deploring the increased freedom allowed women and the tendency to judge
them less severely, still claim belief in a single standard for both
sexes. In so far as woman’s virtue consists in aloofness from the evils
which the double standard implies it quite obviously cannot be adopted
as the single standard by which all members of society are to live.
Even aside from this consideration it would seem to be as undesirable
as it is impossible to extend to men the traditions and restrictions
which have for so long governed women. Does any one really wish to
have grown boys constantly accompanied and watched over by their
elders? Does any one wish that the goings and comings of men should be
as specifically determined as those of women have always been? Should
we look forward to a day when a man will be judged as good or bad on
the sole basis of whether or not he has ever had any irregular sex
relation?
One would think that the suspicions of even the most uncritical might
be aroused by the rigidly absolute and impersonal nature of women’s
sex ideals. The notion of purity as lying in the abstention from a
particular act except under carefully prescribed circumstances has
all the marks of a primitive taboo and none of the characteristics of
a rational moral principle. The ideals of woman’s honor and chastity
have without doubt been built up in answer to human wants--the defense
which is invariably given of customs, good or bad. Probably those
sociologists are not far wrong who hold that they have developed as
a response, in early times, to the sentiments of man as a property
owner; later, in response to masculine vanity and jealousy, though
these motives have, of course, been idealized beyond all recognition.
We need not be surprised, then, to find that they bear no relation
to an interest in woman’s spiritual welfare and growth, an interest
to which society is only now giving birth with pitiable pains of
labor. To follow an ideal which almost entirely excludes sex interest
as something evil is to condemn one of the richest elements in
personal experience. And this ideal has regulated not only woman’s
sex experience but has demanded and received incalculable sacrifices
in all the phases of her life, mercilessly limiting the sphere of her
activities, smothering interests of value and nourishing others to an
unnatural state of development, and warping her character to satisfy
its most exacting demands. Because she must first of all conform
to an unpolluted archetype, and because society must be secure in
the knowledge that she is indeed so conforming, she has never been
able to meet life freely, to make what experience she could out of
circumstances, to poke about here and there in the nooks and crannies
of her surroundings better to understand the world in which she lives.
We find here a more subtle but more deadly limitation than exclusion
from institutions of learning or from political privileges. And under
this limitation woman has labored in the service of a paltry ideal.
Not only is it undesirable that men should attempt to follow such
an ideal but it is quite obvious that as long as they accept it
as adequate for women they are prevented in innumerable ways from
developing intelligent principles for their own guidance. For one
thing, they will come to look upon the sex element in most of its forms
as a moral evil. Experience tells them, however, that it is, in their
own case, a natural good. Thus they are led to accept a distinction
fatal to moral integrity and progress. The sex element is admitted to
the life of the average man by the back door; once within, it has fair
run of the establishment though it is always looked on askance by the
other members of the household. Sex interests are to be recognized and
indulged but divorced from all that is “fine” and “ideal.” They are
considered desirable though immoral and so are to be tolerated just to
the extent that they are divorced from those elements in society--the
family, the home, and good women--which are supposed to embody virtue.
It is not realized that virtue, far from being a rival of the other
good things of life, is to be attained only through an intelligent
interest in good things, and that to divorce moral from natural good
is to deal a death blow to both. We cannot wonder that at present sex
interest so often expresses itself in the form of dubious stories,
coarse revues, and degrading physical relations. While the “good” woman
who considers sex somehow lowering is apt to develop a personality
which is anemic and immature, the man who accepts the conventional
scheme of life develops a personality coarse and uncoördinated.
I do not mean to say that there have been no elements of value in the
ideal of purity by which some women have lived. It is undoubtedly true
that unregulated and impersonal sex desires and activities quarrel with
more stable and fruitful interests in life. But while the most valuable
experiences of love are, in general, to be found in more lasting
relations, it does not follow that society should prescribe for every
one of its members a particular line of sex conduct and attempt to see,
through constant supervision, that its prescriptions are carried out.
The sacrifice in terms of freedom of activity and experience is too
great and the living flower of personal purity cannot be manufactured
by any such artificial methods.
The sex relations of an individual should no more be subjected to
social regulation than his friendships. There is indeed a closely
related matter for which he is immediately responsible to society--that
is the welfare of any children resulting from such relations. The two
matters are, however, quite distinguishable and no one could hold that
the effort which society makes to control sex relations is to any
extent based upon concern for the welfare of possible offspring. If
this were so, one would not hear so much condemnation of birth-control
measures on the ground that they “encourage immorality.” No. It is
personal experience which society would like to prescribe for its
members, personal virtue that it would like to mold for them. But
virtue is not a predetermined result, a kind of spiritual dessert that
any one can cook up who will follow with due care the proper ethical
receipt. It is, on the contrary, something which is never twice alike;
something which appears in ever new and lovely forms as the fruit
of harmoniously developed elements in a unique character complex.
