"Mostly by disapproval, consistent and final."
This was the same sort of thing Owen had referred to in regard to tobacco. I didn't like it. It gave me a creepy feeling, as of one slowly surmounted by a rising tide. "Are you—do you mean to tell me, Nellie, that you women are trying to make men over to suit yourselves?"
"Yes. Why not? Didn't you make women to suit yourselves for several thousand years? You bred and trained us to suit your tastes; you liked us small, you liked us weak, you liked us timid, you liked us ignorant, you liked us pretty—what you called pretty—and you eliminated the kinds you did not like."
"How, if you please?"
"By the same process we use—by not marrying them. Then, you see, there aren't any more of that kind."
"You are wrong, Nellie—you're absurdly wrong. Women were naturally that way; that is, womanly women were, and men preferred that kind, of course."
"How do you know women were 'naturally' like that?—without special education and artificial selection, and all manner of restrictions and penalties? Where were any women ever allowed to grow up 'naturally' until now?"
I maintained a sulky silence, looking down at the lovely green fields and forests beneath. "Have you exterminated dogs?" I asked.
"Not yet. There are a good many real dogs left. But we don't make artificial ones any more."
"I suppose you keep all the cats—being women." She laughed.