Is woman psychologically identical with man? or, if there is a difference, is it one of superiority and inferiority? And of what practical significance is this issue to society?
Two ways of approach are open: subject men and women to psychological tests, or observe performance in life and, exercising due critical care, infer capacity.
Both methods have been tried. The first enjoys to-day a certain vogue: it is the method of science, of experimental psychology. Unfortunately, the findings of science in this field have to date resulted in precisely nothing. It was feasible to assume that woman was man’s equal in elementary sensory capacity, in memory, types and varieties of associations, attention, sensitiveness to pain, heat and cold, etc. Experimental psychology has confirmed these assumptions. But what of it? What can we make of it? Precisely nothing. What we are interested in is whether woman can think “as logically” as man, whether she is more intuitive, more emotional, less imaginative, more practical, less honest, more sensitive, a better judge of human nature. These, among many other interesting issues cannot even be broached by experimental psychology “within the present state of our knowledge.”
Remains the second method, to observe performance and infer capacity.
To examine in this fashion all the issues involved would require a small library. I select only one, creativeness. Is woman man’s equal in creativeness? The choice is justified by the highly controversial character of the issue as well as its practical bearings.
Two periods in the history of civilization lend themselves admirably for our purpose, the primitive and the modern.
The primitive world was not innocent of discrimination against woman. In social and political leadership, in the ownership and disposition of property, in religion and ceremonialism, woman was subjected to more or less drastic restrictions. It would, therefore, be obviously unfair to expect her creativeness in these fields to have equaled or even approximated that of man. Not so in industry and art, where division of labor prevailed, but no sex disability. As one surveys the technical and artistic pursuits of primitive tribes, woman’s participation is everywhere in evidence. The baskets of California, the painted pots of the Pueblos, the beaded embroideries of the Plains, the famous Chilkat blankets, the tapa cloth of Polynesia, all of these were woman’s handiwork. Almost everywhere she plans and cuts and sews and decorates the garments worn by women as well as men. Also, in all primitive communities she gathers the wild products of vegetation and transforms them into palatable foods. More than this, in societies that know not the plow woman is, with few exceptions, the agriculturist. It follows that the observations, skills, techniques and inventions involved in these pursuits must also be credited to woman.
It will be conceded that in primitive society woman’s record is impressive: wherever she is permitted to apply her creativeness she makes good, and the excellence of her achievement is equal to that of man, certainly not conspicuously inferior to his.
In evaluating these findings, however, it is important to take cognizance of the submergence of individual initiative by the tribal pattern, a feature characteristic of primitive life. This applies to men and women, to artisans and artists. Imaginative flights being cut short by traditional norms, the individualism and subjectivism of modern art are here conspicuous by their absence.
How does this record compare with a survey of the modern period?