment and above all with the remaining feminine inner world . . . in its most primitive manifestation, masculinity appears as the direct enemy of feminine tendencies, disturbing their function."

Toni certainly fitted this description. However, she like many other women with this kind of problem, was finally able to overcome her fear and envy of the male and to embrace her feminine nature without fear or shame.