I.--_Women and Labour_
"The fullest ideal of the woman-worker is she who works not merely or mainly for men as the help and instrument of their purpose, but who works with men as the instrument yet material of her purpose."--GEDDES AND THOMPSON.
When we come to consider the detailed differences between woman and man, a sharp separation of them into female qualities and male qualities no longer squares with the known facts. Any attempt to lessen the natural differences, as also to weaken at all the attractions arising from this divergence, must be regarded with extreme distrust. There is a real and inherent prejudice against the masculine woman and the feminine man. It is nevertheless necessary very carefully to discriminate between innate qualities of femaleness and maleness and those differences that have been acquired as the direct result of peculiarities of environmental conditions. It is certain that many differences in the physical and mental capacity of women must be referred not to Nature but to Nurture, _i.e._ the effects of conditions and training. Let me give one concrete case, for one clear ill.u.s.tration is more eloquent than any statement. Long ago Professor Karl Vogt pointed out that women were awkward manipulators.
Thomas, in _s.e.x and Society_, answers this well: "The awkwardness in manual manipulation shown by these girls was surely due to lack of practice. The fastest type-writer in the world is to-day a woman; the record for roping steers (a feat depending on manual dexterity rather than physical force) is held by a woman." I may add to this an example of my own observation. In a recent International Fly and Bait Casting Tournament, held at the Crystal Palace, a woman was among the compet.i.tors, and gave an admirable exhibition of skill in salmon fly-casting. In this compet.i.tion she threw one cast 34 feet and two of 33 feet, making an aggregate of 100 yards, which gained her the prize over the male compet.i.tors. It has also been recently stated that women show equal skill with men in shooting at a target.
It is plain that the more we examine the question of s.e.x-differences the more it baffles us. The only safeguard against utter confusion and idleness of thought is to fall back on the common-sense view that _woman is what she is largely, because she has lived as she has_, and further, that in the present transition no _arbitrary rules may be laid down by men as to what she should, or should not, can, or cannot do_. Even in fear of possible danger to be incurred, woman must no longer be "grandfathered." The scope of this chapter is to make this clear.
It is no part of my purpose, even if it were possible for me within the limits at my command, to enter into an examination of all the numerous statements and theories with regard to the real or supposed secondary s.e.xual characters of woman. For though the practical utility of such detailed knowledge is obvious, while there is no certainty of opinion even among experts to fix the distinctions between the s.e.xes, it is wiser in one who, like myself, can claim no scientific knowledge to avoid the hazard of any conclusion. I confess that a most careful study of the many differing opinions has left me in a state of mental confusion. One is tempted to adopt those views that fit in with one"s own observations and to neglect others probably equally right that do not do this. What is wanted is a much larger number of careful experiments and scientific observations. Some of these have been made already, and their value is great, but the basis is still too narrow for any safe generalisations. All kinds of error are clearly very likely to arise. I may, perhaps, be allowed to state my surprise, not to say amus.e.m.e.nt, at the conviction evidenced by some male writers in their estimate of the character of my s.e.x. I find myself given many qualities that I am sure I have not got, and deprived of others that I am equally certain I possess. Thus, I have found myself wondering, as I sought sincerely to find truth, whether I am indeed woman or man? or, to be more exact, whether the female qualities in me do not include many others regarded as masculine? This has forced the thought--is the difference between the s.e.xes, after all, so complete?
I am aware that what I am now saying appears to be in contradiction with my other statements. I cannot help it. The fact is, that truth is always more diverse than we suspect. This is a question that reaches so deeply that apparent contradiction is sometimes inevitable. We find we are rooted into outside things, and we melt away, as it were, into them, and no woman or man can say, "I consist absolutely of this or that"; nor define herself or himself so certainly as to be sure where the differences between the s.e.xes end and the points of contact begin.
Many qualities of the personality appear no more female than male; no more belonging to the woman than the man. And yet, underlying these common qualities there is a deep under-current in which all our nature finds expression in our s.e.x.
