Secondary sex characteristics

“ A man does not object to being called “masculine,” nor a woman to being called “feminine.” Yet whatever is masculine or feminine is sexual. To be distinguished by femininity is to be distinguished by sex. To be over-feminine is to be over-sexed. To manifest in excess any of the distinctions of sex, primary or secondary, is to be over-sexed. Our hypothetical peacock, with his too large and splendid tail, would be over-sexed, and no offence to his moral character!
The primary sex-distinctions in our race as in others consist merely in the essential organs and functions of reproduction. ”

“ In view of this fact, is it too much to raise the question whether or not sex in woman is designed to fulfill any other purpose than that of the reproduction of the race? True it is, that the only function of sex in all other females is merely that of producing offspring—of perpetuating its kind. Under no circumstances does it ever serve any other end, fulfill any other design. ”

“ It is worth noting that the spread of feminism will reinforce the action of sexual selection in keeping down the numbers of this "intermediate sex." In the past, women who lacked femininity or maternal instinct have often married because the pressure of public opinion and economic conditions made it uncomfortable for any woman to remain unmarried. ”

“ Yet those who maintain that distinction of intelligence, etc., between the sexes are traceable to external conditions affecting one sex only and inherited through that sex alone, cannot evade the above assumption. ”

“ This objection we have answered elsewhere, particularly in our discussion of feminism. We recognize the general equality of the two sexes, but demand a differentiation of function which will correspond to biological sex-specialization. We can not yield in our belief that woman's greatest function is motherhood, but recognition of this should increase, not diminish, the strength of her position in the state. ”

“ Obviously operations cannot be performed on all those with female-type bodies who do not bear children, to determine the primary sex, and conversely with men. This does, however, point the obvious question: Are not some we classify as men more male or masculine than others—some we classify as women more feminine than others? Bearing in mind the fact that the genetic basis for both sexes exists in each individual, are not some women more masculine than others, some men more feminine than others? ”

“ Many women have a considerable amount of "maleness"; numerous men have distinct feminine characteristics, physical and mental. There is thus an ill-defined "intermediate sex," as Edward Carpenter called it, whose size has been kept down by sexual selection; or better stated there is so much overlapping that it is a question of different averages with many individuals of each sex beyond the average of the other sex. ”

“ It is the “view that the female sex is primary and the male secondary in the organic scheme, that originally and normally all things center, as it were, about the female, and that the male, though not necessary to carrying out the scheme, was developed under the operation of the principle of advantage to secure organic progress through the crossing of strains. ”

“ And though women, after thousands of years of such discussion, have become a little restive under the constant use of the word female: men, as rational beings, should not object to an analogous study—at least not for some time—a few centuries or so.
How, then, do we find these masculine tendencies, desire, combat and self-expression, affect the home and family when given too much power?
First comes the effect in the preliminary work of selection. One of the most uplifting forces of nature is that of sex selection. ”

“ He pointed out that there were people born in such a position—as it were on the dividing line between the sexes—that while belonging distinctly to one sex as far as their bodies are concerned they may be said to belong mentally and emotionally to the other; that there were men, for instance, who might be described as of feminine soul enclosed in a male body (anima muliebris in corpore virili inclusa) , or in other cases, women whose definition would be just the reverse. ”

“ In our more civilised societies, as they exist today, woman possesses (more often perhaps in appearance than reality!) a somewhat greater freedom of sexual selection; she is no longer captured by muscular force, but there are still conditions entirely unconnected with sex attractions and affections, which yet largely dominate the sex relations. ”

“ And I think, furthermore, that there is no country in the world where women are so much considered and cared for and sheltered, in every walk of life, as in America. In England and France,—all over the continent of Europe, in fact,—the other sex are deferential to women only from some presumption of their social standing, or from the fact of acquaintanceship ”

“ And this divergence of experiences in human relations must react on their attitude towards that particular body of human concerns which directly is connected with the sexual reproduction of the race; and, it is exactly in these fields of human activity, where sex as sex is concerned, that woman as woman has a part to play which she cannot resign into the hands of others. ”

“ It must be borne in mind that the tendency in characters acquired at a late period of life by either sex, to be transmitted to the same sex at the same age, and of characters acquired at an early age to be transmitted to both sexes, are rules which, though general, do not always hold good. ”

“ Gender roles are constantly redefined by tectonic shifts in the definition and functioning of basic social units, such as the nuclear family and the workplace. The cross-fertilization of gender-related cultural memes renders "masculinity" and "femininity" fluid concepts.
One's sex equals one's bodily equipment, an objective, finite, and, usually, immutable inventory. But our endowments can be put to many uses, in different cognitive and affective contexts, and subject to varying exegetic frameworks. As opposed to "sex" - "gender" is, therefore, a socio-cultural narrative. ”

“ From the fact that there is no equality of functions between the sexes one should not, however, infer that either sex is inherently superior or inferior to the other, or that they are unequal in their rights. ”

“ The sex organs constitute the primary sex characters. It is they that distinguish primarily one sex from another. But there are numerous other sex characters or sex differences which while not so important serve to differentiate the sexes, at the same time forming points of attraction between one sex and another. For instance, the beard and mustache are a distinct male characteristic and constitute one of the secondary male sex characters. ”

