For women in Western society, there is no straightforward path of development to autonomous adulthood. The double-bind of female authority--that a women cannot be both a healthy adult and an ideal woman--is the context in which a woman must construct her self in this culture. Whether she sees herself as "too needy" or "too controlling," "too insecure" or "too self-reliant," she is gathering evidence to support a theory of personal inadequacy. The traditional perspectives of psychodynamics and psychopathology reinforce women's sense of inferiority. How then does a woman claim her own...