One of the sharpest distinctions both between the essential characters
and the artificial positions of men and women, is in the matter of
games and sports. By far the greater proportion of them are essentially
masculine, and as such alien to women; while from those which are
humanly interesting, women have been largely debarred by their arbitrary
restrictions.
The play instinct is common to girls and boys alike; and endures in some
measure throughout life. As other young animals express their abounding
energies in capricious activities similar to those followed in the
business of living, so small children gambol, physically, like lambs and
kids; and as the young of higher kinds of animals imitate in their play
the more complex activities of their elders, so do children imitate
whatever activities they see about them. In this field of playing there
is no sex.
Similarly in adult life healthy and happy persons, men and women,
naturally express surplus energy in various forms of sport. We have
here one of the most distinctively human manifestations. The great
accumulation of social energy, and the necessary limitations of one
kind of work, leave a human being tired of one form of action, yet still
uneasy for lack of full expression; and this social need has been met by
our great safety valve of games and sports.
In a society of either sex, or in a society without sex, there would
still be both pleasure and use in games; they are vitally essential to
human life. In a society of two sexes, wherein one has dictated all the
terms of life, and the other has been confined to an extremely limited
fraction of human living, we may look to see this great field of
enjoyment as disproportionately divided.
It is not only that we have reduced the play impulse in women by
restricting them to one set of occupations, and overtaxing their
energies with mother-work and housework combined; and not only that by
our androcentric conventions we further restrict their amusements; but
we begin in infancy, and forcibly differentiate their methods of play
long before any natural distinction would appear.
Take that universal joy the doll, or puppet, as an instance. A small
imitation of a large known object carries delight to the heart of a
child of either sex. The worsted cat, the wooden horse, the little
wagon, the tin soldier, the wax doll, the toy village, the "Noah's Ark,"
the omnipresent "Teddy Bear," any and every small model of a real thing
is a delight to the young human being. Of all things the puppet is the
most intimate, the little image of another human being to play with.
The fancy of the child, making endless combinations with these visible
types, plays as freely as a kitten in the leaves; or gravely carries
out some observed forms of life, as the kitten imitates its mother's
hunting.
So far all is natural and human.
Now see our attitude toward child's play--under a masculine culture.
Regarding women only as a sex, and that sex as manifest from infancy,
we make and buy for our little girls toys suitable to this view. Being
females--which means mothers, we must needs provide them with babies
before they cease to be babies themselves; and we expect their play to
consist in an imitation of maternal cares. The doll, the puppet, which
interests all children, we have rendered as an eternal baby; and we
foist them upon our girl children by ceaseless millions.
The doll, as such, is dear to the little boy as well as the girl, but
not as a baby. He likes his jumping-jack, his worsted Sambo, often a
genuine rag-doll; but he is discouraged and ridiculed in this. We do
not expect the little boy to manifest a father's love and care for
an imitation child--but we do expect the little girl to show maternal
feelings for her imitation baby. It has not yet occurred to us that this
is monstrous.
Little children should not be expected to show, in painful precocity,
feelings which ought never to be experienced till they come at the
proper age. Our kittens play at cat-sports, little Tom and Tabby
together; but little Tabby does not play she is a mother!
Beyond the continuous dolls and their continuous dressing, we provide
for our little girls tea sets and kitchen sets, doll's houses, little
work-boxes--the imitation tools of their narrow trades. For the boy
there is a larger choice. We make for them not only the essentially
masculine toys of combat--all the enginery of mimic war; but also the
models of human things, like boats, railroads, wagons. For them, too,
are the comprehensive toys of the centuries, the kite, the top, the
ball. As the boy gets old enough to play the games that require skill,
he enters the world-lists, and the little sister, left inside, with her
everlasting dolls, learns that she is "only a girl," and "mustn't play
with boys--boys are so rough!" She has her doll and her tea set. She
"plays house." If very active she may jump rope, in solitary enthusiasm,
or in combination of from two to four. Her brother is playing games.
From this time on he plays the games of the world. The "sporting page"
should be called "the Man's Page" as that array of recipes, fashions and
cheap advice is called "the Woman's Page."
One of the immediate educational advantages of the boy's position is
that he learns "team work." This is not a masculine characteristic,
it is a human one; a social power. Women are equally capable of it
by nature; but not by education. Tending one's imitation baby is not
team-work; nor is playing house. The little girl is kept forever within
the limitations of her mother's "sphere" of action; while the boy learns
life, and fancies that his new growth is due to his superior sex.
Now there are certain essential distinctions in the sexes, which would
manifest themselves to some degree even in normally reared children;
as for instance the little male would be more given to fighting and
destroying; the little female more to caring for and constructing
things.
"Boys are so destructive!" we say with modest pride--as if it was in
some way a credit to them. But early youth is not the time to display
sex distinction; and they should be discouraged rather than approved.
The games of the world, now the games of men, easily fall into two broad
classes--games of skill and games of chance.