Science has of late years advanced far in this matter, yet it has not much more than begun. There is, as yet, no approximation to unanimity of decision, though the way has been cleared of many errors. This is all that has really been done by the ablest observers, who seem, however, unwilling, if one may say so without presumption, to accept the conclusions to which their own experiments and observations would seem to point. Take an ill.u.s.tration. The early cert.i.tude on the s.e.x-differences in the weight of the brain and in the proportion of the cerebral lobes has been completely turned upside down. The long believed opinion of the inferiority of the woman in this direction has been proved to be founded on prejudice, fallacies, and over-hasty generalisations, so that now it is allowed that the s.e.xual differences in the brain are at most very small. An even more instructive example arises from the ancient theory that there was a natural difference in the respiratory movements of the s.e.xes. Hutchinson even argued that this costal breathing was an adaptation to the child-bearing function in woman. Further investigations, however, with a wider basis and more accurate methods--and one may surely add more common-sense--have changed the whole aspect of the matter. This difference has been proved to be due, not to Nature at all, but wholly to the effect of corset-wearing and woman"s conventional dress. There is, it would seem, no limit to the quagmire of superst.i.tion and error into which s.e.x-difference have drawn even the most careful inquirers if once they fail to cut themselves adrift from that superficial view of Nature"s scheme, by which the woman is considered as being handicapped in every direction by her maternal function.
Enough has now been said to indicate the complication of the facts, to say nothing of their practical application. I must refer my readers for further details to convenient summaries of the s.e.xual differences, in Havelock Ellis"s _Man and Woman_; Geddes and Thomson"s _s.e.x and Evolution_; Thomas"s _s.e.x and Society_; and H. Campbell"s _Differences in the Nervous Organisation of Men and Women_: the first of these is a treasure store of facts, and may be regarded as the foundation of all later research; the last is, perhaps, the most generally interesting, certainly it is the most favourable in its estimate of women. Dr.
Campbell urges with much force the fallacy of many popular views. He does not seem to believe in the fundamental origin of maleness and femaleness, holding them rather to be secondary and derived, the result, in fact, of selection.
I have already sufficiently guarded against being supposed to have any desire to establish ident.i.ty between woman and man. I do, however, object to any general conclusion of an arbitrary and excessive s.e.x-separation, without the essential preliminary inquiry being made as to the effects of conditions and training; that is, whether the opportunities of development have been at all equal. But here, to save falling into a misconception, it is necessary to point out that I do not say _the same opportunities, but equal_. This difference is so important that, risking the fear of being tedious, I must restate my belief in the unlikeness of the s.e.xes. As Havelock Ellis says, "A man is a man to his very thumbs, and a woman is a woman down to her little toes." What I do mean, then, is this: _Have the opportunities of the woman to develop as woman been equal to the opportunities of the man to develop as man?_ It is on this question, it seems to me, that our attention should be fixed.
Leaving for a little any attempt to find out in what directions this development of woman can be most fully carried out, let us now clear our way by glancing very briefly at certain plain facts of the actual position of women as they present themselves in our society to-day.
In 1901 there were 1,070,000 more women than men in this country; this surplus of women has increased slowly but steadily in every census since 1841! Thus, those who hold (as all who look straight at this matter must) that the essential need for the normal woman are conditions that make possible the fulfilment of her s.e.x-functions, are placed in an awkward dilemma when they wish to restrict her activities to marriage and the home. By such narrowing of the s.e.xual sphere they are not taking into consideration the facts as they exist to-day. In a society where the women outnumber the men by more than a million, it is sufficiently evident that justice can be done to these primary needs of woman only by adopting one of two courses, the placing of women in a position which secures to them the possession of property, or, if their dependence on the labours of men is maintained, the recognition of some form of polygamy. Here is no advocacy of any s.e.xual licence or of free-love, but I do set up a claim for free motherhood, and however great the objections that may, and, as I think, must be raised against polygamy, I am unhesitating in stating my belief that any open and brave facing of the facts of the s.e.x relationship is better than our present ignorance or hypocritical indifference, which is spread like a shroud over our national conditions of concealed polygamy for men, side by side with enforced celibacy and unconcealed prost.i.tution for a great number of women. The most hopeful sign of the woman"s movement is a new solidarity that is surely killing the fatalism of a past acquiescing in wrongs, and is slowly giving birth to a fine spiritual apprehension of the great truth that what concerns any woman concerns all women, and, I would add, also all men. This last--that there can be no woman"s question that is not also a man"s question--is so essentially a part of any fruitful change in our domestic and social relationship that women must not permit themselves for a moment to forget it. It is the very plain things that so often we do overlook.
