moiram@tektronix.UUCP (Moira Mallison ) (12/11/84)
My mother handed me this book, *Fathers & Daughters*, written by William S. Appleton, MD, and said "READ THIS BOOK". As we are both going through some fairly amazing changes prompted by the death of my father earlier this year, I put it at the head of the list. Appleton is an Asst Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and writes a monthly advice column for COSMO... well, perhaps they will balance each other out, I thought. Appleton's major theme is that there are three stages in a woman's relationship with her father, each spanning roughly ten years: the oasis stage, the adolescent stage, and the mature stage. He discusses how the aspects of the relationship in each of these stages may affect the woman as an adult in terms of her sexual being, her career, her feelings of insecurity, and her relationships (read SO). Appleton has some good points to make, but they tend to be over- simplified; and I found it rather difficult to draw value from the discussion in those areas where I felt my experience was in the shades of gray, rather than black or white. In the chapter on careers, he focuses solely on the female executive maturing in the corporate management structure; here the analogy between maturing there and maturing in the family was so strict that I found it difficult to extrapolate to a technical career (which probably has more correlations than many other careers a woman might choose.) There is one other major drawback in the chapter on relationships which I have discussed more fully in an article posted to net.singles. I *DO* think the book has value to women who are interested in exploring the subject further, in spite of its narrow focus. Moira Mallison tektronix!moiram