Female Identity in Psychosocial Perspective*

It is an honor to be asked to be the luncheon speaker at this meeting, and one I appreciate; but when I began to formulate my ideas I realized that the heavy fare of this serious subject might not sit well after dessert and so I cast about for a lighter, more indirect approach that might be a bridge to greater intellectual efforts later on. Woody Allen came to my rescue. If you have seen Manhattan you will recall the inimitable scene in which he meets a vacuous young lady at a party and in the studied casual conversation which ensues, she says in an offhand manner, “I told my analyst I had an orgasm last night, but he told me it was the wrong kind!” There is as much truth as humor in this remark, for this small satiric vignette incisively and truthfully depicts much of the history of the role which psychoanalysis has played in the setting up of mythical social and sexual norms. Under the aegis of a scientific psychology, psychoanalysis sought to define normal sexual development and normal sexual response, and in so doing it derived its own norm for female as well as for male identity.

But can one rightfully speak of a norm for sexual identity, even of sexual response, without qualifying it in terms of the social, cultural, and historical framework within which it develops? I think not, for identity is itself a social as well as an individual psychological phenomenon. Erikson has ably expressed this as follows: “The term identity expresses such a mutual relation in that it connotes a persistent sameness within oneself (selfsameness) and a persistent sharing in some kind of essential character with others.”2 The awareness of one's self-image which is basic to one's identity derives its sense of continuity and constancy as well as its content from the vicissitudes of