Essays in War-Time Further Studies in the Task of Social Hygiene by Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

When we attempt to survey and sum up all the variegated facts which science and practical life are slowly accumulating with reference to the mental differences between men and women[4] we reach two main conclusions. On the one hand there is a fundamental equality of the sexes. It would certainly appear that women vary within a narrower range than men--that is to say, that the two extremes of genius and of idiocy are both more likely to show themselves in men. This implies that the pioneers in progress are most likely to be men. That, indeed, may be said to be a biological fact. "In all that concerns the evolution of ornamental characters the male leads; in him we see the trend which evolution is taking; the female and young afford us the measure of their advance along the new line which has to be taken."[5] In the human sphere of the arts and sciences, similarly, men, not women, take the lead. That men were the first decorative artists, rather than women, is indicated by the fact that the natural objects designed by early pre-historic artists were mainly women and wild beasts, that is to say, they were the work of masculine hunters, executed in idle intervals of the chase. But within the range in which nearly all of us move, there are always many men who in mental respects can do what most women can do, many women who can do what most men can do. We are not justified in excluding a whole sex absolutely from any field. In so doing we should certainly be depriving the world of some portion of its executive ability. The sexes may always safely be left to find their own levels.

On the other hand, the mental diversity of men and women is equally fundamental. It is rooted in organisation. The well-intentioned efforts of many pioneers in women's movements to treat men and women as identical, and, as it were, to force women into masculine moulds, were both mischievous and useless. Women will always be different from men, mentally as well as physically. It is well for both sexes that it should be so. It is owing to these differences that each sex can bring to the world's work various aptitudes that the other lacks. It is owing to these differences also that men and women have their undying charm for each other. We cannot change them, and we need not wish to.

[1] See, for instance, Blair Bell's _The Sex Complex_, 1916, though the deductions drawn in this book must not always be accepted without qualifications.

[2] G. Fritsch, _Die Eingeborene Sued-Afrikas_, 1892, p. 79.

[3] 1 D.R. Malcolm Keir, "Women in Industry," _Popular Science Monthly_, October, 1913.

[4] See, for many of the chief of these, Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 5th Edition, 1914.

[5] W.P. Pycraft, _The Courtship of Animal_, p. 9.

X

THE WHITE SLAVE CRUSADE