Part 1, pgs. 28-59 Summary and Analysis

The "Feminine Wound" is a major theme in the book. Feeling that she is the only woman who feels it, Sue tries to avoid facing up to it by diving into the holiday season. She senses that being female is not inferior, but inferiority is so consistently pressed on women that they absorb it by osmosis and the wound enlarges. Recently, friend Betty tells of seeing a family in which the father takes the son to the edge of a rushing river but the mother forbids the older sister to approach the danger. This is how girls learn to "hang back." A 1991 survey shows that as parents and teachers expect less from girls, girls "dumb themselves down" to be less threatening. In church, it is no better; in Bible stories, women support heroic men, sermons stress nonthreatening...