Gender studies

“ In fact, most of the big problems that have made sex-education desirable, if not necessary, are problems of sex apart from reproduction. It therefore seems clear that, while studies of reproduction are prominent in sex-education, they should be regarded as introductory to the problems of sex, especially for young people. ”

“ There is a tendency now in society to open the college course equally to women—to continue through college life that interaction of the comparative influence of the sexes which is begun in the family.
To a certain extent this experiment has been always favorably tried in the New England rural Academies, where young men are fitted for college in the same classes and studies with women. ”

“ Practically, what we come to is something like this—People who want to impose a special system have some theories as to the comparative merits of certain studies, which they feel a friendly impulse to press upon others at every convenient opportunity; or they have a vague impression that as certain subjects and methods have been in a manner set apart for women ever since they can remember, there is most likely something in them which distinguishes them either as suitable to the female mind, or as specially useful to women in practical life. ”

“ Intimacies of any kind between young men and young women are as much discouraged socially now as ever they were; as regards higher education, the mere association of the sexes in the lecture-room or the laboratory or the hospital is discouraged in England and in America. ”

“ Among the controversies to which the movement for improving the education of women has given rise, there is one which presses for settlement. The question has arisen and must be answered—Is the improved education which, it is hoped, is about to be brought within reach of women, to be identical with that of men, or is it to be as good as possible, but in some way or other specifically feminine? The form in which the question practically first presents itself is—What shall be the standards of examination? ”

“ It may seem the last outrage of strong-minded-femaleism to suggest that women should study and practise law; since, though there have been stray members of the sex in almost every other masculine profession, no one of them has yet invaded, or asked to invade, this. ”

“ Once more, why has not the French Academy systematized the genders? No one who considers language as an instrument of thought, which is good in proportion as its special parts are definitely adjusted to special functions, can doubt that a meaningless use of genders is a defect. It is undeniable that to employ marks of gender in ways always suggesting attributes that are possessed, instead of usually suggesting attributes that are not possessed, is an improvement. ”

“ In addition to the ethical-social bearings of biological teaching, our sex-education will be incomplete until we learn how to attack the sex problems directly and effectively with reference to the ethical, social, psychical, and æsthetic aspects. ”

“ In how many Seminaries of learning has woman been the chief instrument in forming the minds of the youth, not only of her own but of both sexes. Who has not marked, that where a taste for reading and mental cultivation is found, there the female sex is usually intelligent, educated, and refined. It follows indeed naturally, that a well trained intellect will discover itself in the intercourse of society, and that it will impart a tone to its familiar associates. ”

“ As opposed to this narrow conception, I understand sex-education, the larger sex-education, to be a collective term designating all organized effort, both in and out of schools, toward instructing and influencing young people with regard to the problems of sex. ”

“ Is scholarship, then, the ideal of a college or university? Or is it scholarship which happens to be attained by a sex?
But humanity is neither male nor female: it is both. And both possess all human faculties plus the specialized qualities of the sex of the individual. The nonrecognition of this basic fact impedes the progress of the race. And the subjection of either sex to the other impedes both.
Hence, an appeal for justice to women, such as is embodied in this life of Marie E. Zakrzewska, is equally an appeal for justice to men. ”

“ Lucretia Mott and some other really fine women were advocating the wider education of the sex. Women were being brought to the fore as teachers in schools, and higher institutions were being discussed. ”

“ When we remember the institution she founded and conducted; the six thousand young women whom she educated, many of them gratuitously; when it is borne in mind the numerous books she wrote to be used in schools and the great favor with which these books have generally been received; when we think of the zealous energy in various ways which she put forth for more than half a century to elevate the standard of education of her sex, it would be difficult to find a woman who, in her age or country, was more useful or will longer be remembered as both good and great. ”

“ The fact is becoming more palpable every year that there is an education appropriate to each sex; that identical education for the two sexes is so unnatural, that physiology protests against it and experience weeps over it. The physiological motto in education is, "Educate a man for manhood, a woman for womanhood, and both for humanity." ”

“ In the further discussion of this subject it will then be taken for granted that in education, feminization means emphasis on languages, literature and history, as opposed to mathematics, physics, chemistry and civics. For the elementary schools we have no data capable of reduction to figures, but general observation, backed by an examination of courses of study and textbooks, will compel any one to say that in twenty years we have made wonderful progress in reading, language, stories, mythology, biography and history ”

“ As only few countries have taken the trouble to prepare statistics about inventions made by women it is impossible to give reliable facts about what women have contributed to human culture in this line.
Their most intensive activity has been observed in the United States, especially since with the founding of woman's colleges and the opening of the universities, the education of the female sex became a more careful and broader one. ”

“ For such women it was indeed a blessed day when the word that was to deliver them from bondage and to open to them paths of public usefulness was first spoken by the pioneers of feminism, throwing open to the female sex the many professions for which they are as fit, or even fitter—in spite of the equality theory—than men! ”

