{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_76398/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_76398","id":"gutenberg_76398","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76398","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Women","Women -- Social and moral questions"],"text":"WOMEN: AN INQUIRY\n\n\n                          THE HOGARTH ESSAYS\n\n\n  I. MR. BENNETT AND MRS. BROWN.\n      By VIRGINIA WOOLF. 2_s._ 6_d._\n\n  II. THE ARTIST AND PSYCHO-ANALYSIS.\n      By ROGER FRY. 2_s._ 6_d._\n\n  III. HENRY JAMES AT WORK.\n      By THEODORA BOSANQUET. 2_s._ 6_d._\n\n  IV. HOMAGE TO JOHN DRYDEN.\n      By T. S. ELIOT. 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n  V. HISTRIOPHONE.\n      By BONAMY DOBR\u00c9E. 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n  VI. IN RETREAT.\n      By HERBERT READ. 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n  VII. FEAR AND POLITICS: A DEBATE AT THE ZOO.\n      By LEONARD WOOLF. 2_s._ 6_d._\n\n  VIII. CONTEMPORARY TECHNIQUES OF POETRY.\n      By ROBERT GRAVES. 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n  IX. THE CHARACTER OF JOHN DRYDEN.\n      By ALAN LUBBOCK. 2_s._ 6_d._\n\n  X. WOMEN: An Inquiry.\n      By WILLA MUIR. 2_s._ 6_d._\n\n  XI. POETRY AND CRITICISM.\n      By EDITH SITWELL. 2_s._ 6_d._\n\n\n\n\n\n                           WOMEN: AN INQUIRY\n\n\n                                  BY\n\n\n                              WILLA MUIR\n\n\n\n\n                             Published by\n             Leonard & Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press\n                  52 Tavistock Square, London, W.C. 1\n                                 1925\n\n\n\n\n                                  TO\n\n                             VIOLET SCHIFF\n\n\n                      Printed in Great Britain by\n                     NEILL & CO., LTD., EDINBURGH\n\n\n\n\n \u201cMethinks, brother,\u201d replied my father, \u201cyou might, at least, know so\n much as the right end of a woman from the wrong.\u201d\n\n    _The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy._\n\n\n\n\n                           WOMEN: AN INQUIRY\n\n\n                             INTRODUCTORY\n\n\nMEN and women are latecomers to this planet, but they have existed\nfor a very long time, judged by human standards. One might reasonably\nexpect the difference between them, if it is an essential difference,\nto be now capable of formulation. An essential difference would be a\ndifference distinctively human, that is, spiritual as well as physical,\nand at the same time distinctively sexual.\n\nExternal differences, such as the presence or absence of beards and\nother secondary sexual characteristics, do not satisfy the first\npart of this definition, and are to be disregarded. Many so-called\ndifferences in social behaviour are also not essential differences. A\nvaluable book written by the Vaertings[1] has made this clear. In a\nState where men are dominant, as in most of our civilised States for\nthe past two thousand years, certain attributes are considered to be\ncharacteristic of women which are equally characteristic of men in a\nState where women are dominant, as it is said they were for some time\nin ancient Egypt. The subordinate sex in each case is excluded from\ncomplete development, and is considered to be less intelligent, less\ncourageous, and more domesticated than the dominant sex. In fact,\nmen and women share jointly in what is called human nature, and are\nalike capable of courage, fear, cruelty, tenderness, intelligence,\nand stupidity. When exhilarated by power and responsibility they\ndisplay the more dominating qualities, and in subordinate positions\nthey manifest a \u201cslave psychology.\u201d Therefore men and women are not to\nbe differentiated as brave or timid, intelligent or stupid, strong or\nweak, because a classification of this kind is too broadly human and\nnot distinctively sexual.\n\nIt is not asserted that secondary physiological differences between\nthe sexes or social differences in behaviour have no significance.\nPossibly sexual differentiation is so fundamental that it modifies\nthe least reactions of men and women; but to begin an investigation\nof these would require exhaustive scientific information outside the\nscope of this essay, which is an attempt to discover if the division\nof the human race into men and women involves a division of spiritual\nas well as of sexual functions, so that the creative work of women is\ndifferent in kind from the creative work of men. From this point of\nview the differences mentioned are significant as effects rather than\ncauses, and a consideration of them must be dismissed as unfruitful.\nThe aim of this essay, then, is to find a conception of womanhood as\nsomething essentially different from manhood. An essential difference\nwould persist through all the variations of behaviour caused by the\ndominance of either sex: consequently the validity of this inquiry is\nnot impaired by the restriction of its material to the activities of\nmen and women in our present one-sided civilisation. The knowledge\nthat it is one-sided, because men have for so long been dominant over\nwomen, is valuable in helping to distinguish what is essential from\nwhat is accidental. The subordination of women makes it difficult but\nnot impossible to recognise the essential quality of womanhood. In a\nmasculine civilisation the creative work of women may be belittled,\nmisinterpreted, or denied: but if it is a reality, its existence will\nbe proved at least by the emotional colour of the denial.\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nIt is therefore legitimate to consider the composite picture of\nwoman presented to us by the beliefs and opinions recorded by men.\nThese opinions are curiously contradictory and at the same time\ngeneralised. In spite of the intense interest felt in individual\nwomen, generalisations about women are common, whereas generalisations\nabout men are made warily, if at all. Men are fellow-creatures of many\ndifferent kinds: conclusions are drawn about classes of men, such as\nkings, statesmen, or warriors, angry men, foolish men, or strangers;\nbut nothing less than a universal attribute of humanity is attached\nto all men, such as that men are mortal, or subject to Fate, or\ninconstant. But it is seriously believed by Moslems that women have no\nsouls. Thousands of Christians believe that women are not intelligent.\nMystics believe that women are on a lower plane of spiritual\ndevelopment than men. Women have no sense of justice, no sense of\nhonour: women cannot be trusted with political power: women are all the\nbetter for a good beating with a stick. These generalisations reflect\nman as the dominant sex, conscious of his superiority. But one comes\nat once upon contradictions. Every great man has been inspired by some\nwoman. The hand that rocks the cradle indisputably rules the world. A\nwoman was the first cause of original sin, but a woman was the Mother\nof God. What does this mean? Half of the picture is tinged with vague\ncontempt, and the other half with vague reverence. Apparently the\naverage man sees woman alternately as an inferior being and as an angel.\n\nOne must conclude that he is looking at her through a distorting\nmedium. His conception of her as an inferior being is natural, in a\nman-made State, and were she really inferior it would stop there.\nHis vague reverence for her remains to prevent this conclusion: it is\ncertainly a compensation for something, a distorted recognition of\nsome half-guessed-at power in women. It looks as if man knows that\nthe inferiority of woman is a fiction, that his domination of her and\nhis refusal to admit her to his own level are not justified. In the\nbackground there lurks a fear of reprisals. The distorting medium\ncontains fear as one of its elements.\n\nIn men\u2019s societies of a primitive or arrested type where the etiquette\nof conduct betrays its origin, one can see clearly man\u2019s fear of\nwoman. Woman possesses some mysterious power which must be averted\nby elaborate taboos. A woman can ruin a man\u2019s chances of success in\nhunting or fishing by touching his gear. A woman\u2019s shadow can blight a\nreligious ceremony. Women are particularly to be feared when they are\nmenstruating or in childbed. The most terrible ghost is that of a woman\nwho dies in childbed. In more developed societies men burn old crones\nas witches in possession of the evil eye. And even to-day, especially\nin politics, men find it difficult to rid themselves of the uneasy\nsuspicion that women are dangerous.