Gender Issues Essay

According to Elisabeth Horst, Erik Eriksons theories pertaining to identity and intimacy disconcerns sexual differences. The elemental consensus of several writers concludes that Erikson believes that women rely on marriage to develop their identity. This was written at a time when differences in sexes were treated as afterthoughts. He found his theories on the masculine version of experience. Yet Erikson did not portray women as inferior. There seems to be a conflict in underemphasizing womens roles and overemphasizing womens roles and overemphasizing their role in the social system.Very little was written to a greater extent or less women in this time. One author (Marcia, 1980) implicated that intimacy becomes more of a feminine task and identity demonstrates a masculine task. Orlosfsky (1977) defines the masculine traits such(prenominal) as independence, autonomy, and assertiveness even more important to forming identity than the more feminine characteristics of warmth, tender ness, and understanding. Some writers disagree with Eriksons possibleness of human discipline because they considered him to be a sexist.His writings involved the masculine aspect more than the feminine side in his studies. Horst, E. A. (1995). Reexamining Gender Issues in Eriksons Stages of indistinguishability and Intimacy. Journal of Counseling & Development, 73 (3), 271-278. Marcia, J. (1980). Identity in Adolescence. In J. Adelson (Ed. ), enchiridion of Adolescent Psychology. New York. Wiley. Individuation and Attachments Many feminist critize Erik Eriksons theory because of neglect or misprotrayal of female experience. He seems to presume that identity precedes intimacy.This seems to cater limitations to his universal theory of human development. Even though he includes trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, intimacy, generativity, and truth into his theories. Erikson demonstrates the stages of life as (I) Infancy showing trust vs mistrust ages 0-16 months (II)Ea rly puerility 17-36 months (III) Play Age (IV)School Age 6-12 (V) Adolescent (VI) Young Adult (VII) adulthood (VIII) Mature Age It appears as if Erikson did not elaborate on concomitant during infancy and childhood, thus the need to apply the notions of Jean Piaget.