IX
Special Sex-instruction for Maturing Young Women[ToC]
Parents would limit knowledge of daughters.
It was my original plan to make this lecture parallel with the preceding one for young men, but much discussion with parents and with scientifically trained women whose suggestions and criticisms I value has shown me that there is no consensus of opinion as to what should be taught to young women between eighteen and twenty-two years of age. I have found many fathers and mothers who think that their boys of fourteen or fifteen should be informed as suggested in the preceding lecture; but concerning some of the facts for boys these same parents were doubtful whether their daughters ought to know before twenty, and some of them have said twenty-five and even thirty. Some of them have said that they see no reason why an unmarried young woman of the protected group should know much more than a very limited amount of personal hygiene; but most of these people were decidedly hazy as to how the young woman about to marry may be sure of getting belated knowledge. In short, all along the line I have found intelligent parents and others who believe in very thorough sex-instruction for boys, but that "nice" girls should be kept as ignorant and innocent as possible. With such disagreement existing, it is evidently not possible to make such specific recommendations as have been made for boys.
§ 39. The Young Woman's Attitude towards Manhood
Women should have ideals.
Among those who agree heartily with the proposition that by education the young man's attitude towards womanhood (§ 30) should be cultivated I find, to my surprise, many who object to any parallel attempt to influence young woman's ideals of manhood. I say that I am surprised because it has long seemed to me that many of the faults of men are largely traceable to the fact that women as a sex have not been able to hold a high standard for manhood; and, therefore, I wonder when some thinking women question the desirability of trying to influence young women by organized instruction. Of course, we must not forget that before the coming of the economic and social freedom of women there were very few of them who were able to maintain a stand for their ideals of manhood; but this is no longer true in a great and rapidly increasing group of the individualized and educated classes. Therefore, it seems clear that if the better groups of women want a higher type of manhood capable of better adjustment in marriage, it is important that they consider ways and means of molding the minds of young women with reference to ideal manhood.
Ideals and disappointment.
Occasionally I have met a strange view of life in some men and women who have grown pessimistic from revelations concerning the sexual-social problems and who think that true manhood is so rare that emphasizing it with young women will lead to ideals that can rarely be realized in actual life; and therefore, for women so influenced there will be increasing discontent and disappointment in marriage or deliberate celibacy. No doubt this is in part true, as witness the many highly educated women who have written or said that there seem to be few attractive marriageable men of their own age. However, it is rare indeed that such women say that life would have meant more without the higher education and its resulting ideals that have stood in the way of marriage such as might be happy for uneducated women. This is in line with the fact that many cultivated men and women find that education has given unattained ideals and unsatisfied ambitions and strenuous life and disappointments, but it is rare that they long for the care-free and animal-like happiness of the tropical savage. We must remember that education gives us keener feeling for life's pains, but it also compensates by giving soul-satisfying appreciation of its joys. So it seems reasonable to believe that while educating young women to believe in and demand a higher ideal of manhood in its natural relations to womanhood will certainly make disappointments more heart-pressing for some, it will just as surely make realization the supreme happiness of others. And as adjustment of manhood and womanhood through the larger sex-education becomes more and more abundant and more and more perfected, the sum total of human happiness will increase.
Looking thus towards the ultimate good, I must refuse to accept the hopeless and depressing view that all young women should be kept ignorant of their relation to men and life in order that the absence of ideals of manhood may protect some women against possible disappointment by men.