,,women3 ,,an ,,inquiry ,,the ,,hogarth ,,essays ,i4 ,,mr4 ,,bennett ,,and ,,mrs4 ,,brown4 ,by ,,virginia ,,woolf4 #bs4 #f;d4 ,,ii4 ,,the ,,artist ,,and ,,psycho-,,analysis4 ,by ,,roger ,,fry4 #bs4 #f;d4 ,,iii4 ,,henry ,,james ,,at ,,work4 ,by ,,theodora ,,bosanquet4 #bs4 #f;d4 ,,iv4 ,,homage ,,to ,,john ,,dryden4 ,by ,t4 ,s4 ,,eliot4 #cs4 #f;d4 ,v4 ,,histriophone4 ,by ,,bonamy ,,dobr,e4 #cs4 #f;d4 ,,vi4 ,,in ,,retreat4 ,by ,,herbert ,,read4 #cs4 #f;d4 ,,vii4 ,,fear ,,and ,,politics3 ,a ,,debate ,,at ,,the ,,zoo4 ,by ,,leonard ,,woolf4 #bs4 #f;d4 ,,viii4 ,,contemporary ,,techniques ,,of ,,poetry4 ,by ,,robert ,,graves4 #cs4 #f;d4 ,,ix4 ,,the ,,character ,,of ,,john ,,dryden4 ,by ,,alan ,,lubbock4 #bs4 #f;d4 ,x4 ,,women3 ,an ,inquiry4 ,by ,,willa ,,muir4 #bs4 #f;d4 ,,xi4 ,,poetry ,,and ,,criticism4 ,by ,,edith ,,sitwell4 #bs4 #f;d4 ,,women3 ,,an ,,inquiry ,,by ,,willa ,,muir ,published by ,leonard ,virginia ,woolf at ,the ,hogarth ,press #eb ,tavistock ,square1 ,london1 ,w4,c4 #a #aibe ,,to ,,violet ,,schiff ,printed in ,great ,britain by ,,neill ,,co41 ,,ltd41 ,,edinburgh 8,methinks1 brother10 replied my father1 8you might1 at least1 know so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong40 ,the ,life and ,opinions of ,tristram ,shandy4 ,,women3 ,,an ,,inquiry ,,introductory ,,men and women are latecomers to this planet1 but they have existed for a very long time1 judged by human standards4 ,one might reasonably expect the difference between them1 if it is an essential difference1 to be now capable of formulation4 ,an essential difference would be a difference distinctively human1 that is1 spiritual as well as physical1 and at the same time distinctively sexual4 ,external differences1 such as the presence or absence of beards and other secondary sexual characteristics1 do not satisfy the first part of this definition1 and are to be disregarded4 ,many so-called differences in social behaviour are also not essential differences4 ,a valuable book written by the ,vaertings#a has made this clear4 ,in a ,state where men are dominant1 as in most of our civilised ,states for the past two thousand years1 certain attributes are considered to be characteristic of women which are equally characteristic of men in a ,state where women are dominant1 as it is said they were for some time in ancient ,egypt4 ,the subordinate sex in each case is excluded from complete development1 and is considered to be less intelligent1 less courageous1 and more domesticated than the dominant sex4 ,in fact1 men and women share jointly in what is called human nature1 and are alike capable of courage1 fear1 cruelty1 tenderness1 intelligence1 and stupidity4 ,when exhilarated by power and responsibility they display the more dominating qualities1 and in subordinate positions they manifest a 8slave psychology40 ,therefore men and women are not to be differentiated as brave or timid1 intelligent or stupid1 strong or weak1 because a classification of this kind is too broadly human and not distinctively sexual4 ,it is not asserted that secondary physiological differences between the sexes or social differences in behaviour have no significance4 ,possibly sexual differentiation is so fundamental that it modifies the least reactions of men and women2 but to begin an investigation of these would require exhaustive scientific information outside the scope of this essay1 which is an attempt to discover if the division of the human race into men and women involves a division of spiritual as well as of sexual functions1 so that the creative work of women is different in kind from the creative work of men4 ,from this point of view the differences mentioned are significant as effects rather than causes1 and a consideration of them must be dismissed as unfruitful4 ,the aim of this essay1 then1 is to find a conception of womanhood as something essentially different from manhood4 ,an essential difference would persist through all the variations of behaviour caused by the dominance of either sex3 consequently the validity of this inquiry is not impaired by the restriction of its material to the activities of men and women in our present one-sided civilisation4 ,the knowledge that it is one-sided1 because men have for so long been dominant over women1 is valuable in helping to distinguish what is essential from what is accidental4 ,the subordination of women makes it difficult but not impossible to recognise the essential quality of womanhood4 ,in a masculine civilisation the creative work of women may be belittled1 misinterpreted1 or denied3 but if it is a reality1 its existence will be proved at least by the emotional colour of the denial4 ,i ,it is therefore legitimate to consider the composite picture of woman presented