Forty years ago, in "The Duality of Human Existence," David Bakan proffered a distinction between an alleged masculine orientation to action and exerting power, and a feminine communing orientation. Women, he wrote, were socialized to orient their lives around relationships. I cannot recall whether Bakan cited Heidegger's provocative notion that we don't have relationships as much as we are relationships. In fact, in enunciating three modes of being, Heidegger suggested that at all times we deal with the biological world into which we are thrown, the world of consciousness and identity in which we are thrown against ourselves, and, most significantly for the present discussion, the world of relationships.

¶ 5:48 PM