\n\nThis fear proves the artificiality of man\u2019s domination. One can be\nsceptical of any claim to superiority which throws such a shadow.\nNatural domination, that domination of skill and experience which is\nexpected of a physician in a sick-room, or of a captain on his ship,\nestablishes itself without arrogance and fear, and is exercised within\nits natural limits in particular directions. The physician does not\ninterfere with navigation; the captain claims no divine right of\nauthority over medical prescriptions. But the domination claimed by\nmen over women has been a kind of magical quality, an absolute and\ndivine right of authority, a mass domination, and, like all other mass\ndominations, rooted in fear.\n\nBut men\u2019s fear of women proves only that women are not naturally\ninferior and subordinate. It does not prove that they are different\nfrom men. There remains the other side of the picture, however,\nwith its sentimentalised ideal of women. A reverence for woman as a\nmother appears clearly: the mother is elevated to a place in heaven\nand worshipped as the Mother of God, or as the Mother of the Gods.\nNow motherhood is an undisputed function of women which they do not\nshare with men. At the lowest estimate of their powers all women are\npotential mothers. Men are born of women, and of women only. It must be\nan important function, for men have tried to belittle it. The theology\nof the masculine world branded Eve as the first cause of evil, and\nexplained the pains of child-birth as a just punishment from heaven.\nStill more significant, however, is the fact that Adam and Eve were\ncreated by a masculine God in a garden, and that the theologians could\nnot leave them there. It was necessary to bring them from the plane of\nabstract art on to the plane of humanity. But only a woman can create\nhuman beings, and therefore it was the woman who had to bring them out\nof the mythical garden into reality--a confession of failure for the\ntheologians, and they wreaked their revenge on Eve. Yet in spite of\nthemselves they were driven to attribute to a woman the decisive action\nwhich transformed the figments of a male God into men and women.\n\nBut motherhood was smirched with original sin. Later on it was still\nfurther belittled. Women were regarded as mere receptacles, passive\nreceptive bodies which created nothing. Men must have felt that\nmotherhood was important, or they would not have tried to explain it\naway altogether. But the sentimental ideal of woman as the mother\nstill persisted, especially among men, and could not be explained\naway: so, finally, motherhood was allowed by popular opinion to be a\ncreative function, but of a purely physical nature, and it was further\ndefined as the sole justifiable function of women. Mr. Rudyard Kipling\nexpressed this very neatly when he said that blind Nature made man for\nseveral ends and woman for only one. In Oriental countries the still\nmore logical conclusion is drawn that women justify their existence\nonly by producing men-children. In a society committed to this point\nof view childless women are failures in life, and the unmarried woman\nis a ridiculous nuisance. If social remedies such as polygamy, suttee,\ninfanticide, or euthanasia are not put into practice, the phrase\n\u201csuperfluous women\u201d comes into existence, and the State is shaken by\nthe problem of what to do with its superfluous women.\n\n\n\n\n                                  II\n\n\nYet if motherhood can be defined, rightly or wrongly, as the sole\nfunction of women, it must be a function which in some degree expresses\nthe quality of womanhood as distinct from manhood. Even in this\nartificially narrowed field of activity one should be able to find some\nclue to the essential nature of women. It is therefore advisable first\nof all to compare motherhood and fatherhood.\n\nFatherhood seems the more casual relationship of the two. It cannot be\nproved with the same certainty as motherhood. In a masculine State,\nwhere the father is the only legal parent, the institution of marriage\nis necessary to prevent fathers from successfully disclaiming their\nchildren. Maternity is not so easily denied, and in a feminine State\nit could be proved without the aid of a marriage contract. Where the\nmother is the sole legal parent civil marriage is unnecessary. Hence,\nas the Vaertings point out, bastardy is unknown in a feminine State. A\nmother\u2019s connection with her child is more obvious and immediate than a\nfather\u2019s. A man can be a parent without knowing it: a woman cannot.\n\nMotherhood is also a greater tax on vital energy than fatherhood, even\nif we take motherhood merely as a physical function. The process of\nbearing a child culminates in a crisis which exhausts a woman\u2019s energy:\nto such an extent, indeed, that women often die of it. Moreover, it is\na process which, once initiated, is not under conscious control, so\nthat the reserve of energy drawn upon is not deliberately assigned to\nthis purpose by its owner. It is not at her free disposal to grant or\nto withhold; it cannot be exhausted by an act depending on conscious\nvolition. The race in this respect is stronger than the individual.\n\nIt may be that here we are on the track of an essential difference\nbetween men and women in the distribution of energy. If fatherhood\nis a more casual relationship and uses up less time and energy than\nmotherhood, it looks as if the specifically sexual life of men does not\nrequire such a jealously guarded reserve of energy as that of women.\nThis would be true of all men and all women, for such a fundamental\nprocess as the propagation of the human race could not be left to a\nsection of humanity. As far as the race is concerned, all women are\npotential mothers, and must have the necessary reserve of energy for\nthis function whether they intend to become mothers or not. They cannot\nwaste it even if they would. Thus men have more energy to waste on\ntheir own individual purposes than women: that is to say, men have more\nenergy at their conscious disposal.\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\nThe implications of this hypothesis must be considered. It is\nattractive because it establishes an essential difference between men\nand women which makes them complementary to each other. There can be\nno question of absolute domination of one sex by the other when the\nstrength of each lies in a different direction. If man\u2019s energy is\ndiverted more into conscious life, woman\u2019s energy is diverted more into\nunconscious life, and one is not more important than the other. It is\na relative, not an absolute difference; both men and women are human\nbeings, and all that concerns human beings is their joint affair. But\nit means, as will be seen, a difference in the kind of creative work\ndone by each: they will tackle the same things from a different point\nof view, and with different results. On this basis men and women would\neach have an equal right, the right of the creative spirit to do its\nwork without let or hindrance.\n\nConscious life implies rational thinking. In thinking about things\nwe arrange them in patterns, we give them form and system. But we do\nnot give them content; conscious life modifies or seizes upon things\nwhich it does not originate. Growth is a process which is already\nwell advanced before it enters consciousness at all. Our patterns of\nthought, therefore, can never be final: they must from time to time be\nbroken and re-formed to admit new factors pushed into consciousness.\nBut the existence of thought-patterns makes it easier to recognise the\nsignificance of new factors, since a thought, once formulated, can be\npassed on, and becomes a permanent heritage for the human race, part of\nthe body of knowledge established by the processes of consciousness.\nThese processes are continuously at work extending the body of\nknowledge, systematising thought, and endeavouring to systematise life.\nConsciousness is thus the shaper of form, which is one aspect of life,\nand its work tends to a permanence beyond the vicissitudes of living.\nBut its vitality depends upon its communion with the unconscious.