to us by the beliefs and opinions recorded by men4 ,these opinions are curiously contradictory and at the same time generalised4 ,in spite of the intense interest felt in individual women1 generalisations about women are common1 whereas generalisations about men are made warily1 if at all4 ,men are fellow-creatures of many different kinds3 conclusions are drawn about classes of men1 such as kings1 statesmen1 or warriors1 angry men1 foolish men1 or strangers2 but nothing less than a universal attribute of humanity is attached to all men1 such as that men are mortal1 or subject to ,fate1 or inconstant4 ,but it is seriously believed by ,moslems that women have no souls4 ,thousands of ,christians believe that women are not intelligent4 ,mystics believe that women are on a lower plane of spiritual development than men4 ,women have no sense of justice1 no sense of honour3 women cannot be trusted with political power3 women are all the better for a good beating with a stick4 ,these generalisations reflect man as the dominant sex1 conscious of his superiority4 ,but one comes at once upon contradictions4 ,every great man has been inspired by some woman4 ,the hand that rocks the cradle indisputably rules the world4 ,a woman was the first cause of original sin1 but a woman was the ,mother of ,god4 ,what does this mean8 ,half of the picture is tinged with vague contempt1 and the other half with vague reverence4 ,apparently the average man sees woman alternately as an inferior being and as an angel4 ,one must conclude that he is looking at her through a distorting medium4 ,his conception of her as an inferior being is natural1 in a man-made ,state1 and were she really inferior it would stop there4 ,his vague reverence for her remains to prevent this conclusion3 it is certainly a compensation for something1 a distorted recognition of some half-guessed-at power in women4 ,it looks as if man knows that the inferiority of woman is a fiction1 that his domination of her and his refusal to admit her to his own level are not justified4 ,in the background there lurks a fear of reprisals4 ,the distorting medium contains fear as one of its elements4 ,in men's societies of a primitive or arrested type where the etiquette of conduct betrays its origin1 one can see clearly man's fear of woman4 ,woman possesses some mysterious power which must be averted by elaborate taboos4 ,a woman can ruin a man's chances of success in hunting or fishing by touching his gear4 ,a woman's shadow can blight a religious ceremony4 ,women are particularly to be feared when they are menstruating or in childbed4 ,the most terrible ghost is that of a woman who dies in childbed4 ,in more developed societies men burn old crones as witches in possession of the evil eye4 ,and even to-day1 especially in politics1 men find it difficult to rid themselves of the uneasy suspicion that women are dangerous4 ,this fear proves the artificiality of man's domination4 ,one can be sceptical of any claim to superiority which throws such a shadow4 ,natural domination1 that domination of skill and experience which is expected of a physician in a sick-room1 or of a captain on his ship1 establishes itself without arrogance and fear1 and is exercised within its natural limits in particular directions4 ,the physician does not interfere with navigation2 the captain claims no divine right of authority over medical prescriptions4 ,but the domination claimed by men over women has been a kind of magical quality1 an absolute and divine right of authority1 a mass domination1 and1 like all other mass dominations1 rooted in fear4 ,but men's fear of women proves only that women are not naturally inferior and subordinate4 ,it does not prove that they are different from men4 ,there remains the other side of the picture1 however1 with its sentimentalised ideal of women4 ,a reverence for woman as a mother appears clearly3 the mother is elevated to a place in heaven and worshipped as the ,mother of ,god1 or as the ,mother of the ,gods4 ,now motherhood is an undisputed function of women which they do not share with men4 ,at the lowest estimate of their powers all women are potential mothers4 ,men are born of women1 and of women only4 ,it must be an important function1 for men have tried to belittle it4 ,the theology of the masculine world branded ,eve as the first cause of evil1 and explained the pains of child-birth as a just punishment from heaven4 ,still more significant1 however1 is the fact that ,adam and ,eve were created by a masculine ,god in a garden1 and that the theologians could not leave them there4 ,it was necessary to bring them from the plane of abstract art on to the plane of humanity4 ,but only a woman can create human beings1 and therefore