Chodorow's most profound influence stems from Freudian psychoanalysis. She critiques Freudian analysis with a feminist perspective to understand the mother-child relationship. Chodorow uses the Freudian model of female development to reveal that a girl's gender development is related to her closeness with her mother. Therefore, the girl is pursuing a privilege that a boy has already achieved. The boy has already received this attention, because he is more valued by the mother, as an object since he is a source of her own Oedipal gratification. However, the boy has both the need and the ability to detach himself from his mother. The female solves her inner conflict by converting her envy of male privilege into heterosexual desire. Using Freudian psychoanalytic theory, Chodorow explains that the Oedipus complex symbolically separates the male child from his mother, but young girls continue to identify with their mother. Chodorow notes that Freud's theory of the Oedipal conflict and the Oedipal revolution is due to chance; the father must be in the right place at the right time. Chodorow's analysis led to the hypothesis that a female's desire for men is a direct result of her strong desire for her mother.