The Sexes in Science and History / An inquiry into the dogma of woman's inferiority to man

by Eliza Burt Gamble

Ever since the dominion of man over woman began a strict censorship over her dress has been maintained. Although in very recent times women are beginning to exercise a slight degree of independence in the matter of clothes, still, because of existing prejudices and customs they have not yet been able to adopt a style of dress which admits of the free and unrestricted use of the body and limbs. It is believed that woman, the natural tempter of man, if left to her own sinful devices, would again as of old attempt to destroy that inherent purity of heart and cleanliness of life which characterize the male constitution. Woman’s ankles and throat seem to be the most formidable foes against which innocent man has to contend, so the concealment of these offending members is deemed absolutely necessary for his protection and safety. Ecclesiastics, a class whose duty it has ever been to regulate and control the movements of women, seem to think that the ankles and throats of women were intended not for the use and convenience of their possessors but as snares to entrap holy men.

It would thus appear that the present fashions for female apparel have a deeper significance than we have been in the habit of ascribing to them. We are still living under conditions peculiar to a sensual age, and have not yet outgrown the requirements which condemn women to a style of dress which hinders the free movements of the body and which checks all the activities of life. In one way the woman of the present time may be said to resemble the male Argus pheasant, whose decorations, although they serve to please his mate, greatly hinder his power of motion and the free use of his body and limbs.

When we consider that apparel is but one, and a minor one, of the strictures under which women have laboured during the later era of human existence and when we consider all the ignoble and degrading uses to which womanhood has been subjected, the wonder is not that women have failed in the past to distinguish themselves in the various fields of intellectual labour in which men have achieved a limited degree of success, but that they have had sufficient energy and courage left to enable them even to attempt anything so far outside the boundary of their prescribed “sphere,” or that they have been able to transmit to their male offspring those powers through which they have gained their present stage of progress.

With regard to Mr. Darwin’s comparison of the intellectual powers of the two sexes, and his assertion that man attains to a higher eminence in whatever he takes up than woman—that, for instance, he surpasses her in the production of poetry, music, philosophy, etc., the facts at hand suggest that if within mankind no higher motives and tastes had been developed than those derived from selfishness and passion, there would never have arisen a desire for poetry, music, philosophy, or science, or, in fact, for any of the achievements which have been the result of the more exalted activities of the human intellect. However, because of the subjection of the higher faculties developed in mankind, the poetry, music, and painting of the past betray their sensuous origin and plainly reveal the stage of advancement which has been reached, while history, philosophy, and even science, judging from Mr. Darwin’s methods, have not yet wholly emerged from the murky atmosphere of a sensuous age.

It will be well for us to remember that the doctrine of the Survival of the Fittest does not imply that the best endowed, physically or otherwise, have always succeeded in the struggle for existence. By the term Survival of the Fittest we are to understand a natural law by means of which those best able to overcome the unfavourable conditions of their environment survive and are able to propagate their successful qualities. We must bear in mind that neither the growth of the individual nor that of society has proceeded in an unbroken or uninterrupted line; on the contrary, during a certain portion of human existence on the earth, the forces which tend toward degeneration have been stronger than whose which lie along the line of true development.

We are assured that the principles of construction and destruction are mutually employed in the reproductive processes, that continuous death means continuous life,—the katabolic or disruptive tendencies of the male being necessary to the anabolic or constructive habits of the female. As it is in reproduction, so has it been through the entire course of development. Side by side, all along the line, these two tendencies have been in operation; the grinding, rending, and devouring processes which we denominate Natural Selection, alongside those which unite, assimilate, and protect. As a result of the separation of the sexes there have been developed on the one side extreme egoism, or the desire for selfish gratification; on the other, altruism, or a desire for the welfare of others outside of self. Hence, throughout the later ages of human existence, since the egoistic principles have gained the ascendency, may be observed the unequal struggle for liberty and justice, against tyranny, and the oppressors of the masses of the human race. From present appearances it would seem, that the disruptive or devouring forces have always been in the ascendency. The philosophy of history however, teaches the contrary. With a broader view of the origin and development of the human race, and the unexpected light which within the last few years has been thrown upon prehistoric society and the grandeur of past achievement, a close student of the past is able to discern a faint glimmering of a more natural age of human existence, and is able to observe in the present intense struggles for freedom and equality, an attempt to return to the earlier and more natural principles of justice and liberty, and so to advance to a stage of society in which selfishness, sensuality, and superstition no longer reign supreme.

The status of women always furnishes an index to the true condition of society, one or two superficial writers to the contrary notwithstanding. For this phenomenon there is a scientific reason, namely: society advances just in proportion as women are able to convey to their offspring the progressive tendencies transmissible only through the female organism. It is plain, therefore, that mankind will never advance to a higher plane of thinking and living until the restrictions upon the liberties of women have been entirely removed, and until within every department of human activity, their natural instincts, and the methods of thought peculiar to them be allowed free expression. The following is from Mr. Buckle’s lecture on “The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge”:

I believe and I hope before we separate to convince you, that so far from women exercising little or no influence over the progress of knowledge, they are capable of exercising, and have actually exercised an enormous influence; that this influence, is, in fact, so great that it is hardly possible to assign limits to it; and that great as it is, it may with advantage be still further increased. I hope, moreover, to convince you that this influence has been exhibited not merely from time to time in rare, sudden, and transitory ebullitions, but that it acts by virtue of certain laws inherent in human nature; and that, although it works as an undercurrent below the surface, and is therefore invisible to hasty observers, it has already produced the most important results, and has affected the shape, the character, and the amount of our knowledge.

Through the processes involved in the differentiation of sex and the consequent division of functions, it has been possible during the past six thousand or seven thousand years (a mere tithe of the time spent by mankind upon the earth) for women to become enslaved, or subjected to the lower impulses of the male nature. Through the capture of women for wives, through the exigencies of warfare, the individual ownership of land, and the various changes incident to a certain stage of human existence, the finer sensibilities which characterize women have been overshadowed, and the higher forces which originated within them and which are transmitted in the female line, have been temporarily subdued by the great sexual ardour inherent in the opposite sex; it is not, therefore, singular that the degree of progress attained should appear to be wholly the result of male activity and acumen. Yet, notwithstanding the degradation to which women in the position assigned them by physical force have been obliged to submit, their capacity for improvement has suffered less from the influences and circumstances of their environment than has that of men. As the higher faculties are transmitted through women equally to both sexes, in the impoverishment of their inheritance on the female side, men have suffered equally with women, while, through their male progenitors, they have inherited appetites and habits (the result of a ruder and less developed structure) which weaken and degrade the entire constitution.

Doubtless, so soon as women have gained sufficient strength to enable them to maintain their independence, and after the higher faculties rather than the animal propensities rule supreme, men, through the imperfections in their organism, and the appetites acquired through these imperfections, will, for a considerable length of time, find themselves weighted in the struggle for supremacy, and this, too, by the very characters which under lower conditions are now believed to have determined their success.