The interest and pleasure in the latter is purely human, and as such is
shared by the two sexes even now. Women, in the innocent beginnings or
the vicious extremes of this line of amusement, make as wild gamblers as
men. At the races, at the roulette wheel, at the bridge table, this is
clearly seen.
In games of skill we have a different showing. Most of these are
developed by and for men; but when they are allowed, women take part in
them with interest and success. In card games, in chess, checkers,
and the like, in croquet and tennis, they play, and play well if
well-trained. Where they fall short in so many games, and are so wholly
excluded in others, is not for lack of human capacity, but for lack of
masculinity. Most games are male. In their element of desire to win,
to get the prize, they are male; and in their universal attitude of
competition they are male, the basic spirit of desire and of combat
working out through subtle modern forms.
There is something inherently masculine also in the universal dominance
of the projectile in their games. The ball is the one unescapable
instrument of sport. From the snapped marble of infancy to the flying
missile of the bat, this form endures. To send something forth with
violence; to throw it, bat it, kick it, shoot it; this impulse seems to
date back to one of the twin forces of the universe--the centrifugal and
centripetal energies between which swing the planets.
The basic feminine impulse is to gather, to put together, to construct;
the basic masculine impulse to scatter, to disseminate, to destroy. It
seems to give pleasure to a man to bang something and drive it from him;
the harder he hits it and the farther it goes the better pleased he is.
Games of this sort will never appeal to women. They are not wrong; not
necessarily evil in their place; our mistake is in considering them as
human, whereas they are only masculine.
Play, in the childish sense is an expression of previous habit; and
to be studied in that light. Play in the educational sense should be
encouraged or discouraged to develop desired characteristics. This we
know, and practice; only we do it under androcentric canons; confining
the girl to the narrow range we consider proper for women, and assisting
the boy to cover life with the expression of masculinity, when we should
be helping both to a more human development.
Our settled conviction that men are people--the people, and that
masculine qualities are the main desideratam in life, is what keeps
up this false estimate of the value of our present games. Advocates
of football, for instance, proudly claim that it fits a man for life.
Life--from the wholly male point of view--is a battle, with a prize. To
want something beyond measure, and to fight to get--that is the simple
proposition. This view of life finds its most naive expression in
predatory warfare; and still tends to make predatory warfare of the
later and more human processes of industry. Because they see life in
this way they imagine that skill and practice in the art of fighting,
especially in collective fighting, is so valuable in our modern life.
This is an archaism which would be laughable if it were not so dangerous
in its effects.
The valuable processes to-day are those of invention, discovery, all
grades of industry, and, most especially needed, the capacity for honest
service and administration of our immense advantages. These are not
learned on the football field. This spirit of desire and combat may be
seen further in all parts of this great subject. It has developed into
a cult of sportsmanship; so universally accepted among men as of
superlative merit as to quite blind them to other standards of judgment.
In the Cook-Peary controversy of 1909, this canon was made manifest.
Here, one man had spent a lifetime in trying to accomplish something;
and at the eleventh hour succeeded. Then, coming out in the rich triumph
long deferred, he finds another man, of character well known to him,
impudently and falsely claiming that he had done it first. Mr. Peary
expressed himself, quite restrainedly and correctly, in regard to the
effrontery and falsity of this claim--and all the country rose up and
denounced him as "unsportsmanlike!"
Sport and the canons of sport are so dominant in the masculine mind that
what they considered a deviation from these standards was of far more
importance than the question of fact involved; to say nothing of the
moral obliquity of one lying to the whole world, for money; and that at
the cost of another's hard-won triumph.
If women had condemned the conduct of one or the other as "not good
house-wifery," this would have been considered a most puerile comment.
But to be "unsportsmanlike" is the unpardonable sin.
Owing to our warped standards we glaringly misjudge the attitude of the
two sexes in regard to their amusements. Of late years more women than
ever before have taken to playing cards; and some, unfortunately, play
for money. A steady stream of comment and blame follows upon this. The
amount of card playing among men--and the amount of money lost and won,
does not produce an equivalent comment.
Quite aside from this one field of dissipation, look at the share of
life, of time, of strength, of money, given by men to their wide range
of recreation. The primitive satisfaction of hunting and fishing
they maintain at enormous expense. This is the indulgence of a most
rudimentary impulse; pre-social and largely pre-human, of no service
save as it affects bodily health, and of a most deterring influence
on real human development. Where hunting and fishing is of real human
service, done as a means of livelihood, it is looked down upon like any
other industry; it is no longer "sport."
The human being kills to eat, or to sell and eat from the returns; he
kills for the creature's hide or tusks, for use of some sort; or to
protect his crops from vermin, his flocks from depredation; but the
sportsman kills for the gratification of a primeval instinct, and under
rules of an arbitrary cult. "Game" creatures are his prey; bird, beast
or fish that is hard to catch, that requires some skill to slay; that
will give him not mere meat and bones, but "the pleasure of the chase."
The pleasure of the chase is a very real one. It is exemplified, in
its broad sense in children's play. The running and catching games, the
hiding and finding games, are always attractive to our infancy, as
they are to that of cubs and kittens. But the long continuance of this
indulgence among mature civilized beings is due to their masculinity.
