The
Changing of the Female Role from A. Adler to Nowadays
Gyongyver KARPATI, m.d.
Psychoterapist
President of the Hungarian Assotiation of Individual
Psychology
e-mail:
karpati-heda@freemail.hu
Alfred Adler
(1870-1937) was the doctor of the lower middle classes in
Vienna at the beginning of the1900s.
He studied gender roles in this social layer which was
characterized by complete family structure, classic male
pattern, father as breadwinner.The mother looked after the
family and brought up the children.
Carrying out social psychological research Adler came to the
following intuitive idea: the personality form and behaviour
characteristic of the genders is influenced by culture ’a
product of culture”.
By 1912 Adler completed his personality theory and put it
into the larger context of social psychological research. He
examined the view of his age concerning genders which said:
women are of less value.
At the turn of the century most women realised their lower
value status in society but they accepted it. In this
acceptance they were helped by their typically feminine
attributes such as gentleness, self-sacrifice and
obediance. The mentally healthy women gave a feminine
reaction to the criticism of the age and came to terms with
the female role of their age. Thus society remained healthy
as well. Women remained women and men remained men.
In the lifework of Adler’s contemporary, the other great
analyst C.G.Jung (1875-1961) the word Role has a
different meaning. In Jung’s analytical model the Role
(=persona=mask) is the top of the personality pyramid, the
top layer, which is in contact with the outside world. The
Rolepersonality has a balancing function between the inside
and outside world. It synchronises the expectations of the
environment and the inner needs.
In Jung’s personality model the feminine anima and the
masculine animus are parts of the individual unconscious. In
the collective unconscious we can find the archetypes of the
magna mater and the old wise.
Researching the structural forms of the female
psyche Toni Wolf, Jung’s follower, described four
female types: Amazon, Hetera, Mother and the Medial
woman.
All four types have a cultural historical
background. They can be identified with Greek goddesses.
-Arthemis, Aphrodite, Demeter and Hestia- so they are
probably archetypes. AMAZON: independent, efficient,
success-oriented. She lacks patience and empathy. HETERA:
ideal partner, inspirational woman. MOTHER: protects,
supports, cares, helps THE MEDIAL WOMAN (medium)
understands the subconscious background. She can play a
mediator role in her environment and towards the
transcendent.
According to Wolf every woman
possesses these four basic structures. A woman will realize
the structure which is most in accordance with her
character. As her character matures she will integrate a
second and a third stucture in her personality. The
integration of the fourth structural form means the total
approach towards Selbst. This fulfillment of the female role
takes a lifetime.
Adler does NOT talk about roles but life tasks. In his
finalist way of thinking the term task determines the goal
better. Out of the three life tasks the male or female role
of the person is fulfilled through the love relationship.
Human relationships and career are effected and coloured by
gender roles.
During the fulfillment of life tasks life periods
follow. At the start of their CAREER, the young woman, the
Amazon, functions independently, efficiently, ambitiously.
At the beginning of the serious LOVE RELATIONSHIP, the
marriage, the woman is a real partner. If she inspires her
husband in all respects she is a Hetera. In later years of
the marriage, at the birth of children she fulfills herself
in her female role as Mother. As aging woman, who has cared
for HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS all her life, she gathers and
intertwines people with the help of her life experience. By
her knowledge of people she reflects on the subconscious and
towards the end of her life she mediates more and more
towards the transcendent. She is the Medial woman.
The terminology of Jung’s
and Adler’s analytical method is different but its ideas
about the structural forms of the female role are the same.
The psyche of the mentally stable woman develops throughout
her life. Adler adds: it develops dinamically towards its
personality ideal.
Opposed to the classical female roles we saw the
start of the feminist movements. One of its leading
personalities was Simone de Beauvoir French writer
-Sartre’s follower and partner. In 1949 she published her
book ”The other sex” as a response to Freud’s teachings.
Beauvoir was appalled by the fact that in psychoanalysis the
woman is overshadowed by the man. In her view the female
identity is not defined by birth but develops through outer
influences. There is no difference originally between female
and male personality. If it does appear it is only the
impression of the education that the man forces on the
woman. This picture becomes firmly rooted in women as a kind
of stigma. This is the first violence against women.