\n\nObviously, unconscious life cannot be clearly defined. We can only\nguess at its nature from the angle at which its processes enter\nconsciousness, from its disruptive action upon our systems of\nthought, and from what we can remember of its manifestations in\ndreams. We know that our emotions rise from it like bubbles through\nwater, that it determines our motives and our interests, and that it\nis not homogeneous by conscious standards. Its interferences with\nour conscious life are always spontaneous and strongly charged with\nfeeling. We can infer from such interferences that it has purposes.\nFrom its manifestations in dreams and trance states we know that it\nhas access to knowledge by other than conscious means. This kind of\nknowledge, when it makes its way into consciousness, we sometimes\nrecognise by its emotional force and unexpectedness, and call it\nintuition. But for the most part we serve the purposes of our\nunconscious without knowing that we do so, and admit its wisdom only\nthrough the indirect channels of conscious rationalisation.\n\nThe processes of the unconscious can, however, be roughly described by\ncontrast with the conscious life. The unconscious is concerned with\ngrowth rather than form; it is essentially emotional, spontaneous,\nand irrational. As far as we know, it is concrete in its thinking and\nnot abstract; it creates living agents and not systems of thought.\nThus, while conscious processes supply form and permanence in our\nworld, unconscious processes supply growing vitality and change. The\ncreations of unconscious life are wrought in mortal substances, those\nof conscious life in enduring patterns which are one step removed from\nlife. Unconscious life creates, for example, human beings: conscious\nlife creates, for example, philosophy. If men are stronger in conscious\nlife, and women in unconscious life, their creative powers must\nexpress their strength. Men should excel in translating life into\nconscious forms, women in fostering the growth of life itself. Men will\ncreate systems of philosophy or government, while women are creating\nindividual human beings.\n\n\n\n\n                                  IV\n\n\nThe facts of human life tend to confirm this theory. Starting again\nfrom the fundamental relationship of a mother to her child, we can see\nthat owing to the peculiar position of the human race, the physical act\nof motherhood is only the merest beginning of motherhood as a function.\nMan, because he is destined for a more complex life than the other\nanimals, is born more helpless than any of them, and takes a longer\ntime to come to maturity. His conscious life constructs itself slowly\nout of the perceptions of every day, establishing at every point in\nits development a working relationship with his unconscious life, a\nrelationship which is permanently biassed by the experiences of his\nfirst years. He is terribly at the mercy of his mother. She can ruin or\nstrengthen that harmony between the conscious and the unconscious which\nis a necessary condition of full human development. In short, she must\ncreate not only a human body, but a human being, if she is to fulfil\nher function as a mother. But if it is her business to foster growth\nin her children, it must be equally her business to foster growth in\nall the people with whom she is intimate. If she is a specialist in the\nneeds of the growing human spirit, her peculiar knowledge must be of\nservice to men and women of all ages who are still capable of growth.\nAnd what is true in this respect of mothers must be true for all women:\na special equipment for motherhood does not descend suddenly by the\ngrace of Heaven upon the individual. All girls are potential mothers,\nand whatever gifts of intuition are necessary for the creative work\nof motherhood must be accessible to all women. If the full content of\nmotherhood is thus recognised, it must inevitably be recognised as\na special application of the creative power of women. Therefore the\nconcept \u201csuperfluous women\u201d can only arise in a society which denies\nthe real functions of motherhood, and which consequently prevents\nwomen from free expression and ignores the creative power of womanhood.\n\nCreative power of any kind is, of course, the obverse of an equal power\nfor destruction. No one can put an engine out of action so deftly as\nthe man who designs engines. Woman\u2019s power of fostering growth in\nhuman life implies, therefore, an equal power of hindering it. We must\naccept both sides of the hypothesis, and in doing so we find fresh\nproof that it is true. If the average man sees woman alternately as an\nangel and a devil, it is because she exercises both a creative and a\ndestructive influence upon his inner life. He would neither fear nor\nreverence her so intensely if she were merely an inferior counterpart\nof himself. Nor would he lay upon her such peculiar disabilities.\nThese disabilities are not only of the kind that would suffice to keep\nan inferior class in subjection. Inferior classes, whether actually\nenslaved or not, are kept in their place by being excluded from the\nsources of external power, such as the possession of wealth, the\ncommand of armies, the exercise of political rights. Certain moral and\nreligious sanctions always rise to reinforce the law on these points,\nfor the springs of human conduct lie in the unconscious, and morality\nand religion deal directly with the emotions of unconscious life.\nThe ruling class seeks therefore to impose a morality consonant with\nits own interests, and fears a new religion more than a revolution.\nBut it is always conscious of the expediency of the conventional\nmorality it imposes on inferiors, and attaches no ultimate value to\nit. The model subordinate, obedient and loyal, is not reverenced or\nidealised: he is not regarded by his superiors as a type of perfect\nmanhood, but only as a perfect subordinate. He may be a bad man\nprovided that he is a good servant. The position of women in a men\u2019s\nState does not correspond exactly to this. True, if we substitute the\nfunction of motherhood in its narrow interpretation for the function\nof servitude, the correspondence is exact up to a point. The wife and\nmother is excluded from independent access to the sources of external\npower: and she is expected to be obedient and loyal to her marriage\ncontract. Moral and religious sanctions are called in to transform her\nmarriage contract into a vow. The stock moral virtue required of her is\nchastity; she must have sexual relationships only within the pale of\nmarriage. All women, because they are potential wives, must copy her\nvirtues and avoid what is forbidden to her. So far this is only another\naspect of the fact that men restrict the function of women to physical\nmotherhood, and define their own responsibilities by the institution\nof marriage. Women are treated exactly as an inferior class with a\ndefinite function, that of child-bearing. But the correspondence stops\nhere. The disabilities imposed upon women by conventional morality\ncut deeper still. The sexually good woman must be not only good but\nignorant: whole tracts of human experience are withheld from her\nknowledge. Moreover, her chastity and her ignorance are translated by\nmen themselves into an abstraction of artificial purity and reverenced\nas their ideal of womanhood. An ideal of womanhood cherished in men\u2019s\nStates, which has for its essential elements ignorance of life and\na debased conception of sex, can be regarded with scepticism. It is\nnoteworthy that intellectual ignorance does not have the same prestige,\nand therefore cannot be so important. Even an \u201ceducated\u201d woman is\nconventionally more acceptable than a woman who is shocked at nothing.\nThe conventionally pure good woman is shocked at a great many things:\nthat is to say, she does not merely condemn certain phases of conduct,\nwhich would be at least a forthright attitude, she is uncomfortable\nand timid when they are brought to her notice. Now if man\u2019s reverence\nfor women is an acknowledgment of her vaguely realised power, at the\nsame time in that very reverence, conventionalised into an ideal, he\nobviously safeguards himself against her power. Apparently, women can\nbe kept in a subordinate position if ignorance of human conduct is\nimposed upon them as a necessary condition of social approval. It can\nbe inferred that a fearless attitude towards human life is the first\nessential quality of a free woman, and that conventional morality is\nimposed with such emphasis upon women because the creation of moral\nvalues is their own peculiar vocation. Men are more concerned to\nprevent women from having untrammelled judgment and action in affairs\nof morality than from having access to the possession of wealth. In\nother words, women are hindered not only from external power, but from\nthe inward power of creating independent moral and religious values. It\nis precisely this power which is exercised by creative women in their\ntreatment of others, and the conventionalised ideal of the ignorant\ngood woman is the deepest disability laid upon women in a men\u2019s State.