That group of associated sex instincts, which in the woman prompts to
the patient service and fierce defence of the little child, in the man
has its deepest root in seeking, pursuing and catching. To hunt is more
than a means of obtaining food, in his long ancestry; it is to follow at
any cost, to seek through all difficulties, to struggle for and secure
the central prize of his being--a mate.
His "protective instincts" are far later and more superficial. To
support and care for his wife, his children, is a recent habit, in plain
sight historically; but "the pleasure of the chase" is older than that.
We should remember that associate habits and impulses last for ages upon
ages in living forms; as in the tree climbing instincts of our earliest
years, of Simian origin; and the love of water, which dates back through
unmeasured time. Where for millions of years the strongest pleasure
a given organism is fitted for, is obtained by a certain group of
activities, those activities will continue to give pleasure long after
their earlier use is gone.
This is why men enjoy "the ardor of pursuit" far more than women. It is
an essentially masculine ardor. To come easily by what he wants does not
satisfy him. He wants to want it. He wants to hunt it, seek it, chase
it, catch it. He wants it to be "game." He is by virtue of his sex a
sportsman.
There is no reason why these special instincts should not be gratified
so long as it does no harm to the more important social processes; but
it is distinctly desirable that we should understand their nature. The
reason why we have the present overwhelming mass of "sporting events,"
from the ball game to the prize fight, is because our civilization is
so overwhelmingly masculine. We shall criticize them more justly when
we see that all this mass of indulgence is in the first place a form of
sex-expression, and in the second place a survival of instincts older
than the oldest savagery.
Besides our games and sports we have a large field of "amusements" also
worth examining. We not only enjoy doing things, but we enjoy seeing
them done by others. In these highly specialized days most of our
amusement consists in paying two dollars to sit three hours and see
other people do things.
This in its largest sense is wholly human. We, as social creatures,
can enjoy a thousand forms of expression quite beyond the personal. The
birds must each sing his own song; the crickets chirp in millionfold
performance; but human being feels the deep thrill of joy in their
special singers, actors, dancers, as well as in their own personal
attempts. That we should find pleasure in watching one another is
humanly natural, but what it is we watch, the kind of pleasure and the
kind of performance, opens a wide field of choice.
We know, for instance, something of the crude excesses of aboriginal
Australian dances; we know more of the gross license of old Rome;
we know the breadth of the jokes in medieval times, and the childish
brutality of the bull-ring and the cockpit. We know, in a word, that
amusements vary; that they form a ready gauge of character and culture;
that they have a strong educational influence for good or bad. What we
have not hitherto observed is the predominant masculine influence on
our amusements. If we recall once more the statement with regard to
entertaining anecdotes, "There are thirty good stories in the world, and
twenty-nine of them cannot be told to women," we get a glaring sidelight
on the masculine specialization in jokes.
"Women have no sense of humor" has been frequently said, when "Women
have not a masculine sense of humor" would be truer. If women had thirty
"good stories" twenty-nine of which could not be told to men, it is
possible that men, if they heard some of the twenty-nine, would not
find them funny. The overweight of one sex has told in our amusements as
everywhere else.
Because men are further developed in humanity than women are as yet,
they have built and organized great places of amusement; because they
carried into their humanity their unchecked masculinity, they have made
these amusements to correspond. Dramatic expression, is in its true
sense, not only a human distinction, but one of our noblest arts. It is
allied with the highest emotions; is religious, educational, patriotic,
covering the whole range of human feeling. Through it we should be able
continually to express, in audible, visible forms, alive and moving,
whatever phase of life we most enjoyed or wished to see. There was a
time when the drama led life; lifted, taught, inspired, enlightened. Now
its main function is to amuse. Under the demand for amusement, it has
cheapened and coarsened, and now the thousand vaudevilles and picture
shows give us the broken fragments of a degraded art of which our one
main demand is that it shall make us laugh.
There are many causes at work here; and while this study seeks to show
in various fields one cause, it does not claim that cause is the only
one. Our economic conditions have enormous weight upon our amusements,
as on all other human phenomena; but even under economic pressure the
reactions of men and women are often dissimilar. Tired men and women
both need amusement, the relaxation and restful change of irresponsible
gayety. The great majority of women, who work longer hours than
any other class, need it desperately and never get it. Amusement,
entertainment, recreation, should be open to us all, enjoyed by all.
This is a human need, and not a distinction of either sex. Like most
human things it is not only largely monopolized by men, but masculized
throughout. Many forms of amusement are for men only; more for men
mostly; all are for men if they choose to go.
The entrance of women upon the stage, and their increased attendance at
theatres has somewhat modified the nature of the performance; even the
"refined vaudeville" now begins to show the influence of women. It would
be no great advantage to have this department of human life feminized;
the improvement desired is to have it less masculized; to reduce the
excessive influence of one, and to bring out those broad human interests
and pleasures which men and women can equally participate in and enjoy.