Stubborn Anachronisms

Abstract

Väter sind anders (Fathers are Different) is the revised edition of Guter Vater—Böser Vater (Good Father—Bad Father 1997). We are presented with eleven chapters that grapple with the development of the man from son to father, the gender relationship between man and woman, the importance of vocation for the man, and male aggression and sexuality. The text is based on the orthodox psychoanalytical acceptance of a binary gender identity. Petri grounds his conception of masculinity in the theory of the alleged cultural superiority of the man, popular evolutionist views on the roll of man and woman, as well as the perception of “healthy” binary gender-representative identity, which—no surprise here—inevitably leads to heterosexuality. The usefulness of this fatherhood study can be debated.