THE OPEN MIND A Review of Three Programs
(Continued from page 7)
Lerner said that this had been an agrarian society with a sharp division of labor, that we had become the most rapidly changing society anywhere. There has been a great change of "class belonging". Mothers and fathers no longer have a model in their mind of how men and women should act. This confusion goes beyond the sexual role itself, although that is included. The children are naturally lost. A child needs definiteness in what is expected of him.
Miss Mead said what a child needs is a sense of identity ...to know that he belongs to a class, region, nati onality and the human race; but that to tell a boy who has a talent for playing the violin that he was feminine, or a girl with a talent for mechanics that she was masculine, was to set a pattern for mistaken identity in their minds.
Lerner said, "Words poo." Examples are the only things that count.
Miss Mead said "yes, in an unchanging society."
Lerner said that parents needed clarity without anxiety. He mentioned that the life goals of this society were Money, Power and Prestige. The "Cult of Newism" dominates everything. Miss Mead agreed it was a matter of "values" and that the whole problem under discussion was but a symptom of our inability to accept the full range of the human potential.
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Sten Russell
MATTACHINE TO DISCUSS EMPLOYMENT
A panel discussion on employment will be held by the Mattachine Society at 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5, at the Friends Center, 1830 Sutter St., San Francisco. Comprising the panel will be people working in the employment field. Helen Sanders will represent the Daughters of Bilitis on the panel.
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