\nThe conventionally good woman helps to perpetuate the formal traditions\ncreated by man, traditions which harden into empty shells unless they\nare continuously vitalised by the independent judgments of women. She\naccepts the masculine standpoint that human conduct is to be judged\nentirely by the values of consciously organised life, which are devised\nfor the preservation of existing systems, and are not necessarily\nhumane. She acquiesces in repression and punishment instead of seeking\nto understand and cherish. Men praise her for this subserviency and\nunconsciously despise her.\n\nBut in preventing her from aggression upon their forms and traditions\nmen lose more than they gain. She is humbugged out of her womanhood,\nbut she is still a woman, and does not cease to influence their inner\nlife. The systems of society--such as marriage--are preserved, but\nthe individual man suffers. He meets hardness where he looks for\ntolerance, and condemnation where he needs help. Worse still, for her\nconventionality is borrowed and therefore unintelligent, he finds\nhimself imprisoned in traditions which he himself would destroy and\ncreate anew were it not for the timidity of the conventional women.\n\nThus in a typical men\u2019s State where the creative work of women is\nignored, where women are prevented by legal and economic barriers\nfrom access to external sources of power and hampered by conventional\nignorance of life, they have an insidious influence which evades all\nthe means by which men try to keep it in check. The fabric of the\nState, the organised systems, remain apparently intact, but the private\nlife of men becomes sour and stale. The more men deny the rights of\nwomen in public, the more they are delivered over to the obscure\ndissatisfactions of their women in private. The conventional women\nwhom men evoke for their own protection have in the end a more fatal,\nbecause a thwarted, influence on human life than the fearless women.\nAmong the Hindus, for example, where the social systems of men have\nhardened into cast-iron (perhaps because the women have been prevented\nfrom free expression), the negative power of women is very great. Women\nare not merely inferior imitations of men: they create men or destroy\nthem.\n\nThe question may be put, If the whole of human experience is the\nnatural concern of women, and if women are indeed endowed with the\ncapacity to understand and foster the growth of the human spirit, how\nis it possible for women to accept a narrow conventional morality? It\nis possible because unconscious life is remarkably suggestible, and in\na society where womanly traditions are mainly negative the continuous\npressure of conventional values is applied to girls almost from\nchildhood. Only rare women with a genius for womanhood can resist the\npotency of such suggestions.\n\nThat it is a woman\u2019s destiny to create human beings, whether she\nfulfils it or not, is amply confirmed by the natural bias of her\ninterests. In spite of convention her interest in human beings is\nstronger and more spontaneous than her interest in anything else.\nAlmost from the cradle a girl studies the people around her more\nattentively than a boy does, and is quicker in imitating their tricks\nof speech and behaviour. A little later she turns naturally to dolls,\nnot because of an absurdly precocious maternal instinct, but because\ndolls are substitutes for human beings, and her creative fancy can\nplay upon them without restriction. A doll is not necessarily a son\nor daughter: it is by turns a confidant, a scapegoat, and a talisman.\nLater still her interest in other people becomes practically a ruling\npassion: and since she is not merely a potential wife and mother but\na potential woman, she is interested not only in possible sweethearts\nbut in everybody. She is inquisitive about human relationships of every\nkind. She is indifferent to things which have no human interest: she\nvalues things for their associations, or the power they give her over\nother people. The intimacy between an adolescent girl and her bosom\nfriend for the time being is based on a mutual interest in human nature\nand a common standard of critical values which they apply to each other\nas well as to the world. They analyse motives, provoke moods, love and\nhate with such intensity that emotional explosions are inevitable.\nTheir interest is not that of mere spectators at the human comedy: they\nare ready to play important parts in it; and they test at every point\ntheir influence over others.\n\nWhen fifteen-year-old girls write essays on \u201cWhat I should like to\nbe,\u201d the aspirations disclosed are rarely intellectual or material.\nNearly every girl wants to be popular, to be an influence for good,\nto establish a reputation for cheerfulness and kindness, in short,\nto be successful in handling human beings. When she leaves school\nthe same bias continues. The average girl is more interested in\nthe people around her than in her work, especially if her work has\nlittle direct human interest. If her daily work does not consist of\npersonal relations to other people, her efficiency in it depends upon\nthe approval of her employers rather than upon her pride in the work\nitself. She sees herself as the sunbeam in the office, or as the\ncomforter of her employer\u2019s broken life, or as a moral influence--in\nother words, where no human interest exists in her surroundings she\ntakes pains to invent it. It is this entirely womanly impulse which\ngenerates most of the sentiment and scandal among women.\n\nIn married life women display the same passionate interest in other\npeople, even though husbands and families absorb a certain amount of\nit. Neighbours, servants, and children are their dearest topics. No\nwoman is bored when she is discussing other people; and this is true of\nboth educated and uneducated women. The things which primarily concern\nwomen as women are human affairs and experiences, material which helps\nthem more capably to scrutinise, to interpret, and to meddle with the\npeople they meet. The result is that they often meddle tediously with\nother people\u2019s lives. Like Hedda Gabler, they must have their fingers\nin somebody\u2019s destiny, destructively if not creatively. Destruction of\nthis kind instead of creation is tragic, but it arises at least from a\npre-occupation with humanity, and so, unlike war, it is womanly.\n\nThus the current of women\u2019s interests sets definitely towards actual\nhuman beings and concrete situations rather than abstract theories.\nThere are other aspects of womanhood which confirm the hypothesis that\nwomen\u2019s strength lies in unconscious rather than in conscious life, and\nwhich can be briefly enumerated.\n\nThe first of these is too obvious to require comment. By general\nconsent of men, women are more irrational and impulsive than men are.\nSecondly, women have a strong, if inarticulate, affinity with what is\ncalled Nature; a fact which is symbolised by the personification of\nNature as a woman. Nature in this sense is the sum of that growing\nlife which has not reached the conscious level of humanity. To this\ngrowing life, vegetable or animal, women are never indifferent:\ntheir reactions to it are strongly emotional, whether sympathetic\nor antipathetic. When because of some timidity they cannot exercise\ntheir creative power on human beings, they readily foster plants or\nanimals instead, and there are women who can do so with the sureness\nof intuitive knowledge. They are more obviously affected by natural\nphenomena than men; their sexual life, for example, is governed by the\nphases of the moon, and it is claimed that their fertility varies with\nthe rainfall and the earth\u2019s magnetic currents. Thirdly, they have an\nimmediate sense of the significance of life: they have the same vivid\ninterest in even trivial affairs that one finds in dreams. Women have\nnone of the detachment which is equally prepared to prove that life\nis significant or that it is meaningless. They assume without proof\nthat life, especially human life, is significant; they are so deeply\nimmersed in life that it is not possible for them to question its value\nas men do. For this reason they are more tenacious of life than men.