So it becomes clear that the parrot cries "Woman"s Place!" "Woman"s Sphere!" "Her place is the home!" have lost much, even if not all, their significance. For, in the first place, it is obvious that under present conditions there are not enough homes to go round; and second, even if we neglect this essential fact, women may well answer such demands by saying "much depends on the character and conditions of the home we are to stay in." It was a many-sided home of free and full activity in which woman evolved and wherein for long ages she worked; a home, in fact, which gave free opportunities for the exercise of those qualities of constructive energy that women, broadly speaking, may be said to possess. The woman"s so-called natural position in the home is not now natural at all. The conditions of life have changed. Everything is drifting towards separation from worn-out conditions. We are increasingly conscious of a growing discontent at waste. The home with its old full activities has pa.s.sed from women"s hands. But woman"s work is not less needed. To-day the State claims her; the Nation"s housekeeping needs the vitalising mother-force more than anything else.
The old way of looking at the patriarchal family was, from one point of thought, perfectly right and reasonable as long as every woman was ensured the protection of, and maintenance by, some man. Nor do I think there was any unhappiness or degradation involved to women in this co-operation of the old days, where the man went out to work and the woman stayed to do work at least equally valuable in the home. It was, as a rule, a co-operation of love, and, in any case, it was an equal partnership in work. But what was true once is not true now. We are living in a continually changing development and modification of the old tradition of the relationship of woman and man. It is very needful to impress this factor of constant change on our attention, and to fix it there. To ignore it, and it is too commonly ignored, is to falsify every issue. "The Hithertos," as Mr. Zangwill has aptly termed them, are helpless. Things are so, and we are carried on; and as yet we know not whither, and we are floundering not a little as we seek for a way. The women of one cla.s.s have been forced into labour by the sharp driving of hunger. Among the women of the other cla.s.s have arisen a great number who have turned to seek occupation from an entirely different cause; the no less bitter driving of an unstimulating and ineffective existence, a kind of boiling-over of women"s energy wasted, causing a revolt of the woman-soul against a life of confused purposes, achieving by accident what is achieved at all. Between the women who have the finest opportunities and the women who have none there is this common kinship--the wastage not so much of woman as of womanhood.
Let us consider for a moment the women who have been forced into the cheating, d.a.m.ning struggle for life. There are, according to the estimate of labour experts, 5,000,000 women industrially employed in England. The important point to consider is that during the last sixty years the women who work are gaining numerically at a greater rate than men are. The average weekly wage paid is seven shillings.
Nine-tenths of the sweated work of this country is done by women. I have no wish to give statistics of the wages in particular trades; these are readily accessible to all. Unfortunately the facts do not allow any exaggeration; they are saddening and horrible enough in themselves. The life-blood of women, that should be given to the race, is being st.i.tched into our ready-made clothes; is washed and ironed into our linen; wrought into the laces and embroideries, the feathers and flowers, the sham furs with which we other women bedeck ourselves; it is poured into our adulterated foods; it is pasted on our matches and pin-boxes; stuffed into our furniture and mattresses; and spent on the toys we buy for our children. The china that we use for our foods and the tins in which we cook them are d.a.m.ned with the lead-poison that we offer to women as the reward of labour.
It is these wrongs that the mothers with the fathers of the race have to think out the way to alter. There is no one among us who is guiltless in this matter. Things that are continuously wrong need revolutionising, and not patching up.
What, then, is the real cause of the lowness of remuneration offered to women for work when compared with men? Thousands of women and girls receive wages that are insufficient to support life. They do not die, they live; but how? The answer is plain. Woman possesses a marketable value attached to her personality which man has not got. This enables her to live, if she has children, to feed them, and also not infrequently to support the man, forced out of work by the lowness of the wages she can accept. The woman"s s.e.x is a saleable thing.