“ No institution of note has yet ventured to admit females much further than into the mysteries of the rudiments." (Female delicacy, female industry, female mind, female college were terms hard worked in those days. A belief of sex in mind was universal.) ”

“ What has apparently happened, then, in the history of feminine education and influence is that, whenever women became occupied with such modes of education, or the cultivation of phases of feminine influence that took them out of their houses, away from family life and far from the hearthstone, the particular classes of women who thus became interested did not propagate themselves, or propagated themselves to such a limited degree that, after a time, their kind disappeared to a great extent. ”

“ That any scheme of education which might tend to foster them, ought to be energetically resisted, will scarcely be disputed by any—least of all by the advocates of extended mental culture for women.
It may be well to examine first that theory of the difference between manhood and womanhood which underlies most of the objections commonly brought against the thorough culture of women; and which, if it were true, would render all further argument superfluous. The differences between a man and a woman are either essential or conventional, or both. ”

“ As a guide to the subject matter and methods of sex-instruction the author appends a brief bibliography culled from the flood of literature on the subject. Much that has been published is good; some is bad and some is indifferent. The necessity for [244] widespread sex-education has resulted in the formation of many societies whose primary object is the dissemination of knowledge on the subject through lectures and the publication of pamphlets designed for the education of the parent in how and when to impart sex-instruction to his child. ”

“ Books had been written and many lectures delivered, in which it was stated and attempted to be proved by the writers and lecturers, that there was nothing in the physical organization or in the intellectual endowments of women to incapacitate them from many of the occupations and employments engaged in by men; that a fair amount of the work and drudgery of life would be of benefit to women in physical and moral respects, that the mere difference of sex should not be alleged as a reason for throwing all the burdens on the male sex. ”

“ Guided by the laws of development which we have found physiology to teach, and warned by the punishments, in the shape of weakness and disease, which we have shown their infringement to bring about, and of which our present methods of female education furnish innumerable examples, it is not difficult to discern certain physiological principles that limit and control the education, and, consequently, the co-education of our [119] youth. These principles we have learned to be, three for the two sexes in common, and one for the peculiarities of the female sex. ”

“ Moreover, nature decrees that with advancing civilization the sexes shall not approximate, but differentiate, and we shall probably be obliged to carry sex distinctions, at least of method, into many if not most of the topics of the higher education. Now that woman has by general consent attained the right to the best that man has, she must seek a training that fits her own nature as well or better. ”

“ They only half believe, or perhaps altogether repudiate, the female mind theory; and they are prepared to go great lengths in assimilating the education of the sexes. But they say,—1. Male education is in a very bad state—therefore it is not worth while to spread it. 2. Rightly or wrongly, it is different from that of women. It would be useless to examine people in things they have not learnt; and women do not as a rule learn Latin and Greek and Mathematics. ”

“ It is to be hoped that numerous teachers will soon grasp this opportunity. If they will study the sex-education movement in order to get its general bearings [127] and will teach the sex aspect of literature on a basis of high ideals of life and love, we need have no fear as to the culmination of the instruction which properly begins with study of the biological facts of life in its sexual aspects and leads on and on to its climax in the ethical aspects of the individual's sex life in relation to other individuals, that is, to society. ”

“ It may do something towards clearing away the haze to endeavour to give some answer to the questions—Why do you ask for a common standard? Do you want to prove the intellectual equality of the sexes?—or their identity? If you desire to improve female education, why not strive after what is ideally best, instead of trying to get things for women which have produced results far short of perfection in men? ”

“ The whole idea of women's position in social life, and their ability to take their place, independently of any question of Higher education and its results. sex, in the work of the world, was radically changed in the English-speaking countries, and also in the more progressive nations beyond their bounds, during the 19th century. This is due primarily to the movement for women's higher education and its results. ”

“ Feminist ideals of education, then, had the defect that they did in a certain measure deny sex, or ignore it. The feminists had a pathetic hope that by so doing they would convince the dominant male that a woman might be learned and yet remain a lady. But I wish to emphasize the fact that this feature has belonged to all education of women, especially of ladies, from time immemorial, and it is, therefore, unbecoming in a male, whether young or old, to use this as a cause for reproach to our sex. We went as far as we dared with an eye to male hostility. ”

“ Women in general would be brought up equally capable of understanding business, public affairs, and the higher matters of speculation, with men in the same class of society; and the select few of the one as well as of the other sex, who were qualified not only to comprehend what is done or thought by others, but to think or do something considerable themselves, would meet with the same facilities for improving and training their capacities in the one sex as in the other. ”

“ In the benefits of an improved system of education, the female sex are now permitted liberally to participate. The doors of the temple of knowledge, so long barred against them, have been thrown open. ”

“ There is sex in mind, and there should be sex in education.
Let us consider, then, what an adapted education must have regard to. In the first place, a proper regard to the physical nature of women means attention given, in their training, to their peculiar functions and to their foreordained work as mothers and nurses of children. Whatever aspirations of an intellectual kind they may have, they cannot be relieved from the performance of those offices so long as it is thought necessary that mankind should continue on earth. ”