Equality and Genitality

At the beginning of the current feminist movement, I was a psychiatrist in private practice, a married woman, a mother of two sons, and stepmother of another son. I had “everything” (but a daughter). My first reaction to the women's movement was to look down my nose at those malcontents. Serves them right, I thought, identifying the protestors with my ex-sorority sisters, who smirked and patronized my opting for medical school instead of marriage following college graduation. Furthermore the “I'm so angry” feminist rhetoric offended me. It's their own fault for so belatedly discovering the value of being prepared to support themselves by their own training, I thought and probably said. Why blame society? Why blame the patriarchial system, the educational system, the political system, the medical system, the psychiatric system? Spoil sports! But now, when a major American political party can remove the ERA from its platform, and win the election! When the right to control our reproductive life is threatened, when legal protection against discrimination in education and work is considered expendable, I feel it too; I'm angry too. I have learned that social equality is a mental health issue-that social systems impinge on psychological systems very heavily-that the “feminist rage” is not the temper tantrums of spoiled little girls complaining that they can't have penises.

My own complacency was being gradually eroded by my involvement with the abortion struggle in the 1960s and by my patients’ responses to the Women's Movement. But my broader education began when I was asked to participate in the APA's Task Force on Women in 1972. I sent out a request to the 96 other women psychiatrists in my district branch asking for their experiences in training and practice. I asked if they had experienced sex bias in their professional lives and if they thought a task force on women would be useful. I was surprised at the many detailed, articulate responses I