it was the woman who had to bring them out of the mythical garden into reality--a confession of failure for the theologians1 and they wreaked their revenge on ,eve4 ,yet in spite of themselves they were driven to attribute to a woman the decisive action which transformed the figments of a male ,god into men and women4 ,but motherhood was smirched with original sin4 ,later on it was still further belittled4 ,women were regarded as mere receptacles1 passive receptive bodies which created nothing4 ,men must have felt that motherhood was important1 or they would not have tried to explain it away altogether4 ,but the sentimental ideal of woman as the mother still persisted1 especially among men1 and could not be explained away3 so1 finally1 motherhood was allowed by popular opinion to be a creative function1 but of a purely physical nature1 and it was further defined as the sole justifiable function of women4 ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling expressed this very neatly when he said that blind ,nature made man for several ends and woman for only one4 ,in ,oriental countries the still more logical conclusion is drawn that women justify their existence only by producing men-children4 ,in a society committed to this point of view childless women are failures in life1 and the unmarried woman is a ridiculous nuisance4 ,if social remedies such as polygamy1 suttee1 infanticide1 or euthanasia are not put into practice1 the phrase 8superfluous women0 comes into existence1 and the ,state is shaken by the problem of what to do with its superfluous women4 ,,ii ,yet if motherhood can be defined1 rightly or wrongly1 as the sole function of women1 it must be a function which in some degree expresses the quality of womanhood as distinct from manhood4 ,even in this artificially narrowed field of activity one should be able to find some clue to the essential nature of women4 ,it is therefore advisable first of all to compare motherhood and fatherhood4 ,fatherhood seems the more casual relationship of the two4 ,it cannot be proved with the same certainty as motherhood4 ,in a masculine ,state1 where the father is the only legal parent1 the institution of marriage is necessary to prevent fathers from successfully disclaiming their children4 ,maternity is not so easily denied1 and in a feminine ,state it could be proved without the aid of a marriage contract4 ,where the mother is the sole legal parent civil marriage is unnecessary4 ,hence1 as the ,vaertings point out1 bastardy is unknown in a feminine ,state4 ,a mother's connection with her child is more obvious and immediate than a father's4 ,a man can be a parent without knowing it3 a woman cannot4 ,motherhood is also a greater tax on vital energy than fatherhood1 even if we take motherhood merely as a physical function4 ,the process of bearing a child culminates in a crisis which exhausts a woman's energy3 to such an extent1 indeed1 that women often die of it4 ,moreover1 it is a process which1 once initiated1 is not under conscious control1 so that the reserve of energy drawn upon is not deliberately assigned to this purpose by its owner4 ,it is not at her free disposal to grant or to withhold2 it cannot be exhausted by an act depending on conscious volition4 ,the race in this respect is stronger than the individual4 ,it may be that here we are on the track of an essential difference between men and women in the distribution of energy4 ,if fatherhood is a more casual relationship and uses up less time and energy than motherhood1 it looks as if the specifically sexual life of men does not require such a jealously guarded reserve of energy as that of women4 ,this would be true of all men and all women1 for such a fundamental process as the propagation of the human race could not be left to a section of humanity4 ,as far as the race is concerned1 all women are potential mothers1 and must have the necessary reserve of energy for this function whether they intend to become mothers or not4 ,they cannot waste it even if they would4 ,thus men have more energy to waste on their own individual purposes than women3 that is to say1 men have more energy at their conscious disposal4 ,,iii ,the implications of this hypothesis must be considered4 ,it is attractive because it establishes an essential difference between men and women which makes them complementary to each other4 ,there can be no question of absolute domination of one sex by the other when the strength of each lies in a different direction4 ,if man's energy is diverted more into conscious life1 woman's energy is diverted more into unconscious life1 and one is not more important than the other4 ,it is a relative1 not an absolute difference2 both men and women are human beings1 