By J. Bailey Molineux

Probably some will ask how can I, a man, write about women's feelings, issues and problems. I can only reply that I am a student of human behavior - both male and female - and have read widely in the area.

But my major source of apprehension is that there will be those at opposite poles on the women's movement who will not be satisfied. This, after all, is a controversial topic today. I am sure I will not be able to please everyone. Change is a fact of life and a driving force in history, but in any period of rapid change such as ours there will always be some people pushing for more change and others who oppose it. The former make change happen and keep society vibrant and adaptable; the latter slow change down so that it is not too disruptive. Since both groups serve a useful function, we owe a debt to both. Everyone knows that men and women are different biologically, but how different are they psychologically?

There are many stereotypical views of men and women believed to be true: Women are more emotional than men; men are more rational. Men are more aggressive, competitive and violent than women.

Women express their feelings more easily than men. They are also more socially responsive toothers.

Men are more independent and self-sufficient than women.

Women are passive and submissive; men are active and dominant. But how real are these stereotypical differences?

Not that much, according to psychological research. People are people first, then a member of one sex or the other. There are more differences between any two individuals, regardless of sex, than between men and women on the average. There are some related psychological differences between men and women, however, that have been well documented by psychological and anthropological research.

Men are more aggressive than women. Women may feel as aggressive as men but not display it as often because of cultural prohibitions. On the average, they feel more anxious or guilty about their anger and so tend to suppress it. A woman who is too aggressive usually runs the risk of criticism because she does not fit the stereotypical view of feminine behavior.

As a result of their greater aggressiveness and size, and of the fact that women usually stay home to rear the children, men are dominant in most known cultures. And their greater power has given them more prestige and status.

Research shows, for example, that men are more valued than women. There are more so-called masculine traits valued by both men and women than feminine traits, and more women recall a wish to have been of the opposite sex than men do. Women do not differ from men in their levels of self-esteem, but because they have less power and prestige than men they express less confidence in their ability to achieve. And their greater powerlessness and lower status subjects them to more stress than men, so they report, and are treated for more physical and emotional symptoms.

This is not to say that women are members of "the weaker sex." Indeed, there is evidence they are stronger biologically since they have a lower infant mortality rate and live longer than males. Instead, cultural factors make them more vulnerable to stress and breakdown than men.

In fact, it is primarily cultural factors that account for the personality and behavioral differences between men and women. What society does is to assign different behavioral expectations to men and women and then rewards them for conform­ing to those expectations and punishes them for deviations.

The clearest proof that the differences between men and women are primarily cultural rather than biological was published by the anthropologist, Margaret Mead in 1935. In her study of several so-called primitive tribes, Mead found one tribe in which both men and women were masculine in their behavior, another tribe in which both were feminine and a third tribe in which the women were masculine and the men feminine.