The Man‐Made World
When women suggest that it could be done differently, their proposal is waved aside—they are “only women”—their ideas are
“womanish.”
Agreed. So are men “only men,” their ideas are “mannish”; and of the two the women are more vitally human than the men.
The female is the race‐type—the man the variant.
The female, as a race‐type, having the female processes besides; best performs the race processes. The male, however, has with great difficulty developed them, always heavily handicapped by his maleness; being in origin essentially a creature of sex, and so dominated almost exclusively by sex impulses.
The human instinct of mutual service is checked by the masculine instinct of combat; the human tendency to specialize in labor, to rejoicingly pour force in lines of specialized expression, is checked by the predacious instinct, which will exert itself for reward; and disfigured by the masculine instinct of self‐expression, which is an entirely different thing from the great human outpouring of world force.
Great men, the world‘s teachers and leaders, are great in humanness; mere maleness does not make for greatness unless it be in warfare—
a disadvantageous glory! Great women also must be great in humanness; but their female instincts are not so subversive of human progress as are the instincts of the male. To be a teacher and leader, to love and serve, to guard and guide and help, are well in line with motherhood.
“Are they not also in line with fatherhood?” will be asked; and, “Are not the father‘s paternal instincts masculine?”
No, they are not; they differ in no way from the maternal, in so far as they are beneficial. Parental functions of the higher sort, of the human sort, are identical. The father can give his children many advantages which the mother can not; but that is due to his superiority as a human being. He possesses far more knowledge and
power in the world, the human world; he himself is more developed
in human powers and processes; and is therefore able to do much for his children which the mother can not; but this is in no way due to his masculinity. It is in this development of human powers in man,