Consequently, as women participate in the work of the world and win
the right to acquire the results of past achievement in science and
technique and art, we may expect their contributions to the social
advance to appear in ever greater numbers. Until we give them this
full chance to contribute, we have no right to explain the paucity of
their gifts to society by inherent lacks. And it seems reasonable to
expect that such a chance will render the old quest for female geniuses
properly old-fashioned. For they will be there, these women--the able
and talented and geniuses--working side by side with men, not as “very
great men” nor as necessarily “depraved” nor in any way unusual. They
will be there as human beings and as women.
Man and Woman as Creators
By Alexander Goldenweiser
Alexander Goldenweiser,
_psychologist and anthropologist, is a lecturer at the New School for
Social Research in New York_.
MAN AND WOMAN AS CREATORS
BY ALEXANDER GOLDENWEISER
“A hen is no bird, a woman--no human,” says a Russian proverb. In this
drastic formulation stands written the history of centuries. Woman’s
claim to “human”ness was at times accepted with reservations, at other
times it was boldly challenged and even to-day when woman’s legal,
social, economic and political disabilities have been largely removed,
woman’s acceptance in society as man’s equal remains dependent on a
definition of the “equal.”
As in the case of the mental capacity of races, the question of woman’s
intellectual status was never judged on its merits. Rather, it was
accepted as a practical social postulate, then rationalized into the
likeness of an inductive conclusion. The problem seems so replete with
temptations for special pleading that a thoroughly impartial attitude
becomes well-nigh impossible. However, let us attempt it!
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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