Identity: Youth and Crisis

Chapter 7 draws on Erikson’s writings from 1964. He begins by stating that the nuclear age should involve women at the highest levels of decision-making since, as mothers, they have the future of their children at stake. Erikson believes women in positions of public leadership would add an “ethically restraining” power to politics (261). He says too much of the freedom women have won lies in access to career competition and consumership. Equality has “not led to equivalence, and equal rights have by no means secured equal representation” (262) when one considers that women’s deepest concerns are not expressed in terms of their public influence.

Erikson finds a dilemma in the way that men who try to help define the “uniqueness of womanhood” (262) are criticized, yet many women find it hard to speak about their deepest feelings without sounding defiant or apologetic. The author believes men wish to preserve the differences between the sexes, including male dominance, and that when that dominance is threatened, men cannot be fair.

The author next turns to the “problem” of the identity of female youth. He begins by assuming that young women successfully pass from youth to maturity when they leave the parental family to commit to a mate and their children.