Ever since history was first well recorded (mostly by the male) men and women in civilized nations have based their behavior on an unprovable belief. Their relations to each other have been founded on the assumption that women and men are vastly different emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. They have considered each other almost as different species of Homo sapiens.
The myth breaks down into many specific false assumptions (some of which are embraced by men only, some by women only). Here are some examples:
- Women are more emotional than men.
- Men are better at abstract thinking than are women.
- Women are more intuitive than men.
- Men are more skillful with their hands (and in using tools) than women.
- Women are more hypochondriacally than men, but men are little boys at heart, especially when they’re ill.
- It is almost always the man who indulges in infidelity and breaks up the marriage.
- Homosexuality is practiced more by men than by women.
- The female usually snares the male.
- Women are slier and more cunning than men.
- Men are bolder, more physically vigorous, and more courageous than women.
- Women are more loving than men.
Believers in these myths often try to support their view by asking questions like the following: Why have there been no famous women chess players? Why so few great female mathematicians, composers, violinists, artists? Why is the male such a beast of infidelity while the woman is usually loyal and chaste? Why do more men have ulcers than women? Why do more men remain emotionally immature all their lives? Why do men start all the wars? It is supposed to be self-evident that these observations are explained by the inherent differences between the sexes.
Rousseau, the great French philosopher, wrote, ‘Woman is especially constituted to please men. . . . to please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honored by them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to counsel them, to console them and to make life agreeable and sweet to them-these are the duties of women at all times, and what should be taught them from infancy.”
A woman author in nineteenth-century England, who signed herself “Lady of Distinction,” wrote, “The most perfect and implicit faith in the superiority of a husband’s judgment, and the most absolute obedience to his desires, is not only the conduct that will ensure the greatest success, but will give the most entire satisfaction …. ”
Blackstone, the jurist, wrote in his famous Commentaries,
Aristotle wrote, “The male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules and the other is ruled …. The male is by nature fitter for command than the female …We must look to the female as being a sort of natural deficiency.”
Even the Christian church downgraded and stereotyped the female. ‘What is woman but an enemy to friendship, and unavoidable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation-a wicked work of nature covered with shining varnish,” wrote St. John Chrysostom. A canonical decree prohibited women from approaching the altar or ministering to the priest. “A woman is incapable of true spiritual jurisdiction,” said a Pope.
All of these statements were made during the last 2,400 years, well into the era in which the male has been dominant in most civilized countries. During this period he has had roles in society which make him appear stronger, wiser, and superior.
There are several explanations for the present acceptance of the natural superiority of men.
First is the fact that in the past the members of the two sexes have found themselves in different social roles. These roles have given the impression that the type of work done by the individual, and his social position, indicate his character and talents. For a long time, man was by necessity the hunter; therefore, he was believed to be more courageous and bold. Woman was immobilized by pregnancy, child rearing, and home duties. Because she was for biological reasons assigned to a domiciliary role, it was assumed that she had a passive nature, and she was treated accordingly. This kind of reasoning is called the self-fulfilling prophecy. The individual believes a certain thing-then unconsciously arranges life so that what he believes becomes a fact.
Because laws and customs usually gave power, property, and authority to the male, the female found that her only obvious avenue of survival was patience, cunning, sex allurement. So she began to exhibit these characteristics even though inherently she possessed them to no greater degree than did the male.
Woman had almost no opportunities to exhibit her abilities in physical activity, intellectual creativity, and invention-abilities usually regarded as being uniquely male. Therefore woman has been considered lacking in these areas.
There is evidence that in prehistoric days (which lasted much longer than the historically recorded period) society was matriarchal-managed by the female. Agriculture, spinning, weaving, pottery-all activities except war and hunting-were carried on by the female. In those days women were the inventive ones, the abstract thinkers who from necessity created tools for turning plant fiber into yam and yam into cloth, discovered such complicated processes as baking and fabricating clay into pottery, and developed the crude instruments for sewing, erecting movable shelters, and so forth. The basic inventions which allowed man to change from a half-animal caveman into a civilized being were made by females because technology was their area of concern. Both men and women long have scoffed at the idea of a female being a political leader. Yet when a woman takes on such a role she often does well. Witness Queen Elizabeth, Cleopatra, Queen Victoria, and Queen Liliuokalani.
It is mainly the pressure of society that determines what roles, attitudes, kinds of behavior, the members of each sex will embrace. These roles, attitudes, and kinds of behavior have almost nothing to do with the sex of the individual-but many males refuse to accept this fact.
The way a person’s role in society influences his status can easily be illustrated. In Hawaii, for example, an Army enlisted man generally is treated as a socially inferior person (except by the merchants who want his money). If a young lady goes out with an enlisted man, friends may raise eyebrows. It is assumed that the enlisted man usually drinks a lot and is not well educated, and that his only reason for dating a local girl is to sleep with her. The status of the Navy enlisted man in Norfolk, Virginia, is even worse.
But observe Private John Smith closely. See how attractive he is? Even though he is the lowest of the enlisted men, Private Smith-like many other servicemen-is a college graduate, from a fine, loving family. He is a person of integrity, gentleness, ambition; and he has a clear, brilliant mind. Yet regardless of his talents and fine character, when people see Private Smith, in his enlisted-man’s uniform, walking down Kalakaua Avenue, they assume that he has the undesirable behavioral tendencies traditionally associated with enlisted men. And they treat him accordingly.
However, if Private Smith is suddenly promoted and becomes Lieutenant John Smith, he ipso facto becomes socially acceptable even to the elite. His role in society has changed. People now assume he is more decent, has better manners, a better mind, than the John Smith who wore a different uniform (and hence played a different role) only a few days before. At neither time do the observers have any information about John Smith. They estimate his worth from the role he is in, according to traditional, anachronistic values. Also, John Smith’s opportunities to exhibit his talents when he was an enlisted man were limited (although not insurmountably) by the social role in which he found himself. Even the wife he chooses will be influenced by whether or not he wears a silver bar.
