College Youth: Gender Roles in Flux

The Editor's assignment was to comment on the effects of recent social trends on the relations between men and women. The emphasis in the literature, including my own studies of college youth, has been on the prevalence of intrapsychic and interpersonal conflicts. I shall illustrate some of these strains, but I should like, in passing, to express my belief that what now appears as an ever graver disharmony creates an opportunity for a much finer harmony in gender relationships than has ever existed in the past.

No society could be completely free of strains in the relations between the sexes—unrequited love, jealousy, regret, and the like. But my research was focused on conflicts that are not, in my view, inherent in the human condition. They stem from the rapid, but not rapid enough, transformation of the traditional system of gender roles into a more egalitarian one. At the root is the familiar lead-lag pattern of social change. Some elements of an interrelated complex change whereas others resist the adaptations required to bring about a new social equilibrium. Some of these adaptations call for cultural changes such as clarification and shifts in values. Others require institutional reorganization and a variety of social inventions that make it possible for both sexes to combine work with family life.

I shall cite several vignettes from my research to illustrate the social roots of current conflicts.

One source of strain stems from the differentiation of hitherto single and shared moral scripts regulating a given social situation. For example, in the past, both dating partners understood that the man took the initiative, paid the expenses, and enjoyed the privileges these obligations bestowed. Today some young women confess their puzzlement on initial contact with a date: “Will he be put off if I offer to pay my share or does he expect it? If I offer to pay, will he assume