Experience cannot be defined in terms of external circumstances and
bodily acts and thus judged as absolutely good or bad. Sex experiences,
like other experiences, can be judged of only on the basis of the part
which they play in the creative drama of the individual soul. There
are as many possibilities for successful sex life as there are men and
women in the world. A significant single standard can be attained only
through the habit of judging every case, man or woman, in the light of
the character of the individual and of the particular circumstances in
which he or she is placed.
From the changes taking place in sex morality we may, with sufficient
wisdom and courage, win inestimable gains. Certainly we should be
grateful that young people are forming the habit of meeting this old
problem in a quite new way--that is, with the coöperation of the two
sexes. In the interest of this newer approach we should accord to
girls as much freedom from immediate supervision as we have always
given to boys. The old restrictions, imposed upon girls alone, imply,
of course, the double standard with all its attendant evils; imply the
placid acceptance of two essentially different systems of value; imply
the preference for physical purity over personal responsibility and
true moral development. We should encourage the daughters of to-day
in their fast developing scorn for the “respect” which our feminine
predecessors thought was their due--a respect which man was expected
to reveal in the habit of keeping the nice woman untouched by certain
rather conspicuous elements, interests, and activities in his own life.
In so far as there is something truly gay in these aspects of life,
something which men know at the bottom of their hearts they should not
be called on to forego, there is much that women can learn. Most people
to-day hold in their minds an image of two worlds--one of gayety and
freedom, the other of morality. It is because gayety and morality are
thus divorced that gayety becomes sordidness, morality dreariness.
Not until men and women develop together the legitimate interests
which both of these worlds satisfy will the present inconsistency and
hypocrisy be done away with and both men and women be free to achieve,
if they can, rich and unified personal lives.
Where Are the Female Geniuses?
By Sylvia Kopald
Sylvia Kopald
_is primarily a specialist in labor and the author of a recent study of
outlaw strikes, “Rebellion in Labor Unions.”_
WHERE ARE THE FEMALE GENIUSES?
BY SYLVIA KOPALD
Many years ago, Voltaire was initiated into the mysteries of Newton by
Mme. du Châtelet. Finishing her translation and her rich commentary
upon the _Principles_, in a glow he extended to her the greatest
tribute which man has yet found for exceptional women. He said, “A
woman who has translated and illuminated Newton is, in short, a very
great man.” Genius has long been a masculine characteristic, although
some more generous authors admit its possession by certain “depraved”
women. Only the courtesans of classical antiquity could be women and
individuals at once, and, therefore, Jean Finot found it necessary to
remind us emphatically even in 1913 that “women of genius and talent
are not necessarily depraved.” Not necessarily, mind you. No, the
great woman may be, in short, a great man, but she is not necessarily
depraved.
As the twentieth century progresses and women capture the outposts of
individuality one after the other, the old questions lose much of their
old malignancy. Women battle with the problem of how to combine a home
and a career and men become less sure (especially in these days of high
living costs) that woman’s place is in the home. As women enter the
trades and the arts and the professions, men begin to discover comrades
where there were only girls and wives and mothers before. It is an
exciting century, this women’s century, and even though prejudices
crumble slowly, they crumble. Yet one of the old questions remains,
stalwart and unyielding as ever: Where are the female geniuses?
Even a pessimist may find cause for rejoicing in this final wording
of the “woman question.” Man’s search for the female genius is more
consoling than his sorrowful quest for the snows of yesteryear. For
snows, like all beauty, have a way of melting with time; a mind ripens
and mellows with age. Granted a mind which it is no longer a shame or a
battle to develop, women can look upon the passing of the years with at
least as great an equanimity as does man. She remains in the picture
of life long after the Maker’s paints have begun to dry. And that is
good. But as long as the female geniuses remain undiscovered, it must
be also a bit insecure. Women may have minds--every average man will
now grant that. But (he will quickly ask) have they ever much more than
average minds? Look at history, which this time really does prove what
you want it to. Every high peak in the historic landscape is masculine.
Point them out just as they occur to you: Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe,
Virgil, Horace, Catullus, Plato, Socrates, Newton, Darwin, Pasteur,
Watt, Edison, Steinmetz, Heine, Shelley, Keats, Beethoven, Wagner,
Bach, Tolstoi....
Where are the _female_ geniuses?
