Related Issues

Abstract

The formulations presented in this book may provide a basis for explaining some other characteristics of female psychological development. The suggestions in this chapter are intended to be reasonable hypotheses with heuristic aims, in need of extensive further exploration. We offer them because the issues they involve are crucial for the development of girls into women. About some of them, little has been written beyond asserting and reasserting conventional assumptions, e.g., that for a woman emotional involvement is more important in a sexual interaction than it is for a man. We do not know how much the truth varies from the stereotypes, and it is too complex and important a question to try to answer through questionnaire studies. But our clinical position has made it possible to observe and explore cases to which the conventional notion has applied. Perhaps as important as finding out the accuracy of any stereotype is exploring why people who do fit the stereotype have developed in that way. Finding such reasons is a first step toward expanding the possibilities for psychological and psychosexual development of women and of men.