\nFourthly, they come to maturity earlier than men do, although they\nlive longer on the average. This does not mean that women remain in\na state of arrested development as compared with men: the advent of\npuberty does not put a stop to mental and spiritual development. But\nit may be interpreted as a sign that the creative work of womanhood\nrequires a less elaborate conscious equipment than that of men. The\nwisdom of conscious life is a structure slowly built by the individual,\nand needs a long apprenticeship; it is possible that the wisdom of\nunconscious life exists independently of the individual and waits only\nfor admission. Incidentally, the fact that women have a reasonable\nexpectation of living for twenty-five years after they have ceased to\nbear children is another proof--if proof be needed--that maternity is\nnot merely a physical function: women go on living as long as their\nchildren need them. Lastly, although their creative work consists\nin the handling of individuals, and although they are finely aware\nof their own individual reactions, women rarely achieve a conscious\nindividuality. They are so largely unconscious of themselves that\nthey need emotional support for their personalities: it is their\ndanger that they tend to live in a state of perpetual reference to\nother people; and when they express themselves as individuals, they\ndo so spontaneously and not deliberately. Thus women as a body show\na timidity which easily relapses into conservatism, and can only be\novercome by urgent necessity. Conservatism becomes the spiritual\ndeath of women, as of men: but in women it springs from a timidity of\nintellect, from a weakness in conscious life; in men from a timidity\nof emotion, from a fear of the unconscious. This difference between\nmen and women is illustrated in dress, for example. As the consciously\norganised life of men develops, their clothing expresses less of the\nemotion, the temperament, the spontaneity of unconscious life: it\nbecomes a uniform, symbolic of their status as rational members of an\norganised society. They are sure of themselves and of their traditions,\nconsequently fashion is a convention which sits as easily upon them\nas other conventions, and changes as slowly. It is a reasonable law,\ndeliberately accepted for the sake of convenience and orderliness.\nWomen, on the other hand, are not afraid of temperament and colour\nin dress; they express in their clothing the spontaneous, vivid, and\nirrational qualities of unconscious life. But because they are unsure\nof themselves as members of a public body, they need the assurance\nof \u201cbeing in the fashion\u201d to give them the necessary confidence for\nwearing even the most daring creations. Fashion among women is thus not\na law accepted for convenience; it is a kind of emotional support, and\nit fluctuates as often and as widely as emotions.\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n\n\nIn this weakness of women\u2019s conscious life we have the key to men\u2019s\ndomination over them. It is the domination of the more articulate over\nthe less articulate consciousness. Man is the intellectual organiser of\nlife. He arranges life in patterns, or, as has been already suggested,\ntranslates it into conscious forms, and he is therefore more interested\nin the nature of his patterns than in the material out of which he\ncomposes them. He begins, where woman ends, with the individual human\nbeing and individual experiences; his aim is to lift these into a\nworld of enduring and proved forms. The Platonic idea, for example,\nis a purely masculine conception. It is possible that man\u2019s world of\nultimate abstractions is another aspect of the world from which woman\nworks towards the individual, and that his consciously constructed\nphilosophy, if it were perfected, would coincide with the content\nof her intuitive wisdom. Thus a circle would be completed in which\nwoman seeks to express the infinite in terms of the individual life,\nwhile man seeks to express the individual in terms of the infinite.\nThe difference between them remains, however, not merely a difference\nin aim but a difference in equipment. Woman is the gateway through\nwhich the wisdom of the unconscious comes to be translated by man into\nconscious form. Her wisdom, derived from unfathomable sources, must be\nexpended upon life incarnate and narrowed into the practical details of\neveryday circumstance. Her intelligence is fettered, as it were, to\nactual life, and is best stimulated by concrete situations. Man, on the\nother hand, moves away from human life: his intelligence ranges freely\nin a world of speculation and can create perfectly abstract universes\nof knowledge. His work consequently takes visible shape beneath his\nhand: it can be tested; it can be destroyed and shaped again; it can\nachieve completion. The work of woman has none of these attributes: she\nhas no objective proof of success; in the last resort she must depend\nupon her subjective valuations. Thus the more organised and objective\ncertainties of men impose themselves easily upon women. Men can prove\ntheir theories even when they are wrong; women cannot prove their\nintuitions even when they are right. In his world, that of organised\nform, man dominates woman naturally.\n\nBut woman should dominate man in her own field, the creation of free\nand harmonious individuals; for the potential progress of humanity may\nbe determined by man, but its actual progress is determined by woman.\nIn a society which recognises the domination of men and denies that of\nwomen, the creative work of both is hampered. The danger for men lies\nin that very quality of detachment which gives their work its value.\nLeft to themselves they become more and more detached, substituting\nfor the fluctuations of life a stable and systematic perfection of\ntheory which is rigidly imposed upon individual members of society.\nReligion becomes a creed, morality a code of law, government a party\nmachine: even art, which is of all their activities the most accessible\nto the vitality of unconscious life, is intellectualised and engenders\ntheories of \u00e6sthetics instead of works of art. Human beings become\nmere pegs on which to hang the theories, economic units, and man,\nthe heir of all the ages, is in danger of being crushed under the\nweight of his own machines. The financial machine in our own day is an\nexcellent example of masculine activity pushed to extremes: it has\nbeen successfully detached from human values so that it exists for the\nproduction of money and not for the production of goods and services\nto humanity. The mere individual has ceased to be of any importance,\nand even the inventions or discoveries of his intelligence are valued\nonly in terms of money. It is a curious paradox that men who, as\nindividuals, are surer of themselves than women, and who command their\nconscious energies more freely, should inevitably create systems to\nwhich the individual is subordinated. A system of this kind is not\nnecessarily an evil, but when it makes no allowance for women\u2019s values,\nfor their sense of the significance of human life and the individual\nhuman being, it moves to its extreme logical conclusion and becomes\ninhuman.\n\nThis over-emphasis of masculine activities was conceivably necessary at\na point in history when civilisation was in its infancy and the need\nfor organisation was greater than the need for individual freedom.\nPerhaps at such a point the domination of men over women began. But\nthe discrepancy between human and institutional values is now so great\nthat even men feel it acutely; it has disquieted women for some time\nand is forcing them into the open. It looks as if during the next few\ngenerations the really creative New Woman will emerge, for conventional\nmorality is no longer so powerful among women, and they are gradually\ndeserting the blind alleys into which they rushed in their first\nefforts at self-assertion.