The same method of assuming that the nature of a role reflects the inherent characteristics of the one playing it has been employed in judgments about the qualities of the male and the female. People have assumed man and woman to be vastly different simply because historically they have carried out different duties in society. It is not usually realized that when the roles of male and female are reversed, each acquires many of the mannerisms and personality traits usually associated with the other. In certain areas in Greece during the Nazi invasion there were no able-bodied men left. The Greek women fought the Germans ferociously and vigorously with rifles, swords, hatchets. The old Greek men stayed home to care for the children and assumed the women’s role. In the same way, the effect of a reversal of roles is strikingly exemplified by young Israeli women who fought bravely in war, swore, cut their hair very short, and dug ditches alongside the men with whom they served. History supplies many instances of this kind.
Another factor which has promoted the belief in rigid male female differences is the influence of publications by scientists most of them men-who unwittingly biased their own experiments to conform to their preconceptions about female inferiority. Their bias created a distortion similar to that which results when Negro children are tested for intelligence by Southern examiners; the children evidence lower IQs than a similar group tested by Northern examiners. We have learned only recently that experiments are influenced by the natural bias of the experimenter and by the environment in which the experiment takes place. The experimenter, without knowing it, affects the behavior of the person he is examining. Often this influence is so great that the response of the subject is almost entirely created by the already held beliefs of the experimenter. It is well established now, for example, that the hallucinations of subjects taking the drug LSD vary with the personality and beliefs of the experimenter and with the environment in which the session is held.
Likewise, when a person has hallucinations as a result of sensory deprivation (in experiments where the subject, with eyes and ears covered, is placed in a quiet, dark room-devoid of any kind of external stimulus), the hallucinations vary according to what the subject has been told he may expect.
It is obvious, of course, that there are physical differences between men and women. There are also psychological differences; but it is difficult to estimate them, let alone measure them accurately. The slight hormonal differences between them relate mainly to sexual functioning. But what happens when the sex hormones are altered? Does this change cause the individuals to be radically incompetent in their present social roles, or make it impossible for them to maintain their status in society, or change their sex patterns? It does not. It has been well demonstrated that both male and female castrates (those having testicles or ovaries removed for medical reasons) can function adequately in their normal social roles if they have internalized the roles before being castrated. They can even achieve sexual satisfaction and orgasms. Perhaps most convincing of all is the work done by Hampton, Money, and Money, in the studies they originated at Johns Hopkins University, concerning hermaphroditic children. Hermaphrodites are physically closer to one sex than the other. But, it has been found, the hermaphrodite child makes a better adjustment to the sex with which its parents have identified it than to the sex to which it is biologically closer. For example, such a child may have functioning ovaries and only rudimentary testicles. In such a case, by hormonal and surgical treatment a physician can most easily bring about a biologically-that is physically-female child; but if the parents have been treating it like a boy and wishing it to be a boy, there will be trouble: the child may turn out to be a homosexual. The psychological trend established by the parents in such cases is more influential than the anatomical situation.
In an example like that of the hermaphroditic children, we are dealing with the extreme end of the continuum; such drastic changes in the bio-psychological nature of human beings can be made only after years of hormone treatments, surgery, and by psychological consultations.
The anthropologist Margaret Mead shows in her books Male and Female and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies that masculine and feminine behavior is conditioned by the attitude of society. In Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies she discusses her observations of three tribes:
These three situations [in the three tribes] suggest, then, a very definite conclusion. If those temperamental attitudes which we have traditionally regarded as feminine–such as passivity, responsiveness, and a willingness to cherish children-can so easily be set up as the masculine pattern in one tribe, and in another [the second tribe] be outlawed for the majority of men, we no longer have any basis for regarding such aspects of behavior as sex-linked. And this conclusion becomes even stronger when we consider the actual reversal in Tchambuli [the third tribe] of the position of dominance of the two sexes, in spite of the existence of formal patrilineal institutions [in which children carry the name of the father].
Today, in our Western culture, we have our own tribal laws about sex roles. In early life both parents, wittingly and unwittingly, transmit the cultural values to the child by indicating that “boys don’t cry,” “girls don’t fight,” and so on. Mothers tell their daughters, “The trouble with men is…” Fathers implore sons, “For God’s sake, don’t let ‘em sucker you”…
Later on, when dating is culturally appropriate, mothers pass their attitudes toward the opposite sex on to their daughters, and fathers pass their attitudes on to their sons. Mothers seldom discuss dating with their sons, and fathers seldom discuss it with their daughters. In this manner, the parents help perpetuate the myth of the separation of the sexes.
In summary, it is debilitatingly erroneous to believe that there are vast differences between the male and the female and that these differences cause most of the troubles in marriage, There are no vast, innate differences. The behavior patterns, attitudes, and temperaments of the male and the female are not inherently rigid. Despite the habits and cumulative forces of society, the man and woman can determine for themselves what role each will have in marriage. When they are unable to do this, then the marriage either will fail, or will be merely a numb, routine affair. Trouble is caused not by vast differences (which don’t exist), but by the inability to choose and activate the desirable or necessary role.
Both our own research and a review of publications by many social scientists have led us to the conclusion that spouses who have been married for more than three or four years rarely state spontaneously to an interviewer that they are in love with one another. They are more apt to speak in utilitarian terms or to make unilateral statements like “John is a good provider” or “Jane is a good mother to our children.” Yet in many marriages, especially discordant ones, each partner tenaciously and stubbornly believes that he is a loving individual-more loving than his spouse.