It has really become much more than a question of feminist
conversation. Science has attempted to put its seal of approval upon
the implied answer to this rhetorical question. It has sought to put
the notion that “a woman is only a woman, but a genius is a man,” into
impressively scientific lingo. The argument goes something like this:
In regard to practically all anatomical, physiological, and psychic
characteristics, the male exhibits a greater variability (i.e. a
greater range of spreading down from and up above the average) than
the female. The male is the agent of variation; the female is the
agent of type conservation. This sex difference operates in the realm
of mental ability as everywhere. In any comparable group of men and
women, the distribution of intelligence will tend to follow the law of
chances (Gaussian Curve). But female intelligence will cluster far more
about its average than male. There will be more imbeciles and idiots
among men, but there will also be more geniuses. It is really very
simple, as the following arbitrary example will show. Supposing you
take comparable sample groups of 1000 men and 1000 women from a given
population. After testing them for grade of intelligence, you classify
them according to previously accepted “intelligence classes.” Your
results would tend to read a little like this:
_Number_ _Number_
_Intelligence Class_ _Men_ _Women_
Idiots 10 3
Inferior 100 50
Slow 200 150
Average 380 595
Able 200 150
Highly Talented 100 52
Geniuses 10 ..
Of course none of the proponents of this theory would state the alleged
facts of man’s greater variability in such bald terms. But all of them
would agree that men do vary more than women and in some such fashion.
In this greater variability they see the explanation of men’s monopoly
of genius.
According to Karl Pearson this “law of the greater variability of the
male” was first stated by Darwin. Somewhat earlier, the anatomist
Meckel had concluded that the female is more variable than the male.
It is interesting to note in passing that he consequently judged
“variation a sign of inferiority.” By the time Burdach, Darwin, and
others had declared the male more variable, however, variation had
become an advantage and the basis and hope of all progress. To-day
great social significance is attached to the comparative variability
of the sexes, especially in its application to the questions of
sex differences in mental achievement. Probably the outstanding
English-speaking supporters of the theory in its modern form have been
Havelock Ellis and Dr. G. Stanley Hall. But even so cautious a student
as Dr. E. L. Thorndike has granted it his guarded support. And Dr.
James McKeen Cattell has explained the results of his study of 1000
eminent characters of history by means of it. Indeed many others hold
the theory in one form or another--e.g. Münsterburg, Patrick. What is
most important, of course, is that its supporters do not stop with the
mere statement of the theory. They ascribe to it tremendous effects
in the past and ask for it a large influence in the shaping of our
policies in the present.
For Havelock Ellis, the greater variability of the male “has social
and practical consequences of the widest significance. The whole of
our human civilization would have been a different thing if in early
zoölogical epochs the male had not acquired a greater variational
tendency than the female.” (“Man and Woman,” p. 387.) Professor Hall
builds up upon it a scheme of gushingly paradisaical (and properly
boring) education for the adolescent girl, which “keeps the purely
mental back” and develops the soul, the body, and the intuitions.
(“The Psychology of Adolescence,” Vol. II, Chap. 17.) Just because
Professor Thorndike is so careful in his statements, his practical
deductions from the theory are most interesting: “Thus the function of
education for women, though not necessarily differentiated by the small
differences in average capacity, is differentiated by the difference
in range of ability. Not only the probability and desirability of
marriage and the training of children as an essential feature of
women’s career but also the restriction of women to the mediocre grades
of ability and achievement should be reckoned with by our educational
systems. The education of women for such professions as administration,
statesmanship, philosophy, or scientific research, where a few very
gifted individuals are what society requires, is far less needed
than education for such professions as nursing, teaching, medicine,
or architecture, where the average level is essential. Elementary
education is probably an even better investment for the community in
the case of girls than in the case of boys; for almost all girls profit
by it, whereas the extremely low grade boy may not be up to his school
education in zeal or capacity and the extremely high grade boy may get
on better without it. So also with high school education. On the other
hand, post graduate instruction to which women are flocking in great
numbers is, at least in its higher reaches, a far more remunerative
social investment in the case of men.” (“Sex in Education,” _Bookman_,
Vol. XXIII, April, 1906, p. 213.)
Before we begin the revision of our educational systems in accordance
with this theory, we must make sure that it really explains away
the “female geniuses.” For although the theory is still widely held
by biologists and psychologists, it requires only a short study to
discover how tenuous is the evidence adduced in support of it--in
all its phases, but especially in regard to mental traits. Darwin
apparently gave no statistical evidence to support “the principle,”
as he called it, and those who have followed him have done little to
fill the lack. Professor Hall offers evidence that is almost entirely
empirical; Havelock Ellis has been attacked by Karl Pearson for
doing much “to perpetuate some of the worst of the pseudo-scientific
superstitions to which he [Ellis] refers, notably that of the greater
variability of the male human being.” Professor Thorndike, in spite
of his conclusions, admits that it “is unfortunate that so little
information is available for a study of sex differences in the
variability of mental traits in the case of individuals over fifteen.”
