You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
An outstanding characteristic of the latter part of the twentieth century in the U.S.A. is the changing relationship of the sexes. Historically, there are many reasons for recent changes. Two of the most important factors seem to be the democratic ideal of equality with its emphasis on equal rights for women, and secondly, the development of a highly technological society resulting both in a proliferation of non-sexdifferentiated tasks and in a diminution of the physical and psychological influence of the father in the home.
That children growing up today, especially boys, have more difficulty establishing their identities has been well documented by such writers as Erikson,7 Lynd,19. Maslow,20 and Wheelis.38 That the aspect of identity most difficult to establish is sexual identity is attested to by the increasing evidence of sexual confusion in our society and by a significant increase in overt homosexuality. As Gorer13 indicates, boys whose primary influence is their mother develop a feminine superego which is reinforced by a preponderance of female teachers in the elementary school years. The unavailability of suitable male figures with whom to identify during the latency years makes it increasingly difficult for boys today to know what it means to be a man, and to separate what is masculine from what is feminine and both from what should be neither. The fact that the majority of high school dropouts are males seems in part related to the fact that academic education for such boys has been equated with femininity.
Odenwald,24 in a recent book entitled The Disappearing Sexes,