Best known for her 1976 book The Mermaid and the Minotaur, which became a classic of US second-wave feminism.

In The Mermaid and the Minotaur, Dinnerstein recognizes the roots of patriarchy in women's' monopoly on child-bearing. She does this by drawing from elements of psychoanalysis pioneered by Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein (who were also both Jewish).