[317] E. von Wolzogen gives this name, The Third Sex, to a romance in which he describes a kind of barren, stunted woman, capable, however, of holding her place in all work in competition with men. The writer compares these types of women to the workers among ants and bees. See p. 62. I have quoted from Iwan Bloch, The Sexual Life of Our Times, p. 13.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER IX
APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER WITH SOME FURTHER REMARKS ON SEX DIFFERENCES
I.—Women and Labour
A further examination of the sexual differences—The knowledge we have gained does not enable us definitely to settle the problem—The necessity of considering Nurture—Woman's character to some extent the result of circumstance, to some extent organic—The difficulties of the problem—Standards of comparison—Incompleteness of our knowledge—New researches on sex-differences—The confusion of opinions—Women and men different, but neither superior to the other—The position of women in society to-day—The increasing surplus of women—How can a remedy be found?—Woman's place in the home—The changes in modern conditions—Women and labour—The damning struggle for life—Sweated work—Women's wages—The marketable value of woman's sex—This the explanation of the smallness of women's wages—The prostitute better paid than the worker—Woman's strength as compared with man's—Are women really the weaker sex?—Woman's work capacity equal to man's, but different—The Spanish women—The intolerable conditions of labour in commercial countries—Women more deeply concerned than men—The real value of women's work—This must be recognised by the State—The social service of child-bearing—The primary and most important work of women—The present revolt of women—How far is this justifiable—A caution and some reflections.
II.—Sexual Differences of the Mind and the Artistic Impulse in Women
The mental and psychical sexual differences—Ineradicability of these—Can they be modified or disregarded?—The masculine and feminine intellectual qualities—Caution necessary in making any comparison—Example, a tenacious memory—Is this a feminine characteristic?—Woman's intuition—Its value—Each sex contributes to the thought power of the other—The artistic impulse—Is genius to be regarded as an endowment of the male?—An examination of the grounds for this view—Untenability of the opinion of the greater variational tendency of men—The question needs reopening—The influence of environment and training on woman's mind—What woman can, or can not, do as yet unproved—Woman's talent for diplomacy—The separation between the mental life of the sexes—The result on woman's mind—The revolt against repression—Woman as she is represented in literature—The woman of the future—Woman the cause of emotion in men—Part played by women in early civilisations—What men learnt from them—Woman's emotional endowment—Her affectability and response to suggestion—These the qualities essential to success in the arts—A comparison between the qualities of genius and the qualities of woman—This opens up questions of startling significance—What women may achieve in the future—Some suggestions as to the effect of the entrance of women into the arts.