\n\nIt does not follow that women by themselves can save humanity. Men\nmust face their own problems, and women are naturally ill-equipped\nto create new forms of society. But it is the business of women to\ncreate the creators of social forms, and they cannot escape a certain\nresponsibility for the present tension in our organised life. Absolute\ndomination by either sex is no longer necessary; the modern world\nneeds the creative work of both. Woman by herself loses a sense of\nproportion, just as man by himself loses touch with reality. Man\u2019s\nintellectual conclusions must be checked by woman\u2019s intuitive knowledge\nof the human spirit, and woman\u2019s spontaneous wisdom must be helped by\nman\u2019s intellectual vision. Both are creative although they depend upon\neach other: there is no room on either side for false pride or humility.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VI\n\n\nIt is now advisable to consider attentively the statement that creative\nwomen need new and independent moral values since conventional morality\nexpresses a man\u2019s standpoint rather than a woman\u2019s. If the latter\npart of this statement can be proved, that conventional morality is\nnecessarily masculine, then the first part must inevitably be accepted.\n\nIt has already been postulated that women derive their greatest\nstrength from unconscious life and are concerned with growth. Their\nenergies and interests turn spontaneously towards the living human\nbeings upon whom their influence is exerted. This influence, because\nit is largely unconscious, is not rational but emotional; when it is\ndirected positively towards other people it is best described as love.\nCreative love is the fundamental attribute of womanhood, as perhaps\ncreative thought is of manhood. Its aim is to foster harmony and\nstrength in the individual.\n\nWoman thus sees humanity as a collection of individuals of whom no two\nare identical, growing separately like trees in a common direction,\nexpressing in visible forms, each of which is significant, a common\nunseen life. If one may use a rough symbolism, women see humanity in\nvertical lines, while men see it in horizontal strata. The perfection\nof each individual is women\u2019s business, and the combination of\nindividuals into social systems is man\u2019s business. These two aspects\nof life are necessarily continuous and inseparable: the difference\nbetween them here, as throughout, is one of emphasis. Women emphasise\nthe wholeness of the individual in himself; men, the relation of the\nindividual to his neighbours. It follows that women cannot disregard\nor eliminate anything which manifests itself in the life of the\nindividual. Man resembles a tree only by analogy; he cannot be lopped\nof his branches; he can achieve strength and harmony only by carrying\neverything with him. Nothing is accidental or superfluous in his\nbehaviour; virtues and vices are alike significant. From this point of\nview whatever prevents the harmony of the complete individual is bad;\nbut it cannot be cut off, it must be fused into the whole, if possible.\nWoman therefore cannot shirk any issue or turn from the investigation\nof any human impulse, whatever its nature. She believes in the\nsignificance and continuity of all that life which passes into human\nconsciousness, and to her goodness and badness are relative terms,\ndepending on the nature of the immediate problem. Thus she cannot\nbelieve in original sin, although she recognises mistakes. Man, on\nthe other hand, believes in the significance of his systems which cut\nacross life horizontally, and he desires to fit the individual into his\npatterns. Whatever disrupts his patterns is bad and must be cut off.\nThis condition naturally is uniform in its operation, and therefore\nbadness is a constant quantity, something definite which can be written\ndown in a code of prohibitions. Nonconformity with the law is original\nsin, and arouses his indignation. But as there are many systems, each\nsystem has its own code of offences and penalties, and each casts out\nits own offenders. The Church excommunicates them, the State imprisons\nthem, Society boycotts them, professional bodies expel them; they are\ndishonoured and ignored, thrust out of the system whose stability they\nthreaten. We penetrate to the very heart of the difference between men\nand women when we observe that the outcast, whose individuality is\nformally denied by his fellows, remains none the less an individual to\nthe women who love him. Obviously a morality which satisfies the one\npoint of view does not satisfy the other.\n\nThe morality honoured by men is thus a morality designed to preserve\nthe systems which men create. Because it upholds the values of\nconsciously organised life it distrusts the impulses of unconscious\nlife, which it calls original sin, or personifies as a devil. Less\ncivilised and more impulsive races are easily suspected of being direct\nagents of the devil, as are also the adherents of rival or opposing\nsystems. Women, because they are natural supporters of spontaneous\naction, are particularly to be distrusted, and masculine morality,\nas we have seen, imposes a still more stringent code on women than\non men. So it happened that Eve, a creative woman vindicating the\nimportance of individual moral values and of an individual conscience\nthat should make each man the equal of God, was necessarily abhorrent\nto an organised theology. So in the United States it happens that the\nearnest business man regards negroes and Socialists as public dangers;\nand in exactly the same way in Scotland the earnest Calvinist believes\nthat Roman Catholics are damned. The follower of a systematic morality\nhas always a black list. Each system produces its own code of offences\nfor nonconformity, and its moral standards are therefore valid only for\nitself: they are not necessarily religious or universal.\n\nIn such a morality the individual is considered only as one who\nconforms or does not conform to the code required, never as an\nindividual in himself. Further, because it distrusts the spontaneity of\nunconscious impulses, systematic morality believes that all individuals\nare bad in their hearts, that they are good only when they are\nafraid to be bad, and that penalties for badness must be sufficiently\ngrievous to frighten them. Thus systematic morality depends upon fear\nof punishment. The kind of punishment imposed has only an arbitrary\nrelation to the nature of the offence committed, and no relation at\nall to the psychological problems in which the offender is involved:\nit is designed merely to make him suffer, and, if he persists in\noffending, to remove him. The public school imposes its two hundred\nor its four hundred \u201clines\u201d or so many strokes with the birch, or\nresorts to expulsion; the State fines varying sums, or imprisons for\nvarying periods, or resorts to capital punishment; the business firm\nreprimands, or fines, or resorts to dismissal. In each case the system\nand the code which supports it are more important than the life of the\nindividual. Morality of this kind, when it is perfectly developed, is\nquite impersonal; its abstract impersonality is revered by men as an\nideal, which they call Justice.\n\nThis systematic morality with its impersonal judgments, its definite\ncodes, its uniformly graded punishments, and its unquestioning\nrepudiation of the offender is a logical pendant to the systems which\nmen create. It is precisely what is usually called conventional\nmorality, and it is essentially masculine in its attitude to the\nindividual. Women, if they are to create free and harmonious\nindividuals, cannot sacrifice an individual to a code; they cannot\nagree that goodness is only the fear of punishment; they cannot believe\nin the efficacy of external punishment, and they cannot permit the\noffender to be cut off. To the creative woman an offender is a question\nwhich she must try to answer. Her morality must be psychological rather\nthan punitive, personal rather than impersonal, and fundamentally\nreligious. It is clear that many actions which systematic morality\nconsiders bad must appear good to the creative woman, and inversely\nwhat she considers good must often be condemned by systematic morality.\n\nWomen must therefore create their own independent moral values. It may\nbe objected that if each woman creates her own morality the result will\nbe confusion. This objection, however, arises out of a misapprehension.\nIt is not the business of women to condemn or to punish, or to exact\nconformity with any definite code of conduct: it is their business to\nunderstand the processes at work in the human soul and to help each\nindividual to the fullest and most harmonious expression of his powers.