Woman and Man

My aim in this essay is that man and woman should grasp the points of difference between them, so that each of them may prepare himself for his own natural functions, and so that understanding may grow between them on foundations of knowledge. And the love of knowledge for knowledge's sake is as rare in men as it is in women.

The devil has made it seem fair to woman's enemies — the mothers excepted — that she is a den of evil and corruption. Their audacity has reached even to the holy of holies of motherhood, and they have ascribed to it, in falsehood and slander, what they alleged to be truth: they claimed, vainly, that woman in general has no wish to bear children unless she loves her husband with a passionate love that drives her to adorn the house with children, to whom passes her love for a husband who enjoys her respect and her confidence. But by the life of truth, the anthem of motherhood on woman's lips rises from her heart strong, resounding, constructive, socially magnificent. For motherhood moves woman to a sublime tenderness toward the pieces of her own heart, the resting place of her dreams and her hopes.

In every woman there are two passions: the passion of motherhood and the passion of alluring man. These two passions contend for mastery over the rest of her feelings and over the conduct peculiar to woman. They may meet at one and the same time in a single woman. She whom unjust fate has robbed of the passion of motherhood kindles the passion of allurement. Woman is what she is according as one of these two passions shrinks or breaks loose. And whoever blames any woman for the existence of these two passions in her breast is in error, for they are gifts of nature.

The greatest function that our mother nature has bestowed upon woman is motherhood, which fits woman to occupy a lofty station in the state.

Nature has distributed the functions among women and men, and no mortal can overturn nature's irrevocable decree. It falls to man to master nature and so secure food, clothing, and shelter; to fight in defense of its individual and social safety; and to pursue a girl who draws him, without intending it, by all manner of ways — such as bashfulness and modesty, feigned dislike of him, and railing at his tiresomeness and his impudence.

And the pursuit may end with his catching the girl as a wife who keeps to the house, prepares the food, sews the clothing, bears children, and rears them. Thus arose, half a million years ago, the main and weighty differences between woman and man, and we can find no way to exchange them for others.

For woman differs from man in every cell of her body; in what her life tears down and builds up; in her vital constitution; in her ductless glands; in her emotional apparatus; in her fondness for the fine arts, painting and music; in her concern with the affairs of the household; in her practice of the occupations that call for no exertion or movement; in her tenderness toward the wretched; in her moral and ethical leanings; in her love of mercy; in her timidity; in her gentleness and sweetness of character; in her delicacy and her elegance; in her tender emotional feeling.

Man, on the other hand, is an adventurer; he follows hard trades and labors, handles machines and tools, inclines to the sciences, to discoveries and inventions, and loves commercial dealings; he is self-loving, aggressive, unafraid, strong, rough, coarse in conduct, harsh of speech.

From these measures it appears that among men there are those who share with woman some of her qualities, just as among women we have mannish sisters of ours; but the overwhelming majority of both sexes has remained betwixt and between.

Man loves in woman her womanliness, which is the bridge to motherhood. So let every gifted, thinking woman, if she can, present the nation with children who will immortalize her talents; otherwise the loss endures for generations. Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was not right the day she proposed that girls crop their hair like boys, and that they play with no toys that prepare them for motherhood, so that they might be equal to males. Biological equality is a species of the impossible.

As for political equality, the rising woman must seek it: it is her right to remove the legislative fetters upon her political liberty and upon her right to vote. She does not possess the right to dispose of what she owns without asking her husband's leave, and man goes on proclaiming a mandate over woman, as though she were not one of the members of the nation. If courage found its way into woman's heart, she could purify politics, enact just laws, and bring into them human compassion. Quinet said: "Men make the laws; women alone stamp the customs." What, then, if they did both together?

Dismissing woman from her post upon marriage or childbirth is an encroachment upon woman's political and social rights — so let the fair-minded do justice.

Economic equality, for its part, aims at the equality of man and woman in their pay for any work, and at counting pregnancy and childbirth a government function for which the state pays a wage, as it does for man.

Woman's wage in commercial and industrial work is lower than man's wage, and that is because woman lacks specialization and experience. And for fear that a girl will leave her work in answer to the call of marriage, employers are wary of engaging girls; nor should we forget that the working woman supports herself, while man is compelled to support himself and his family.

The statistics of fact have proved the weakness of the belief in the sexual equality of woman and man: no woman, however gifted, can practice a profession and raise a family at one and the same time. Woman must be made man's equal by educating her with a free education, by regarding her as man's sister in rank, and by opening the doors of opportunity before her, so that her gifts may pour forth abundant and unconfined, sweep away the crumbling ruins of the past, and refresh the blossoming fields of the present, for the safeguarding of the general good of the people.

So let woman make of the home a paradise in miniature — deeper in feeling, richer in bounty, more abounding in love, firmer in its bond, and sweeter in its joys than ever before.