and all that concerns human beings is their joint affair4 ,but it means1 as will be seen1 a difference in the kind of creative work done by each3 they will tackle the same things from a different point of view1 and with different results4 ,on this basis men and women would each have an equal right1 the right of the creative spirit to do its work without let or hindrance4 ,conscious life implies rational thinking4 ,in thinking about things we arrange them in patterns1 we give them form and system4 ,but we do not give them content2 conscious life modifies or seizes upon things which it does not originate4 ,growth is a process which is already well advanced before it enters consciousness at all4 ,our patterns of thought1 therefore1 can never be final3 they must from time to time be broken and re-formed to admit new factors pushed into consciousness4 ,but the existence of thought-patterns makes it easier to recognise the significance of new factors1 since a thought1 once formulated1 can be passed on1 and becomes a permanent heritage for the human race1 part of the body of knowledge established by the processes of consciousness4 ,these processes are continuously at work extending the body of knowledge1 systematising thought1 and endeavouring to systematise life4 ,consciousness is thus the shaper of form1 which is one aspect of life1 and its work tends to a permanence beyond the vicissitudes of living4 ,but its vitality depends upon its communion with the unconscious4 ,obviously1 unconscious life cannot be clearly defined4 ,we can only guess at its nature from the angle at which its processes enter consciousness1 from its disruptive action upon our systems of thought1 and from what we can remember of its manifestations in dreams4 ,we know that our emotions rise from it like bubbles through water1 that it determines our motives and our interests1 and that it is not homogeneous by conscious standards4 ,its interferences with our conscious life are always spontaneous and strongly charged with feeling4 ,we can infer from such interferences that it has purposes4 ,from its manifestations in dreams and trance states we know that it has access to knowledge by other than conscious means4 ,this kind of knowledge1 when it makes its way into consciousness1 we sometimes recognise by its emotional force and unexpectedness1 and call it intuition4 ,but for the most part we serve the purposes of our unconscious without knowing that we do so1 and admit its wisdom only through the indirect channels of conscious rationalisation4 ,the processes of the unconscious can1 however1 be roughly described by contrast with the conscious life4 ,the unconscious is concerned with growth rather than form2 it is essentially emotional1 spontaneous1 and irrational4 ,as far as we know1 it is concrete in its thinking and not abstract2 it creates living agents and not systems of thought4 ,thus1 while conscious processes supply form and permanence in our world1 unconscious processes supply growing vitality and change4 ,the creations of unconscious life are wrought in mortal substances1 those of conscious life in enduring patterns which are one step removed from life4 ,unconscious life creates1 for example1 human beings3 conscious life creates1 for example1 philosophy4 ,if men are stronger in conscious life1 and women in unconscious life1 their creative powers must express their strength4 ,men should excel in translating life into conscious forms1 women in fostering the growth of life itself4 ,men will create systems of philosophy or government1 while women are creating individual human beings4 ,,iv ,the facts of human life tend to confirm this theory4 ,starting again from the fundamental relationship of a mother to her child1 we can see that owing to the peculiar position of the human race1 the physical act of motherhood is only the merest beginning of motherhood as a function4 ,man1 because he is destined for a more complex life than the other animals1 is born more helpless than any of them1 and takes a longer time to come to maturity4 ,his conscious life constructs itself slowly out of the perceptions of every day1 establishing at every point in its development a working relationship with his unconscious life1 a relationship which is permanently biassed by the experiences of his first years4 ,he is terribly at the mercy of his mother4 ,she can ruin or strengthen that harmony between the conscious and the unconscious which is a necessary condition of full human development4 ,in short1 she must create not only a human body1 but a human being1 if she is to fulfil her function as a mother4 ,but if it is her business to foster growth in her children1 it must be equally her business to foster growth in all the people with