This passive acceptance of the opinions of others has been most disastrous for woman’s development. Her superior psychological processes consist of feelings and intuitions, and when these are stultified or violated by being forced into a false relation, or are inhibited from development, the entire personality is crippled. The inadequate development of the function of thought and the dominating rôle played by the function of feeling in the psychology of woman have produced an obviously one-sided effect and have caused men to postulate theories about her, which are given forth as though they were the last word to be said--fixed and unchangeable. Indeed the statement that women are incapable of change and that no growth is possible for them is one of the favorite assertions of the masculine writers upon the subject of women’s psychology. As the present is the first time in our historical period in which there has been any general opportunity for women as a whole to think for themselves and to develop in new ways, the basis for this assertion does not exist, and it obviously conceals an unconscious wish that women should not change. The effect of collective ideas and cultural traditions upon the personality is immeasurable. The greatest general change that is taking place today is the weakening of these ideas and the refusal of women to be bound by them. Women are for the first time demanding to live the forbidden experiences directly and draw conclusions on this basis. I do not mean to imply that traditional moral standards controlling woman’s sexual conduct have never been transgressed in the past. They have very frequently been transgressed, but secretly and without inner justification. The great difference today lies in the open defiance of these customs with feelings of entire justification, or even a non-recognition of a necessity for justification. In other words, there has arisen a feeling of moral rightness in the present conduct, and wrongness in the former morality. Actually the condition is one in which natural, long-restrained desire is being substituted for collective moral rules, and individuals are largely becoming a law unto themselves. It is difficult to predict what will be the result of the revolt, but it is certain that this is the preceding condition which renders it possible for a new morality in the real sense to be born within the individual. It has already produced the first condition of all conscious psychic development--a moral conflict--and woman has gained a problem.