On the psychology of young women: Two clinical monographs-introduction.

These two splendid monographs give us reason to be optimistic about the immediate future of work on the psychology of youth and adolescence: not only because of the youthfulness of the authors (they are both still in their 20s), and not only because of the considerable merits of the studies themselves, but also because they signal the emergence of some much needed departures in our collective strategy of inquiry. Let me say what I think these are. 1. These are studies of young women. Any student of work in our field can sense the degree to which we have, for the most part tacitly, neglected the psychology of women. Any close student will further sense that many of our general theories of personality are, again tacitly, masculine theories, in that they provide schemas of action and experience which "fit" mainly or only the behavior and sensibility of the male. There are many signs that we may be moving beyond such parochialism. Some of the credit is no doubt due to the impetus provided by the Women's Liberation Movement. Unfortunately, much of this latter work is politicized and thus deeply tendentious. To see women (or any other group) as mere vessels of typing and oppression is to reduce human complexity and, ironically, to exchange the simple-mindedness of the past for new and more fashionable forms of simple-mindedness. The studies which follow, though by no means free of hypothesis, are blessedly free of tendentiousness. 2. These are studies of normal young women. For both good and