Feminism and Women Analysts

Social attitudes frequently represent rationalizations of problems that go quite deep. I do not feel that the origins of women's problems lie in masculine attitudes. Rather, I feel that these origins lie in a societal attitude which must now encompass men and women, first and foremost, as human beings and sexual beings with identical advantages and responsibilities. While recognizing that certain biological functions are not interchangeable, society should not regard such functions as detrimental to either one sex or the other. Society's capacity, as well as my own, to be treated and to treat myself, as the subject rather than the object of a given situation, presents me with the opportunity to exercise my power of decision, as well as the opportunity of adjusting my behavioral reactions according to the stimuli.

If I cannot act in this way, the meaning of what I do would be extrinsic to my actions. If I attempt to act as a whole and untrammeled subject, totally free, without roots in my own physiological, cultural, and human nature, my patterns of conduct will fail. If, on the other hand, I treat myself as an object to be manipulated, I will become incapable of feeling like a human being outside my own experience. The importance of mental health in this respect lies in the possibility of living according to the dictates of conscience, in what Kierkegaard calls the vacuum of liberty.

The neurotic tries to avoid the anxiety of this vacuum by abandoning himself to an irresponsible liberty or by excessive self-control. The healthy person is the one able to choose between the two extremes according to the prevailing external circumstances.

What place does the woman occupy in Spanish society? Our society is strictly patriarchal, and clearly rooted in Jewish culture. While Christianity on one hand palliated the inequality between men and women in considering both to have souls, on the other it accentuated the division made by Western society between the mother, the wife, and