Our Changing Morality: A Symposium

by Unknown

It makes little difference within the social structure how many individual women exist who have forged a position for themselves and have won a freedom and independence equal to that possessed by the ordinary man, so long as they are isolated phenomena having little understanding of the peculiar difficulties and problems of women as a whole, and no relation with each other. These women have always existed in all culture periods, but they have produced little effect upon the social condition or psychology of women in general. There was no group action because the majority of women were inarticulate. The woman who was different became abnormal in the eyes of the world.

This lack of an adequate self-consciousness among women, their general inability to translate feeling into form capable of being understood by the masculine mind, accounts for their acceptance of the statements made about them by men in an effort to understand creatures apparently so different from themselves. There is no doubt that woman’s inarticulateness about herself, even when her feelings were very different from those she was told were normal, has been responsible for a vast amount of the nonsense written about her.

This passive acceptance of the opinions of others has been most disastrous for woman’s development. Her superior psychological processes consist of feelings and intuitions, and when these are stultified or violated by being forced into a false relation, or are inhibited from development, the entire personality is crippled. The inadequate development of the function of thought and the dominating rôle played by the function of feeling in the psychology of woman have produced an obviously one-sided effect and have caused men to postulate theories about her, which are given forth as though they were the last word to be said—fixed and unchangeable. Indeed the statement that women are incapable of change and that no growth is possible for them is one of the favorite assertions of the masculine writers upon the subject of women’s psychology. As the present is the first time in our historical period in which there has been any general opportunity for women as a whole to think for themselves and to develop in new ways, the basis for this assertion does not exist, and it obviously conceals an unconscious wish that women should not change.

The effect of collective ideas and cultural traditions upon the personality is immeasurable. The greatest general change that is taking place today is the weakening of these ideas and the refusal of women to be bound by them. Women are for the first time demanding to live the forbidden experiences directly and draw conclusions on this basis. I do not mean to imply that traditional moral standards controlling woman’s sexual conduct have never been transgressed in the past. They have very frequently been transgressed, but secretly and without inner justification. The great difference today lies in the open defiance of these customs with feelings of entire justification, or even a non-recognition of a necessity for justification. In other words, there has arisen a feeling of moral rightness in the present conduct, and wrongness in the former morality. Actually the condition is one in which natural, long-restrained desire is being substituted for collective moral rules, and individuals are largely becoming a law unto themselves. It is difficult to predict what will be the result of the revolt, but it is certain that this is the preceding condition which renders it possible for a new morality in the real sense to be born within the individual. It has already produced the first condition of all conscious psychic development—a moral conflict—and woman has gained a problem.

In the general chaos of conflicting feelings she is losing her instinctive adaptation to her biological rôle as race bearer, and is attempting adaptation to man’s reality. She is making the effort to win for herself some differentiation and development of the ego function apart from her instinctive processes. This is the great problem confronting woman today; how can she gain a relation to both racial and individual obligations, instead of possessing one to the exclusion of the other? Must she lose that which has been and still is her greatest strength and value? I for one do not think so, although I am fully conscious of the tremendous psychic effort and responsibility involved in the changing standards. It is necessary that women learn to accept themselves and to value themselves as beings possessing a worth at least equal to that of the other sex, instead of unthinkingly accepting standards based on masculine psychology. Then women will recognize the necessity of developing their total psychic capacities just as it is necessary for men to do, but they will see that this does not involve imitation of men or repudiation of their most valuable psychic functioning. The real truth is that it has at last become apparent to many women that men cannot redeem them.

It is not the purpose of this article to deal with the practical issues involved in the new moral freedom. One thing however is clearly evident: Women are demanding a reality in their relations with men that heretofore has been lacking, and they refuse longer to cater to the traditional notions of them created by men, in which their true feelings and personalities were disregarded and denied. This is the first result of the new morality.

Transcriber’s Notes

A few minor errors in punctuation have been corrected.

The cover image has been modified slightly to include the full title and remove some wear.