"Some have contended that our society teaches males to hate females. If so, exactly how is that done? We don't yet know. The Psychoanalysts believe little boys 3 to 6 undergo great turmoil as they must give up their identification with a close, nurturing mother and switch it to a father.
In this process, boys may be unwittingly taught to dislike, even disdain female (mother's) characteristics in order to give them up; thus, the "hatred" of women's ways (and little girls) may be generated in little boys. Also, in this early process, boys may learn to suppress their urges to show affection (to mother especially) but also that losing intimacy (with mother) can cause great pain; perhaps this is the origin of some grown men's fear of intimacy (Hudson & Jacot, 1992).
Girls, since they never have to give up their identification with mother, tend to develop a fear of possible separation which results in greater needs for intimate affiliation. On the other hand, girls do have to shift their sexual orientation from a mother-like person to a father-like person, and boys do not. This may help explain boys' greater focus on the female body as a sexual object (more than male bodies being a sexual stimulus for women), boys' greater homophobia, males' greater emphasis on sex and less on closeness, and other differences between male and female sexuality. So, according to Judith Viorst (1986) in Necessary Losses, we all suffered a serious loss (boys giving up Mom as an identification and girls giving up Mom as a sexual object) that has a permanent impact on our personalities."