Prost.i.tution is the door of escape freely opened to all women. It is because of the reserve fund thus established that their honest wages suffer. Not all sweated women are prost.i.tutes. Many are legally married, they exist somehow; but the wages of all women are conditioned by this s.e.xual resource. It can be readily seen that this is a survival of the patriarchal idea of the property value of woman.
To-day it affords a striking example of the conflict between the old rights of men with the rising power of women. The value of woman is her s.e.xual value; her value as a worker is as yet unrecognised, except as a secondary matter. You may refuse to be convinced of this. Yet the fact remains that our society is so organised that women are more highly paid and better treated as prost.i.tutes than they are as honest workers.
I shall say no more on this question here, as I propose to deal with prost.i.tution more fully in a later chapter. I would, however, point out that what I have said in no way implies an opinion that women should be driven out of the labour market. This is as unfair as that they should be driven into it. It is the conditions of labour that must be changed. I am not even able to accept the opinion that the strength of woman is necessarily less than that of man, only that it is different. It is, in fact, just this difference that is so important. If woman"s capacity in work was the same as men"s no great advantage could arise from women"s entrance into the work of the State. It might well lead to even worse confusion. It is the special qualities that belong to woman that humanity is waiting for. Just as at the dawn of civilisation society was moulded and in great measure built up by women, then probably unconscious of their power and the end it made towards, so, in the future, our society will be carried on and humanised by women, deliberately working for the race, their creative energy having become self-conscious and organised in a final and fruitful period of civilisation.
I want to look a little further into this question of the strength of woman as compared with the strength of man. On the whole it seems right to say that the man is the more muscular type, and stronger in relation to isolated feats and spasmodic efforts. But against this may be placed the relative greater tenacity of life in women. They are longer lived, alike in infancy and in old age; they also show a greater power of resisting death. The difference in the incidence of disease, again, in the two s.e.xes is far from furnishing conclusive evidence as to the greater feebleness of women. Their const.i.tution seems to have staying powers greater than the man"s. The theory that women are "natural invalids" cannot be accepted. Every care must be taken to guard against any misdifferentiation of function in the kind of work women are to do, but there is no evidence to prove that healthy work is less beneficial to women than to men. Indeed, all the evidence points in the opposite direction. Even in the matter of muscular power it is difficult to make any absolute statement. The muscular development of women among primitive peoples is well known.
j.a.panese women will coal a vessel with a rapidity unsurpa.s.sable by men. The pit-brow women of the Lancashire collieries are said to be of finer physical development than any other cla.s.s of women workers. I have seen the women of Northern Spain perform feats of strength that seem extraordinary.
It is worth while to wait to consider these Spanish women, who are well known to me. The industrial side of primitive culture has always belonged to women, and in Galicia, the north-west province of Spain, the old custom is still in active practice, owing to the widespread emigration of the men. The farms are worked by women, the ox-carts are driven by women, the seed is sown and reaped by women--indeed, all work is done by women. What is important is that these women have benefited by this enforced engaging in activities which in most countries have been absorbed by men. The fine physical qualities of these workers can scarcely be questioned. I have taken pains to gain all possible information on this subject. Statistics are not available, because in Galicia they have not been kept from this point of view. I find, however, that it is the opinion of many eminent doctors and the most thoughtful men of the province, that this labour does not damage the health or beauty of the women, but the contrary, nor does it prejudice the life and health of their children. As workers they are most conscientious and intelligent, apt to learn, and ready to adopt improvements. From my personal observations I can bear witness that their children are universally well cared for. What impressed me was that these women looked happy. They are full of energy and vigour, even to an advanced age. They are evidently happy, and the standard of beauty among them will compare favourably with the women of any other nation. I once witnessed an interesting episode during a motor-ride in the country. A robust and comely Gallegan woman was riding _a ancas_ (pillion fashion) with a young _caballero_, probably her son. The pa.s.sing of our motor-car frightened the steed, with the result that both riders were unhorsed. Neither was hurt, but it was the woman who pursued the runaway horse. She caught it without a.s.sistance and with surprising skill. What happened to the man I cannot say. When I saw him he was standing in the road brushing the dust from his clothes. I presume the woman returned with the horse to fetch him.
