The Woman Problem is also similar to the youth problem. On the average, men make their greatest
contributions to knowledge at the ages of 30-45, becoming less effective, less frequently productive,
as they grow older. Harvey Lehman (5, 6, 7, 8, etc.) has plotted these productivity curves. The
cause of decreasing frequency of original contributions by aging men is not yet known; perhaps it is
wholly motivational. In general, prestige and the culture tend to preserve the status of once
important men as they grow older and in the American success-culture men often maintain prestige
by slipping over into administration from the field of discovery. To some extent the past status of the
old is supported by our culture, but that is not nearly so true here in the occident as it has been in
the orient. As a rule the young men in their [p. 680] thirties and forties are ready to take over from
the oldsters, and to a considerable extent they do. Someone once proposed establishing a "Society
of ExperimentING Psychologists" for men under forty, an active group free of the prestige inhibitions
which were-supposed to limit election to the Society of Experimental Psychologists -- and indeed
the new society was formed although under a different name. Now the grim reaper of middle age
harvests the members of the younger society into the older -- at age 40 or even sooner. We must
not, however, forget the existence of this Youth Protest, comparable to the Woman Protest in being
directed against the fixed prestige of older men. The chief difference here is that the young grow
old, and change their views, whereas women never quite turn into men.
For men there is a standard operating procedure about the acquisition of prestige. In runs--for
psychologists-something like this. First you get a PhD. Then you manage some good research and
publish it. In that way, you get some recognition. You keep on with research, now accepting also
some administrative responsibilities. If you continue to impress your profession with the quality of
your performance, you are likely to develop intellectual claustrophobia. You find yourself presently
seeking larger perspectives. Perhaps you write a book, a book that, bringing together the
researches of others, affords you the needed scope for broad interpretation. Or you may get over
into the administration of research or of other professional activities. You may even find psychology
too confining and become a dean or a college president. All this is standard for psychologists. It
applies approximately to every past president of the APA. I am not sure that it holds for theoretical
physicists who seem to be able to find scope for broad interpretation within their science and thus
may not need to escape from reseach[sic] to book-writing or administration. Nor am I sure that the
rule applies to European scientists, for abroad custom supports the prestige of the older men in
greater security than is the case in America. Nevertheless, if a woman wanted to be president of the
APA, this would be the course for her to follow, except that in this curriculum she had better aim at
writing a book than at being a dean. For its top honors the APA looks askance at administrators.
It seems probable that this standard course or the evaluation of prestige is connected with the
normal American success-culture. Prestige springs from power and leads to more power, but not
much power is required for dealing with little things. It is the book-writer and the administrator who
handle the large theories and the broad policies, thus maintaining and enhancing their prestige as
they gather in the fruits of success. It is my impression that it is at this upper level that women are
most often blocked in the pursuit of prestige. If a woman wants power and prestige as an
administrator, she runs up against the man-made world. It is not the APA which keeps women
down, but the universities, industry, the government, the armed services. With top-level
administrative jobs so hard for her to get, why then does she not write books? Sometimes she
does, but the book that brings prestige should deal with broad generalities, and there is some
indication that the women of our culture are more interested in the particular, and especially, if I may
lift terms from Terman and Miles (10, 400f.), in the young, helpless and distressed. Rogers, the only
clinical psychologist who until now had been president of the APA, came to fame through a general
theory of therapy and a book about it. Scott, in applied psychology, came in through administrative
success with personnel testing in the First World War. The exceptionally skilful practitioner -- be he
or she clinical psychologist, college teacher, or general physician -- gains at most a local recognition
which almost never admits him to the dictionaries of biography.
Another important contributor to prestige is job-concentration. Beardsley Ruml has spoken
humorously of the 168-hour week for the fanatic who lives primarily for his job -- he who eats,
sleeps, and finds recreation only because he wishes to work better. These compulsive persons are
very common among successful professional men and in business and statecraft. Such persons
can undertake any, job at any time in any place on earth, provided only it seems important enough.
Now it has been remarked that these people make poor parents, and presumably they usually do.
Thus it comes about that the Woman Problem is found to be affected by philosophy of living.
Inevitably there is conflict between professional success and success as a family man or a family