She systematically countered these assumptions by arguing that: 1. Women’s need to be mothers is artificially instilled in them during socialization – when the mother teaches the daughter society’s expectations of her – and is not an essential or natural part of their existence. 2. The belief that mothers need their children is based on the fallacy of a maternal instinct which must be satisfied or else the woman will become frustrated. Oakley refutes the idea that women are instinctively drawn to their children and asserts that mothers are not born, they are made. 3. The myth of biological
...more