Women were the world"s primitive carriers. In Galicia I have seen women bearing immense burdens, unloading boats, acting as porters and firemen, and removing household furniture. I saw one woman with a chest of drawers easily poised upon her head, another woman bore a coffin, while another, who was old, carried a small bedstead. A beautiful woman porter in one village carried our heavy luggage, running with it on bare feet, without sign of effort. She was the mother of four children, and her husband was at the late Cuban war.
She was upright as a young pine, with the shapeliness that comes from perfect bodily equipoise. I do not wish to judge from trivial incidents, but I saw in the Gallegan women a strength and a beauty that has become rare among women to-day. I recall a conversation with an Englishman I met at La Coruna, of the not uncommon strongly patriotic and censorious type. We were walking together on the quay; he pointed to a group of the Gallegan burden-bearers, who were unloading a vessel, remarking in his indiscriminate British gallantry, "I can"t bear to see women doing work that ought to be done by men."
"Look at the women!" was the answer I made him.
It is, of course, impossible to compare the industrial conditions of such a country as Spain with England. We may a.s.sociate the position of women in Galicia with some of the old matriarchal conditions. Women are held in honour. There is a proverb common over all Northern Spain to the effect that he who is unfortunate and needs a.s.sistance should "seek his Gallegan mother." Many primitive customs survive, and one of the most interesting is that by which the eldest daughter in some districts takes precedence over the sons in inheritance. In no country does less stigma fall upon a child born out of wedlock. As far back as the fourth century Spanish women insisted on retaining their own names after marriage. We find the Synod of Elvira trying to limit this freedom. The practice is still common for the children to use the name of the mother coupled with that of the father, and in some cases, alone, showing the absence of preference for the paternal descent.[318] The introduction of modern inst.i.tutions, and especially the empty forms of chivalry, has lowered the position of women. Yet there can be no question that some feature of the ancient mother-right customs have left the imprint on the domestic life of the people.
Spanish women have, in certain directions, preserved a freedom and privilege which in England has never been established and is only now being claimed.[319]
How completely all difficulties vanish from the relationship of the s.e.xes where society is more sanely organised--with a wiser understanding of the things that really matter. The question is not: are our women fit for labour? but this: are the conditions of labour in England fit either for women or men? The supply of cheap labour on which the whole fabric of our society is built up is giving way--and it has to go. We have to plan out new and more tolerable conditions for the workers in every sort of employment. But first we have to organise the difficult period of transition from the present disorder.
I will not dwell on this. I would, however, point out that women must be trained and ready to take their part with men in this work of industrial re-organisation. They are even more deeply concerned than men. The conditions of under-payment for woman"s work are not restricted to sweated workers; it is the same in skilled work, and in all trades and professions that are open to women. For exactly the same work a lower rate of payment is offered. Female labour is cheap, just as slave labour is cheap, the woman is not considered as belonging to herself.
There is no question here of the real value of woman"s labour. The cry of man to woman under the patriarchal system has always been, and still for the most part is, "Your value in our eyes is your s.e.xuality, for your work we care not." But mark this! The penalty of this false adjustment has fallen upon men. For women, in their turn, have come to value men first in their capacity as providers for them, caring as little for the man"s s.e.x-value as men care for woman"s work-value.
From the moment when woman had to place the economic considerations in love first, her faculties of discrimination were no more of service for the selection of the fittest man. Here we may find the explanation of the kind of men girls have been willing to marry--old men, the unfit fathers, the diseased. Yes, any man who was able to do for them what they have not been allowed to do for themselves. And it is the race that suffers and rots; the sins of the mother must be visited on the child.
It is clear, then, there is one remedy and one alone. This separation of values must cease. All women"s work must be paid at a rate based on the quality and quant.i.ty of the work done; not upon her s.e.xuality. I do not mean by this that there should be any ignoring of woman"s special s.e.x-function; to do this, in my opinion, would be fatal. The bearing of fit children is woman"s most important work for the State.