And while the overwhelming majority of Professor Cattell’s 1000 eminent
characters are men, he merely states without proving his explanation
that “woman departs less from the normal than man.”
Wise feminists to-day are concentrating their forces upon this theory.
Women have won the right to an acknowledged mind; they want now the
right to draw for genius and high talents in the “curve of chance.”
And this is no merely academic question. For while genius may overcome
the sternest physical barriers of environment, it is nourished and
developed by tolerant expectancy. Men may accomplish anything,
popular thought tells them, and so some men do. But if women are
scientifically excluded from the popular expectation of big things, if
their educations are toned down to preparation for “the average level,”
if motherhood remains the _only_ respected career for _all_ women,
then the female geniuses will remain few and far between. And, more
important still, all thinking women will continue restless over the
problem of how to secure the chance to vary in interests and abilities
from the average of their sex, and at the same time to be wives and
mothers.
In this fight for a full chance to compete, woman may do one (or all)
of three things. She may merely ignore the theory and go on “working
and living,” trusting that as environmental barriers fall one after
the other, this final question, too, will lose its meaning. She can
point out in support of this attitude that the past does contain its
female geniuses, however few; and certainly if all the barriers that
have been set up against woman’s entry into the larger world have not
entirely stifled female genius, we may at least look forward hopefully
to a kinder future. Something of this attitude, of this demand for free
experimentation, must make part of every woman’s armor against the
implications of this theory. But taken alone, it becomes more merely
defensive than the status of the theory deserves. For it is really the
theory that must defend itself. It must not only bring forward more
affirmative evidence, but it must also meet the contrary findings of
such investigation as has been made. It must, again, prove its title
to _the cause_ of the scarcity of female geniuses when so many other
more eradicable causes may be at its bottom.
The actual evidence that has been gathered on this question is still
uncertain and fragmentary. While it does not yet establish anything
definitely, it points to rather surprising conclusions. In all cases
investigated the discovered differences in variability have been
very slight, and if they balance either way tend to prove a greater
variability among women. Neither sex need have a monopoly of either
imbeciles or geniuses, but women may yet be found to be slightly more
favored with both!
The first painstaking investigation in this field was made by Dr. Karl
Pearson who published his interesting results as one essay in his
_Chances of Death and Other Studies in Evolution_ in 1897. Under the
heading “Variation in Man and Woman” (Vol. I, pp. 256-377), written
as a polemical attack upon Havelock Ellis’s stand in this theory, he
set forth results of measurements upon men and women in seventeen
anatomical characteristics. He obtained his data from statistics
already collected, from measurements of living men and women, and
from post-mortem and archeological examinations. Female variability
(coefficients of variation) proved greater in eleven of these seventeen
characteristics, male in six. He concluded among other things that
“there is ... no evidence of greater male variability, but rather
of a slightly greater female variability. Accordingly the principle
that man is more variable than woman must be put on one side as a
pseudo-scientific superstition until it has been demonstrated in a more
scientific manner than has hitherto been attempted.”
To round out this evidence Doctors Leta Hollingworth and Helen Montague
measured 20,000 infants at their birth in the maternity wards of the
New York Infirmary for Women and Children. They sought to discover
whether environmental influences played any determining rôle in
producing the results obtained by Pearson from measurements upon
adults. From the ten anatomical measurements made upon these babies
they found that “in all cases the differences in variability are very
slight. In only two cases does the percentile variation differ in the
first decimal place. In these two cases the variability is once greater
for males and once greater for females.” (“The Comparative Variability
of the Sexes at Birth,” _American Journal of Sociology_, Vol. XX,
1914-1915, pp. 335-370.)
The findings on anatomical variability do not, of course, necessarily
prove anything about differences in the range of mental ability. They
do, however, suggest the probability of parallel results and such
studies as have been made tend, on the whole, to bear this out. All
the recent work in this field (and it is still fragmentary) seems to
point at least to equal mental variability among men and women. In
1917, Terman and others in their “Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon
Scale for Measuring Intelligence” investigated this problem among
school children from five to fourteen years old. They obtained the
Intelligence Quotients of 457 boys and 448 girls and compared these
I.Q.’s with teachers’ estimates and judgments of intelligence and work
and with the age grade distribution of the sexes for the ages of 7 to
14. After making all necessary qualifications, they concluded that
the tests revealed a small superiority in the intelligence of the
girls that “probably rests upon a real superiority in intelligence,
age for age.” But “apart from the small superiority of the girls, the
distribution of intelligence shows no significant differences in the
sexes. The data offer no support to the wide-spread belief that girls
group themselves more closely about the median or that extremes of
intelligence are more common among boys” (p. 83).