Is It True That Woman, Deep Down, Hates Man?..

The newspapers and magazines bring us curious and absorbing news of scientific and psychological research, and here, Madam, true to our custom, we present you with one such item.

Among the findings of psychological research are strange truths — among them, that woman hates man and cannot trust him. But where does woman stand with regard to this truth? How can she harbor rancor toward a person she loves in soul and in body? Indeed, how can she hate the man without whom she cannot live happy?

Woman, by a caprice of her nature, tries to hide this feeling, because she hates to admit its existence or give voice to it; it may well be that this springs from pride and self-regard. But this rancor suppressed within her is among the elements of the natural causes that make of man the stronger sex, the master of her affairs, however small those affairs may be; and this struggle has taken root with the days and grown, until at last it took on this form.

Pressure:

Woman is always bound by social conventions, and when the chance to free herself from them is offered her, she revolts against men in general. This phenomenon inclines man to believe that woman lacks consistency in her understanding of things. Yet woman is not alone responsible; the responsibility falls upon society and upon man at one and the same time as it falls upon her. There are reasons for this, which we set out below:

1 - Girls are taught from childhood to look upon boys with reserve and caution — the cause being the parents' injunction to keep away from boy companions, on the plea that boys play with a roughness seldom fitting for a girl. And so, by the time girls reach the stage of maturity, the elements of fear and caution have disfigured the bonds of brotherhood and comradeship between them and the boys. As a result of this warning, the girl grows up in an atmosphere of strange feeling toward her fellow, the boy (the man).

2 - The girl matures intellectually and physiologically at a speed exceeding that at which the boy matures. And owing to this head start in development, she finds herself in sympathy and harmony with any girl of her own age, while the boy is less mature than she, and more childish.

Jealousy:

Jealousy alone is enough to wreck happiness — how much more when it comes by way of woman!? For she rejoices, first of all, more over the newborn "male" than over the "female," her daughter. She favors him in her treatment, out of an inner conviction that this world is his world, and she wants him to be one of its successful men. Thus from childhood she plants in him the "instinct of sexual superiority," which breeds jealousy between him and his sister. And we cannot help asking: how, after this, should man not go on feeling his importance and his standing in society, so long as it is woman herself who creates this instinct in him and goes on protecting it for him, at home and outside it?

3 - The social factors that separate the boy from the girl place the latter in a kind of hidden "conspiracy" against him, together with her girl companions.

4 - "Childbirth" constitutes, in itself, a frightening factor that she dreads; and she disdains staying in the house, finding in it only boredom and tedium.

5 - Since we live in a world that respects the individual and holds freedom sacred, success is the utmost she desires and the greatest thing she aspires to; and so the girl looks to the women who have mounted the thrones of the cinema, to the women writers, the social workers, etc..., as her highest goal. She hates to be a burden upon man, even if he is her father or her husband, for she aspires to a loftier aim.

6 - She is forever in a race with man, and she feels that he denies her her right: in her work she sees that man usually has the preference over her; and so she revolts against man spontaneously and hates him in spite of herself and without willing it — and the circle turns and comes to rest at the point of battle: the battle of the sexes.

To ward off these causes, woman and man together, by their cooperation and their understanding of things, can create an atmosphere of happy coexistence — for it is inconceivable that either of them should live without the other.