Beauvoir’s statement makes the female identity
conditional, she questions the female identity. This idea is
subject to criticism today.
The categories of gender identity and gender roles become
obvious if we look at the table compiled from the
book ”The modern theory of sexuality” by hungaryan Béla
Buda.
TABLE
in the view of modern social psychology
sexual identity = sexual conscious+ unconscious
sex role = sexual role
the behaviour attributed for
sexes in a certain culture
gender role = the psychological features of the
sociological gender role
pervasive role = sexual role + age role. All
other human roles are based on it.
In the emancipation of women it is an extreme,
wrong teaching that the harder, the more masculine a woman
acts, the more valued she will be. Consequently the western
emancipated woman got to her own exploitation. Amid the fast
developing technical advances of our age the human mind aims
to rule the world. Emotions and the soul become unnecessary
on the labour market. Fortunately, feminism has changed a
lot over 50 years. This is demonstrated by an Urugayan
feminist’s speech from 1995 which I will cite from. (This
speech was delivered in Libanon at an Arabian conference by
Maria Teresa Bocile Santiso). There is a fundamental
condition, valid for every woman, which is independent of
culture, religion, social layer, age, or level of education.
And this is the female body. The first experience in a
woman’s life is that she possesses her female body. This is
a woman’s life condition and attitude. Every woman possesses
this special thing. They possess the inner and outer ability
to carry life, feed and give birth. This identity which is
deeply rooted in the female nature can be found in every
culture. It is an anthropological originality, an ability
for life. ”
Henri Boulad (
Philosopher, theologian, teacher, psychologyst. Alexandria
1931-) says in his book : For the world the woman is a gift.
But the ”impolite” world only cares about the profit value
of this gift.
This is what happens in Hungary at workplaces nowadays.
How many points does a woman doctor/ psychologist make with
her activity, what is its point/ forint value? The same
thing comes into question in marriages . Who earns how much?
It is prostitution where the woman can be best given a
forint value.
Boulad defines a woman’s
value by her existence. ”The existence of mankind depends on
women”-he says. The realisation of a woman’s basic value:
the care which is so strong that it ties together every age
and culture. A woman’s care spreads over the whole world. A
woman hopes that the world will experience an intellectual
deveopment and a strengthening of moral values. She wants
the truth to reveal itself and good to manifest itself.
The traditional role of women is the most modern in
our present and this is not a paradox. I’ll try to outline
the traditional threefold role virgin-spouse-mother
of a woman according to H. Boulad:
Virgin. Longing, waiting. Waiting for a man, the polarity of
a woman’s personality
Spouse. Keeping the virginity of the heart: undivididness,
total commitment to a man
In sex: the other person is in the centre of events
all the time.
Loyality: Excluding everybody else. Getting from eternal
love to the absolute, the eternal. This end feeds the
previous values. It is the woman who understands this art,
not the man. She teaches these things to him.
Mother. Every love must exceed itself. Duality must grow
into a threefold, fourfold etc. relationship. Physical and
psychological fertility perfects love.
In summary we can say:
For their healthy mental development children need male and
female models which are transparent, easily recognisable due
to their contrasting nature, and carry both the outer and
inner signs of their gender.
The essence of the harmony of becoming a woman: to be aware
of the high-ranking values of their own womanhood. To create
a contrast to the male identity, but at the same time to
complement the man. It is important for a woman to live out
her being special, since she is capable of motherhood, of
passing on life, of ensuring the continuity of human life.
This idea is well expressed in an English proverb with
which I would like to end my article:
„ The hand that
rocks the cradle is the one which moves the world.”
Bibliography:
ADLER, Alfred: Co-operation between the sexes (1978.W.W
Norton§Company , INC )
BOULAD,Henry:The suffering and mission of women (1997.Marton
Aron Publishing House)
Budapest, 22 August 2005
HUNGARY, 1068, Budapest, Rippl-R.u. 27.
Copyright ©
2005 International Association of Individual
Psychology