\nThere will always be enough men in the world to secure the existence\nof systematic morality; any confusion produced by the action of women\nwill be only the rich confusion of life itself. Besides, creative love\nis not mere sympathy or even affection; if women cannot sacrifice\nan individual to a code they are equally unable to sacrifice their\nintuitions about the human race to an individual. Creative love demands\na high discipline from those who would exercise it.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VII\n\n\nThe first condition that is required from women is that they shall\nknow themselves. A woman who is ignorant of her own weaknesses cannot\nhelp others, for she is incapable of correcting distortions caused\nby her own fear or anger. The conventional woman hangs conventional\nideas between herself and her own nature, thus negating her deepest\ninstincts. She despises and represses part of her own humanity;\nconsequently she has a repressive instead of a fostering effect on\nother people. Women must therefore be frankly sincere with themselves\nif they are to be creative, and must make allowances for their own\nfaults in dealing with others. One can only mete out to others the\nmeasure one has already meted to oneself.\n\nBut though the instrument is imperfect the possibilities are great.\nThe second condition for the exercise of creative love is a boundless\nfaith in the capacity of the human soul for growth. This is where\nwomen cannot let the doctrine of original sin stand between them and\nthe individuals with whom they have to deal. The gospel for women\nis contained in the words, \u201cthe kingdom of Heaven is within you,\u201d\nqualified by the knowledge that Heaven is not a static condition of\nbliss but a vital harmony of body and spirit. Such a belief demands the\nfullest scientific knowledge of what promotes or hinders health of body\nand of mind; and it is the business of the creative woman to get all\nthe information she can.\n\nReligion and morality for women thus resolve themselves into a belief\nthat human life is significant, serving a destiny greater than itself,\nand the interpretation of that belief into terms of conduct. Because\neach individual is a unique problem the details of this conduct can\nnever be codified; therefore the morality of women is ultimately\nspontaneous and individual, depending for guidance upon their creative\nenergies, expressed through love.\n\nThe whole world needs creative women, and seems to be unaware of its\nneed. Women themselves do not know how necessary they are. The result\nis that many waste themselves in trying to be men, and many are content\nto justify their existence by simple drudgery. There still remain many\nwho feel that a woman should be more to her husband than the keeper of\nhis house, and some of these reserve themselves for men with obvious\ndisabilities, because they think that the average man has no real need\nof them. But, although the desire is unformulated, nearly all women\ndesire to have a creative influence on their husbands. If it were not\nso, the \u201cbest-sellers\u201d which circulate among women would not resemble\neach other so strikingly in one respect: the hero is always at odds\nwith the world and is rescued from a gloomy fate by the great love of\nthe heroine. If he is a reputed villain so much the better; the field\nof action for the heroine is all the clearer. Only a courageous woman\nlooking for really difficult work would marry an ordinary man instead\nof a villain with a heart of gold.\n\nWomen\u2019s creative work is implicitly recognised in many beliefs and\ncustoms. The difference between the morality of men and women, for\nexample, is finely illustrated among the Syrian Arabs, where a\nprisoner on his way to execution is absolved from his sentence if he\ncan lay hold of a woman\u2019s skirts. It is felt, though not understood,\nby those men of our own country who complain that women have no sense\nof justice. It is exploited by commercial firms who establish women\nwelfare workers to humanise their business systems, within limits. And\nthe tradition that woman\u2019s place is the home is possibly not entirely\ndetermined by the subordinate position of women, but may arise from\na sound intuition about the nature of women and their functions. The\nhome is a strategic centre for the creation of human beings. Moreover,\na home does not imply a husband: marriage is a desirable but not a\nnecessary condition for women\u2019s creative work. Nor is it bounded by the\nfour walls of a house; whatever affects the people within the home is a\nwoman\u2019s proper business.\n\n\n\n\n                                 VIII\n\n\nThis raises the question of public life for women. There is certainly\nroom for creative womanhood in the public life of the State. The\nmodern State is a highly organised system of government resting upon\nother systems, such as those of finance, law, and industry; but these\ncomplicated organisations ramify downwards until they touch the lives\nof all the individuals who compose the nation. The point at which\nthey do so is a fitting point for the public activities of women.\nWomen have already begun to mediate between the system of law and\nthe individuals upon whom punishment by imprisonment is imposed; they\nhave called attention to the impossibility of reforming offenders\nin a prison which ignores individuality and the psychology of the\nindividual. It is true that such mediation is at present usually\nsubject to the veto of the controlling system, and is therefore\nlimited; a disability which is likely to hamper women until the value\nof women\u2019s work is recognised as equal to that of men. But the obscure\ndissatisfactions of our time, caused by the discrepancy between\ninstitutional and human values are, on the one hand, compelling women\nto penetrate into public life, and, on the other hand, threatening the\nstability of all institutions. If women are true to themselves their\nfull co-operation with men is inevitable.\n\nThis means that women must carry their womanhood with them into all\noccupations, otherwise the advantage of their entry into public affairs\nwill be entirely lost. Besides, a woman who tries to do a man\u2019s work\nin a man\u2019s way pays too high a price for the effort. A man can be\nformal and abstract without losing his human qualities or ceasing to be\ncreative, since his energies are distributed in that way, but a woman\ncannot. She must expend more energy than he does to achieve the same\nformal outlook; she must abandon the creative love for the individual\nwhich is essential for womanhood; and, because she has killed herself\nspiritually, a formal woman is twice as formal as any man, and her\nwork is necessarily barren. Most women are instinctively aware of this\ndanger and protect themselves from the hardening of traditional routine\nby simple indifference to their work and an escape into marriage\nas soon as possible. But this is merely an evasion of the problem\nwhich women must solve in the next generation or two, the problem\nof leavening the organised systems of society with human values so\nthat mechanical routine is reduced to a minimum. Meanwhile, women are\nobviously in their proper place in any occupation which deals directly\nwith human beings.\n\n\n\n\n                                  IX\n\n\nThe differences that have been indicated between the sexes in\nthis essay do not form a hard-and-fast dividing line. Men are not\nall intellect and consciousness, nor are women all intuition and\nunconsciousness. It would be juster to say that some men are more\nintellectual than any woman, and some women more intuitive than any\nman: but even this statement does not adequately cover the case. The\ndifferent determination of energy which hinders women from supreme\nintellectual detachment, and men from supreme human understanding, is\nsubtly operative between these two extremes throughout the intervening\nspace where men and women have a common field of action. It should\ntherefore be traceable in their respective contributions to art.\n\nIt is perhaps unwise though interesting to attempt the drawing of\ndistinctions between men\u2019s art and women\u2019s: so much depends upon one\u2019s\nidea of the nature of art. But it may be possible without becoming\nentangled in controversy to suggest tentatively some differences, and\nit seems worth while to see how far the argument will carry us.