“ Now, suppose a difference in the physical strength of the sexes to have become well established through this process in prehistoric times, before the dawn of civilization, the rest of the story follows very simply. The now confessedly dominant sex would, of course, seek to retain and increase its domination and the now fully subordinated sex would in time come to regard the inferiority to which it was born as natural, inevitable, and Heaven-ordained. ”

“ If our modern knowledge of heredity is to be admitted at all, it follows that the choice of women for motherhood is of the utmost moment for the future of mankind. Woman is half the race; and the leaders of the woman's movement must recognize the importance of their sex in this fundamental question of eugenics. ”

“ It cannot be adequately explained by a reference to the evolution of sex functions and relations from primitive man onwards, since it is at least in the extreme form we see it to-day, a comparatively recent social phenomenon. The theory of the sacrosanctity of women by virtue of their sex, quite apart from their character and conduct as individuals, scarcely dates back farther than a century, even from its beginnings. ”

“ The gradual disappearance of the distinctive influence of sex in the public and social conduct of women is presumably a sign of advancing civilisation, and is greatest in the West, the old standards retaining more and more vitality as we proceed Eastward. Among the Anglo-Saxon races women are almost entirely emancipated from any handicap due to their sex, and direct their lives with the same freedom and independence as men. ”

“ These figures show that there has been a large preponderance of the female sex, and though in the last twenty years this surplus has diminished by one half, it may perhaps in some measure account for the wonderful way in which women have pushed themselves to the front and ceased to look upon matrimony as the only profession open to the sex. ”

“ Politicians, publicists, and ecclesiastics all refuse to acknowledge the obvious fact that the increasing economic independence of women is alone responsible for this phenomenon.
Notwithstanding the fact that during the last twenty-five years marked progress is observed in the social and economic conditions of women, still the sexual position of the great mass of women has steadily declined. The fact that so far as her sex relations are concerned civilized woman occupies a lower position than that occupied by the female animal has already been noted in these pages. ”

“ It is a futile attempt to investigate why this dualism of the sexes must exist, and if it were not possible to have an organic world without this division; the fact is that the organic world does consist of male and female beings, who could not and would not exist without each other, and a sex "in itself" and "for itself," without relation to the other, is no more to be thought of than a thing in itself or for itself. ”

“ In the last chapter I tried to deal with the actual problem created in this country by the disproportion of the sexes—the fact that there are, roughly, one and three-quarters to two million more women than men in this country; and I was obliged to confine myself simply to stating the problem, which, to my mind, is very greatly intensified by the fact, generally ignored, that the sex needs of a woman are just as imperative, their suppression just as hard to bear, as a man's ”

“ We are told that a slight sex-distinction is characteristic of infancy and old age, and that the assumption of opposite traits by either sex shows either a decadent or an undeveloped condition. The young of any race are less marked by sex-distinction; and in old age the distinguishing traits are sometimes exchanged, as in the crowing of old hens and in the growing of the beard on old women. ”

“ And when we rise to the human species these sex differences persist and are even emphasised, though finding their expression in a greater number of less strongly marked characters, not on the physical side alone, but on the mental and psychical. It is difficult to divest the mind of facts with which it is most familiar. Thus it is easy to understand the widely-held opinion of the superiority of the male half of life, and that the female is the sex sacrificed to the reproductive process. ”

“ The two sexes differ in many respects it is true; on the other hand, all legal and consequently artificial constraint of one by the other has the effect of hindering the free development of both. Each sex has the right to look upon the world and assimilate it according to its nature. It can thus develop its personality so that it does not become etiolated and atrophied like a domestic animal. ”

“ Thus the sex problem becomes in large measure a woman's problem, not only because of her peculiar biological specialization for reproduction, which involves an enormous responsibility but also because her life has for so many generations been hedged in by rigid institutionalized taboos and prohibitions.
The traditional conception of marriage and the family relation implies that all women are adapted to as well as specialized for motherhood. ”

“ That women were thus divided among themselves from the first, was the natural outcome of those differences in personal attractions and in personal intelligence which have always constituted the great danger of too sweeping conclusions with regard to the inclinations and capabilities of the female sex. Individual members of the same sex may yet be radically different, and he who would prescribe for all will always find himself confronted by the bewildering problem of the disparity of individuals. ”

“ A very large percentage of both sexes of the civilized races begin their sexual life during early adolescence. This is particularly true of the male half of the races. The system of sex inhibitions which has gradually been developed by civilization has been along the line of evolution and has been doing away with promiscuity, polygamy and polyandry; it has been establishing monogamy and postponing marriage until a period of greater physiological and psychological maturity of both sexes. ”

“ Only when through a division of labour these elements became detached, and the special functions of each were confided to two distinct and separate individuals, did the independent history of the female and male sexes begin.
No fact is more patent, at the present time, than that sex constitutes the underlying principle throughout nature. Although it may not be said of the simplest forms of life that sexual difference has been established, yet we are assured that among the ciliated Infusorians “male and female nuclear elements have been distinguished.” ”