THE EDUCATED WOMAN: Prospects and Problems

The membership of GAP (about 300 psychiatrists) has also written position papers on such other social hot potatoes as Sex and the College Student, The Right to Abortion and Drug Misuse. This approach to the Woman Question is based on observations you may have heard about from Jessie Bernard, Matina Homer or Phyllis Chesler. Their concern is the conflict that often emerges for the contemporary college woman between socially scripted expectations and personal ambitions. Their outline of stages of development in gender identity and gender role, with attention to biological differentiations between the sexes as well as developmental and sociocultural ones, and their specific recommendations for the kinds of emotional support (from peers, older women and men) a young woman in crisis may need, will be especially valuable to teachers and counselors. Naturally, GAP opposes most of the traditional values of society and its institutions. Among the six changes on their platform are a new emphasis on individual autonomy instead of sex-role stereotyping, an acceptance of variations in marital and child-rearing arrangements, and an increase in university appointments so that women can act as role models. Of course: a complete, wellbalanced, eminently sane presentation.