\n\nFrom the point of view of this inquiry a work of art ranks as a\nsupremely conscious creation. It has perfection of form and it is\npermanent: _ars longa, vita brevis_. But it is also directly and\nvitally connected with the forces of unconscious life; it depends\nupon, or rather it is characterised by an intensity of emotion which\nit transmits as if by magic to other people than its creator. Its form\ncan be judged dispassionately, but not its content. It is detached\nfrom human life, and is at the same time a revelation of it in a way\nwhich is more immediate and more moving than a mere explanation. Thus,\nalthough it is as deliberate a product of conscious processes as a\nmathematical theory or a philosophical idea, or an economic system, it\nis more intimately linked to unconscious life than any of these; it is\nperhaps closer to unconscious life than any other kind of conscious\ncreation. For this reason, because it belongs to both worlds, the\nesteem in which it is held varies according to the values of the people\namong whom it is practised. And in certain cases the place assigned\nto art seems to confirm the general theory of this essay, that women\ncreate unconscious more than conscious life, and that men associate the\nvalues of unconscious life with women. For in communities which are too\nrigidly organised, because entirely devoted to some system, and which\ntherefore distrust the personal values of unconscious life, communities\nsuch as those of the business men here or in the United States, art\nis distrusted, the artist is considered to be effeminate, and the\nappreciation and culture of art are left half contemptuously, half\nrespectfully to the women. On the other hand, in communities where the\nframework of conscious life has not hardened and unconscious values are\nnot depreciated, the formal perfection of art arouses men\u2019s admiration,\nand the artist is looked upon as the best type of manhood. The artist\nmust thus possess both masculine and feminine qualities; that is to\nsay, he has immediate access to the intuitions of unconscious life, as\na woman has, and he creates conscious form, as a man does.\n\nIt has been already admitted that the difference between men and\nwomen is only a relative difference, that men have unconscious and\nwomen conscious powers; the fact that art belongs to both worlds\ntherefore allows both men and women to be artists, while at the\nsame time it makes more difficult than ever the attempt to draw a\ndistinction between men\u2019s art and women\u2019s. There are, however, one or\ntwo possibilities which suggest themselves. In the first place, if\nthe energy of women is more absorbed by unconscious life than that of\nmen, it can play less freely in the world of conscious form and is\ntherefore less able to achieve that perfect fusion of form and content\non a grand scale which is supreme art. Certainly the greatest artists\nof historical times have been men, and there is no reason to think that\nthe domination of men is even partly responsible for the lack of great\nwomen artists. But if women are handicapped in those arts, such as\nliterature, painting, and the composition of music, where the finished\nproduct takes a permanent form detached from the human personality\nof the artist, they should have an advantage in arts like dancing,\nsinging, and acting, where the actual personality is the medium of\nexpression. And as a matter of fact in arts of this kind women have\nattained supreme rank. It seems permissible to say that the nearer they\nare to concrete human life, the more freely and naturally they can\ncreate.\n\nAgain, it may be suggested that the tendency to elaborate form at the\nexpense of content is a danger to which men are more susceptible in\nart than women. Women\u2019s greater vitality and comparative weakness in\nconscious life expose them rather to the opposite fault, a failure to\nachieve a strictness of form perfectly adequate to the intensity of\nthe emotion expressed. This weakness would be more likely to occur\nin the rendering of a sustained than of a transient emotion or mood;\nconsequently one would expect perfection of form from women artists in\nworks of small compass and natural spontaneity, such as lyric poems,\nrather than in an epic or a long descriptive poem. The more elastic the\nform, the more shapeless it is, the more women are able to use it for\nsustained work. In literature, at least, this seems to be true. The\nloose bulk of the novel makes it attractive to women as a medium of\nexpression; and any long works of the first rank written by women are\nto be found in this form.\n\nFurther, since it is women\u2019s business to create individuals rather than\nsystems of society, one would expect the art of women to be concerned\nlargely with actual individual experience and concrete situations. In\none sense, of course, all art must do this; but individual experience\ncan be transmuted into symbols and so generalised, or projected into\nfuture worlds, and that is precisely what women are unlikely to do. No\nwoman has ever written a great myth or a Utopia.\n\nFinally, if women are essentially creators of human life, we may\nsurmise that they are more interested in the relation of art to life\nthan in art for art\u2019s sake. But this supposition must be made with many\nqualifications. It is not suggested that in the act of creating or\nappreciating a work of art women pause to ask, \u201cOf what use is this to\nlife?\u201d If the emotion that they experience is authentic and vivid they\nwill accept its significance simply, as they accept the significance\nof any vivid experience. But it is suggested that if they reflect upon\nart at all, this is precisely the question, formulated or not, which\nwill decide their attitude to it. In estimating a work of art women are\nmore likely to be influenced by its content than by its form, and they\nare capable of drawing practical conclusions from it which would hardly\noccur to men.\n\nAmong the different kinds of art, those which express themselves in a\nmedium closely related to the normal activities of daily life seem to\nbe the most favourable for women. There are more great women artists\nin literature than in sculpture or painting, and more in these than in\nmusic. Literature is expressed through language, which is a medium in\nconstant use between individuals; a paint brush in our civilisation\nis a less usual means of expression, and the making of music still\nless usual. One might also hazard a guess that in literature the\nvocabulary of women contains fewer unusual words than that of men. For\nthe difference between spoken and written language is roughly analogous\nto the difference between women and men; a correspondence which may\ninfluence the style of women both as speakers and writers and their\npreferences as readers.\n\n\n\n\n                                   X\n\n\nIt may be affirmed, then, that women are more directly linked to\nconcrete life than men, and that they naturally incline to utilitarian\nstandards in judging the importance of things. Men create ideas, and\nwomen make use of them: women create human beings, and men make use\nof them: both men and women seize what they need for the service of\ntheir own purposes. Is this difference discernible in the intellectual\nwork of educated women, in the subjects they deliberately choose\nfor research, and in the contributions they make to knowledge? This\nquestion, and many others, remain to be answered; and, with them, the\nfundamental question whether the education of women, and especially\ntheir \u201chigher education,\u201d is planned to secure the development of\nan enlightened womanhood, as distinct from manhood. The present\ninquiry pretends to be nothing more than a stimulus to the further\ninvestigation of essential differences between men and women; but it\nis clear that if there is any truth in our conclusions, an honest\nre-statement of women\u2019s aims is necessary. The conception of womanhood\nwhich has been adumbrated here, if it is accepted, demands so many\nadjustments in the attitude of women towards themselves, towards\nmorality, religion, sex, and education that it is impossible within the\nlimits of this essay to give even a hint of them.\n\n\n\n\n      PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: _The Dominant Sex_, by Mathilde and Mathias Vaerting.\nTranslated by Eden and Cedar Paul. (Geo. Allen & Unwin.)]\n\n\n\n\n                         =TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES=\n\nSimple typographical errors have been silently corrected.","title":"Women: an inquiry","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":10988}