The economic stress which forces women into unlimited compet.i.tion with men is, I am certain, harmful. _Women do not do this because they like it, but because they are driven to it._
The true effort of women, I conceive, should be centred on the freeing of the s.e.xual relationship from the domination of a viciously directed compulsion, and from the hardly less disastrous work-struggle of s.e.x against s.e.x. The emanc.i.p.ated woman must work to gain economic recognition, not necessarily the same as the man"s, but her own. It is to the direct interest of men to stop under-cutting by women; but the way to do this is not to force women out of labour, compelling their return to the home--that is impossible--rather it rests in an equal value of service being recognised in both s.e.xes. The fully developed woman of the future is still to be, and first there must be a time of what may well prove to be dangerous experiments. This may be regretted, it cannot be avoided. The finding out of new paths entails some losing of the way.
Women have to find out what work they can best do; what work they want to do, and _what work men want them to do_. I must insist, against all the Feminists, on this factor of men"s wishes being equally considered with woman"s own. It may not safely be neglected. Woman without man at her side, after obtaining her freedom, will advance even less far than man has advanced with his freedom, without her help. To deny this is to show an absurd misunderstanding of the problem. Neither the male-force alone, nor the female-power is sufficient; no theory of s.e.x-superiority shall prevail. The setting up of women against men, or men against women, to the disadvantage of one or the other, belongs to a day that is over. We must recognise that both the work of women and the work of men are in equal measure essential to satisfy the needs of the State; the force of both s.e.xes must be united to plan and carry out those measures of reform now called for by the new ideals of a civilised humanity. It is only by loosening all the chains of all women and all men alike that the inherent energies of the world"s workers can be set free for the eventual enn.o.bling of the race.
There is a fundamental difference in respect to the modes of energy in woman and man. Is it, then, too much to hope for, that in the enlightened civilisation, whose dawn is even now breaking the darkness, we shall recognise and use this difference in work-power and claim from women the kinds of labour they can give best to the State; and reward them for doing this in such a way that their primary social service of child-bearing is in no way impaired? But as yet the day is not. There is an outlook that causes foreboding. The female s.e.x is in a dangerous state of disturbance. New and strange urgencies are at work amongst us, forces for which the word "revolution" is only too faithfully appropriate. Little is being done to allay these forces, much conspires to exasperate them. Whither are they taking us? To this we women have to find an answer.
Other questions force themselves as wisely we wait to think. What will women do when they have gained the voice to control the att.i.tude the State shall a.s.sume in the regulation of their work? Will their decisions be founded on wide knowledge, that recognises all the facts and accepts the responsibilities and restrictions that any true freedom for their s.e.x entails, or will it be merely continued revolt, tending to embitter and intensify the struggle of s.e.x against s.e.x?
Will their action reveal the wise patience, the sympathy and understanding of the mother, or will it prove to be the illogical, short-sighted, and bewildered behaviour of the spoilt child? No one can answer these questions. Hitherto, it has seemed that women stand in danger of losing sight of great issues in grasping at immediate gains. Goaded by the wrongs they see so plainly waiting to be righted, they are in such a desperate hurry. But "hurry" should not belong to the woman"s nature. There is a "grasp" quality of this age that can bring nothing but harm to women. It is a great thing to be a woman, greater, as I believe, than to be a man. For the first time for long ages women are beginning again to understand this and all that it signifies. Women and not men are the responsible s.e.x in the great things of life that really matter. They are that "Stubborn Power of Permanency" of which Goethe speaks. The female not only typifies the race, she is the race. It is man who const.i.tutes the changing, the experimenting, s.e.x. Thus, woman has to be steadier than man, yes, and more self-sacrificing. She may not safely escape from her work as "the giver," and if she does not give in life, she must give in something.
We have got to do more than bear men, we have to carry them with us through life--our sons, our lovers, our husbands. We must free them now as well as ourselves, if our freedom is to count for anything. Let us not, then, in any impatience, neglect to pause, to prepare, to be ready, that the pregnancy of the present may bring fair birth when the days are fulfilled. For, after all, what shall it profit women if, in gaining the world, they lose themselves?
