On Resisting Women

This exceptional collection of essays explores the persistence of misogyny: how it is woven into the fabric of our culture, our institutions, and our psyches. Building on her first book, Misogyny in Psychoanalysis, Michaela Chamberlain moves on from a conversation to a demand for action.



Drawing on her experiences as a psychotherapist, mother, and researcher, she uses psychoanalytic theory to examine what causes misogyny and how misogyny is internalised, enacted, and justified. Revisiting Freud's case of Dora and Winnicott's concept of the "good enough mother", she explores how these foundational psychoanalytic ideas continue to echo in contemporary expectations placed on women – particularly around sexuality, care, and emotional labour. These essays bridge past and present, theory and lived experience, to ask what has really changed and include a much-needed update to Winnicott's list of reasons why a mother hates her baby.



From online discussion forums to classical literature, from consulting room dynamics to cultural narratives, Chamberlain investigates how misogyny hides in plain sight, often disguised as common sense, tradition, or even progressive thinking. Her work questions who benefits from patriarchy, who is harmed, and how all of us – regardless of gender – are shaped by its assumptions.



Accessible yet deeply informed, On Resisting Women invites readers into a debate about how we think, how we feel, and how we might begin to loosen misogyny's grip – not only on our systems, but on our inner worlds.



Michaela Chamberlain trained at The Bowlby Centre and studied in the Psychoanalysis Unit at UCL. Shortly after qualifying at The Bowlby Centre in 2016, she started teaching Freud and attachment theory and became chair of The Bowlby Centre. She worked as an honorary psychotherapist in two NHS trusts for several years. She has presented clinical papers at public forums, lectures internationally, and has been published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy and New Associations. Her debut book, Misogyny in Psychoanalysis, was released in June 2022, which explores the historical and current context of misogyny in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. She is in private practice in London as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and is a supervisor and training therapist.



About the author



Acknowledgements



Preface





- Primary paternal preoccupation



- Touched out / tapped out: Misogyny in the countertransference



- Fragment of an analysis of a case of misogyny: From Dora to decreation



- The price of memory



- On beginning the treatment of misogyny: Misogyny as a fascist state of mind

References



Index