Refuting Freud's viewpoint of women as sexist, Sagan also contends that conscience, formed during the time a child is under the guardianship of a mother or some other caretaker, has primacy over the superego. "This brilliant study is a sweeping reappraisal of psychoanalysis and the way we think about morals,".

Sagan challenges Freudian psychoanalytic belief in the superego the harsh, parental male authority functioning as man's moral watchdog. According to the author, Freud's ambivalence toward women prevented him from recognizing the mother-infant relationship as the birthing ground of conscience. In support of this new interpretation, Sagan draws not only on Freud but on other researchers, including Spitz, Mahler, and Klein.