II.--_s.e.xual Differences in Mind and the Artistic Impulse in Women_
"The most secret elements of woman"s nature, in a.s.sociation with the magic mystery of her organisation, indicate the existence in her of peculiar and deep-lying creative ideas."--THEODOR MUNDT.
What is true of the physical differences between women and men is true also of the mental differences. We may readily accept the saturating influence of s.e.x on woman"s mind. I mean a deep-lying distinction, not superficial and to be explained away as due to outside things, but based on the essential fact of her womanhood--her capacity for maternity. But the impracticability of making any definite statement as to the exact nature or extent of such mental s.e.xual differentiation is evident. First must be cleared up the difficulty of distinguishing between those differences that are fundamental and const.i.tutional as being directly dependent on the woman character and those that have, or seem to have, arisen through distinction of training or environment, which may be termed evolutionary differences, and are likely to be changed by altered conditions. Even the trained biologist is unable to draw an undisputed line of demarcation between the two kinds of differences, and, even if it were drawn, the conclusion would not help us very much. For with regard to these evolutionary differences that are liable to change many questions have to be considered. Can they safely be modified or disregarded? Do we want them changed? Will the alteration really be of benefit to women? Only such qualities as can be proved clearly to be mis-differentiations--_i.e._ directly harmful--can be contemptuously dismissed. Thus the problem is an extraordinarily difficult one. I can only touch its outer fringe.
It is held that men have greater mental variability and more originality, while women have greater stability and more common sense.
In this connection may be noticed the characteristic male restlessness; man is probably more inclined to experiment with his body and his mind and with other people, while woman"s const.i.tution and temper is relatively more conservative. It is held that women have the greater integrating intelligence, while men are stronger in differentiation. The thinking power of woman is deductive, that of man inductive; woman"s influence on knowledge is thus held to be indirect rather than direct. But women have greater receptive powers, retain impressions better and have more vivid and surer memories; for which reason women are generally more receptive for facts than for laws, more for concrete than for general ideas. The feminine mind shows greater patience, more open-mindedness and tact, and keener insight into character, greater appreciation of subtle details and, consequently, what we call intuition. The masculine mind, on the other hand, tends to a greater height of sudden efforts, of scientific insight and experiment, greater frequency of genius, and this is a.s.sociated with an un.o.bservant or impatient disregard of details, but a stronger grasp of general ideas.
Now it is easy to make comparisons of this kind, but to accept them as at all final calls for great caution. Let me take, as an instance, the opinion so continuously affirmed, that women are distinguished by good memories, in particular, for details. Now to regard this as necessarily a mental s.e.xual character is entirely to mistake the facts. A tenacious memory for details that are often quite unimportant, belongs to all people of limited impressions and unskilled in thought; it maybe noticed in all children. Without a wide experience of life and practice in constructive thinking the mind inevitably falls back on fact-memory. I knew an agricultural labourer who could only tell his age by reckoning the years he had been dung-spreading. Thus a good memory for details may be a sign of an untrained mind. It is an entirely different thing from that acuteness of true memory, which ensures the retention of all experiences that have made an impression on the mind, with a corresponding rejection of what has failed to interest. Thus before anything can be said with regard to this memory power of woman, we have to decide on what it depends--_i.e._ is it really a mental quality of woman, or is it simply dependent on, and brought about by, the circ.u.mstances of her life and a limited experience? But to answer this question I shall wait till later in this chapter.
It would be easy to follow a similar train of argument with regard to each of these mental differences of the s.e.xes. Few women have yet entered even the threshold of the mental world of men, and those who have done this stand in the position of strangers or visitors. To be in it, in any true sense, would be to be born into it and to live in it by right; to absorb the same experiences, not consciously and by special effort, but unconsciously as a child absorbs words and learns to speak. Whenever this happens, and not till then, shall we be in a position to compare positively the mental efficiency of woman with men. At present no more can be affirmed than that the differences in woman"s mental expression are no greater than they must be in view of the existing differences in their experience. And I am not sure, even if such similarity of mental life were possible, that it would be of benefit to women. Indeed, I am almost sure that it would not. What is needed is an ungrudging recognition of the value of the special feminine qualities. This would do much to lessen the regrettable compet.i.tion that undoubtedly prevails at present, which is due, it seems to me, to the foolish denial of the value of any save masculine characteristics in our art, as also in our public and professional life.
