Fear of Sex, part II: What is this woman?

In our second installment of the weekly series Fear of Sex, the authors of the 1922 non-classic "Ethical Sex Relations, or The New Eugenics" take a break from biology and begin hypothesizing about alien life forms that-- wait, wait a second. No, they're talking about women. My mistake. Read on!

Page: 83
Chapter title: Courtship
Section title: What Attracts the Sexes to Each Other

Woman differs from man not only in her anatomical construction, but is also widely dissimilar in her mental faculties. She commonly has less strength of mind, but is quicker in apprehension; less judgement, but more intuition; is more exquisite in sensibility, but receives less lasting impressions. It is common to say that men reason or are reflective, while women are guided by something resembling instinct or are perceptive. Men are comparatively taciturn where women are talkative. Women love ornament; the decorative arts, of person or home, are native to their natures, while men are more simple and severe in taste. Her body and mind are the abode of refinement, emotion, gentleness, devotion and all that is exquisite and spirituelle. He should possess a fair share of dignity, size, leadership, boldness, courage, strength, and, in short, power, to win her admiration. If to these attributes a man unites generosity and gallantry in his conduct towards the gentler sex, he will indeed be irresistible to them.

And here's a related entry from a few pages later:

Page: 121
Chapter title: There Seems to be a Sex Mania in this Civilization
Section title: Sexual Instincts in the Female

Upon careful observation of the sexes in the married state, it is found that the sexual desire is less in women than it is in men. Likely much of the difference in sexual desire is due to greater chastity in women than in men. And their education leads also to greater chastity than that of men. Girls are taught repression and boys expression.

As to sexual instinct, women have been divided into three classes: (a) Those having little or no sexual feeling, which is a comparatively small percentage. (b) Those who are subject to strong passion, which is a much larger percentage than in the first class. (c) Those in whom the sexual appetite is moderate, and this class comprises the majority of women.

Granting to woman more pleasure in sexual intercourse than usually comes to her by the very largest allowance, it can be safely said that in ninety out of a hundred cases of maternity, with its early pains and later cares, there is a great detraction of her power of enjoyment. In fact, for the larger part of her married life she is either positively distressed by the apparently necessary demands of her husband upon her, or kept to a cheerful response by a self-abnegation and regard for his comfort, which is a positive drain upon her health and strength.

Isn't it sad to see how many of these stereotypes still persist today? In particular, I've certainly heard people say that women have smaller libidos than men -- a mistake many woman, I'm sure, will gladly refute. But that makes me wonder: did the two male authors of this book even consult women before writing this stuff? It's as if they watched them with a telescope from their frat house, then shot back some whiskey and translated their sexual frustrations into biology textbook-style writing. Maybe all this just shows how marginalized women were -- that not only were they misunderstood, but they weren't taken seriously enough to even try challenging all this garbage. Or, maybe they were told it so often that they believed it. Anyway, pretty sad. If these authors had wives, they must have been a sorry lot.

Posted by Jason Feifer at November 30, 2004 08:10 AM