Women -- Employment -- United States; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women in politics -- United States
All the studies that have been made on men and women, also confirm our
ordinary observation that men are taller, heavier, stronger and more
active than women, and this holds true in all stages of civilization,
wherever tests have been made. In strength, rapidity of movement, and
rate of fatigue Miss Thompson's studies[2] show that men have a very
decided advantage over women. Thus in strength tests, the men in Yale
have double the power of women in Oberlin;[3] while our college athletic
records place men far ahead of women in all events requiring strength
and endurance.
[2] HELEN B. THOMPSON, _Psychological Norms in Men and Women_, p. 167.
University of Chicago Press, 1903.
[3] THOMAS, _Sex and Society_, p. 21. University of Chicago Press, 1907.
The differences in structure between men and women are such as to
correspond with the functional differences just stated. A woman's bones
are smaller in proportion to her size, than are those of a man. The body
is longer, the hips broader, and the abdomen more prominent. Relatively
to the length of the body, the arms, legs, feet and hands are shorter
than in men, the lower leg and arm are shorter in proportion to the
upper leg and arm. Man has the long levers and the active frame. One has
only to look at two good statues of a man and a woman to realize the
greater strength and activity of the man.
Woman, as she actually appears in modern society, is also less subject
to variation than man;[4] she is much less liable to be a genius or an
idiot than her brother.[5] She offers greater resistance to disease,
endures pain and want more stoically, and lives longer; so that while
more boys than girls are born in all parts of the world, where
statistics are kept, in mature years women always outnumber men.
[4] KARL PEARSON denies this. See _The Chances of Death_, Vol. I, p.
256. London, 1897.
[5] C.W. SALEEBY, in _Woman and Womanhood_, p. 54, New York, Mitchell
Kennerley, 1911, maintains that woman is biologically more variable than
man, and that woman's less variable activity is due to her training.
All these statements are summed up by saying that not only in women, but
in most female animals of the higher orders, life is more anabolic than
in males. They tend to more static conditions; they collect, organize,
conserve; they are patient and stable; they move about less; they more
easily lay on adipose tissue. Compared with the female, the male animal
is katabolic; he is active, impulsive, destructive, skilful, creative,
intense, spasmodic, violent. Such a generalization as this must not be
pushed too far in its applications to our daily life; but as a statement
of basal differences it seems justified by ordinary observation as well
as by scientific tests.[6]
[6] PATRICK GEDDES and ARTHUR THOMPSON, in _The Evolution of Sex_, D.
Appleton & Co., 1889, first advanced this position.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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