But leaving this point for the present, there is another question arising from this first that also brings me doubt. Few will deny that women are more instinctive than logical; more intuitive than cerebral.
Men find their conclusions by searching for and observing facts, while women, to a great extent, arrive at the same end by instinct. _They know, rather than know how, or why, they know._ Now, too often we hear these qualities of woman treated with contempt. Is this wise? What I doubt is this: when women by education and evolution have been able to learn and to practise the inductive process of reasoning--if, indeed, they do come to do this--will they lose their present faculty of gaining conclusions by instinct? I believe that they must do so to a large extent, and I am not convinced that the gain would at all fully make up for the loss. Looking at human conduct, it is regulated quite as much by instinct as by reason. I think it will be impossible to prevent this being so, and if this is true, woman"s instinct may remain of greater service to her than the gaining of a higher reasoning faculty. The true distinction between the psychology of woman and man is as the difference between feeling and thought. Woman thinks through her emotions, man feels through his brain. This is obviously an exaggeration, but it will show what I mean by the different process of thought that, broadly speaking, is usual to the two s.e.xes. Mistakes are, of course, made by both processes, but more often, as I believe, by reasoning than by instinct--this is probably because I am a woman. But it is certain that each s.e.x contributes to the thought-power of the other, each is indispensable to the other, on the mental plane no less than on the physical.
The importance of the above will become obvious when we consider, as we will now do, the artistic impulse in woman. Strange difficulties have been raised on all sides concerning the occurrence of genius among women. It seems to be accepted that in respect of artistic endowment the male s.e.x is unquestionably superior to the female.
Havelock Ellis, for instance, in dealing with this question says, "The a.s.sertion of Mobius[320] that the art impulse is of the nature of a male secondary s.e.xual character, in the same sense as the beard, cannot be accepted without some qualification, but it may well represent an approximation of the truth." By some it is held that genius is linked with maleness: that it represents an ideal masculinity in the highest form; and from genius the feminine mind must, therefore, be excluded. But in truth it is not easy to credit such a.s.sumptions, or to see the strangeness of the difficulties in an exact opposite view, if we understand the significance of those qualities of femaleness which are allowed to women by those who most deny to her the possibility of genius. Such a denial serves only to show the absurd presumption of present knowledge of this kind in its hope to solve a problem so difficult.
Let me try to sift out the facts. And first we must inquire on what grounds this opinion is based. I have already alluded to the general belief in the greater degree of variability in men, which, if established, would on the psychical side involve an accentuated individualism and hence a greater possibility of genius. This view has been supported by John Hunter, Burdach, Darwin, Havelock Ellis, and others. Ellis, in the chapter on "The Artistic Impulse" in _Man and Woman_, says, "The rarity of women artists of the first rank is largely due to the greater variational tendency of men." Now, this biological fact is certainly of great importance, _if it can be proved_. But can it? It has recently been contested by anthropologists at least as distinguished as those who have given it their support.
Manouvrier, Karl Pearson, Frossetto, and especially Guiffrida-Ruggieri have brought forward evidence to prove the fallacy of this belief in the slighter variability and infantile character of woman. Now, it is clearly impossible for me in the s.p.a.ce at my command to go into the conclusions brought forward on both sides of this difficult question.
What I want to make clear is that this greater variability of man has not been established, and therefore cannot be accepted as a condition of male genius. I am glad to be able to give a statement on this question by Professor Arthur Thomson, which will sufficiently show that my opinion is not put forward wantonly and without due consideration, but that it coincides with the conclusion of one who is an acknowledged leader in the advanced biological study of the s.e.xes.
Professor Thomson writes thus[321]--