whom she is intimate4 ,if she is a specialist in the needs of the growing human spirit1 her peculiar knowledge must be of service to men and women of all ages who are still capable of growth4 ,and what is true in this respect of mothers must be true for all women3 a special equipment for motherhood does not descend suddenly by the grace of ,heaven upon the individual4 ,all girls are potential mothers1 and whatever gifts of intuition are necessary for the creative work of motherhood must be accessible to all women4 ,if the full content of motherhood is thus recognised1 it must inevitably be recognised as a special application of the creative power of women4 ,therefore the concept 8superfluous women0 can only arise in a society which denies the real functions of motherhood1 and which consequently prevents women from free expression and ignores the creative power of womanhood4 ,creative power of any kind is1 of course1 the obverse of an equal power for destruction4 ,no one can put an engine out of action so deftly as the man who designs engines4 ,woman's power of fostering growth in human life implies1 therefore1 an equal power of hindering it4 ,we must accept both sides of the hypothesis1 and in doing so we find fresh proof that it is true4 ,if the average man sees woman alternately as an angel and a devil1 it is because she exercises both a creative and a destructive influence upon his inner life4 ,he would neither fear nor reverence her so intensely if she were merely an inferior counterpart of himself4 ,nor would he lay upon her such peculiar disabilities4 ,these disabilities are not only of the kind that would suffice to keep an inferior class in subjection4 ,inferior classes1 whether actually enslaved or not1 are kept in their place by being excluded from the sources of external power1 such as the possession of wealth1 the command of armies1 the exercise of political rights4 ,certain moral and religious sanctions always rise to reinforce the law on these points1 for the springs of human conduct lie in the unconscious1 and morality and religion deal directly with the emotions of unconscious life4 ,the ruling class seeks therefore to impose a morality consonant with its own interests1 and fears a new religion more than a revolution4 ,but it is always conscious of the expediency of the conventional morality it imposes on inferiors1 and attaches no ultimate value to it4 ,the model subordinate1 obedient and loyal1 is not reverenced or idealised3 he is not regarded by his superiors as a type of perfect manhood1 but only as a perfect subordinate4 ,he may be a bad man provided that he is a good servant4 ,the position of women in a men's ,state does not correspond exactly to this4 ,true1 if we substitute the function of motherhood in its narrow interpretation for the function of servitude1 the correspondence is exact up to a point4 ,the wife and mother is excluded from independent access to the sources of external power3 and she is expected to be obedient and loyal to her marriage contract4 ,moral and religious sanctions are called in to transform her marriage contract into a vow4 ,the stock moral virtue required of her is chastity2 she must have sexual relationships only within the pale of marriage4 ,all women1 because they are potential wives1 must copy her virtues and avoid what is forbidden to her4 ,so far this is only another aspect of the fact that men restrict the function of women to physical motherhood1 and define their own responsibilities by the institution of marriage4 ,women are treated exactly as an inferior class with a definite function1 that of child-bearing4 ,but the correspondence stops here4 ,the disabilities imposed upon women by conventional morality cut deeper still4 ,the sexually good woman must be not only good but ignorant3 whole tracts of human experience are withheld from her knowledge4 ,moreover1 her chastity and her ignorance are translated by men themselves into an abstraction of artificial purity and reverenced as their ideal of womanhood4 ,an ideal of womanhood cherished in men's ,states1 which has for its essential elements ignorance of life and a debased conception of sex1 can be regarded with scepticism4 ,it is noteworthy that intellectual ignorance does not have the same prestige1 and therefore cannot be so important4 ,even an 8educated0 woman is conventionally more acceptable than a woman who is shocked at nothing4 ,the conventionally pure good woman is shocked at a great many things3 that is to say1 she does not merely condemn certain phases of conduct1 which would be at least a forthright attitude1 she is uncomfortable and timid when they are brought to her notice4 ,now if man's reverence for women is an acknowledgment of her vaguely realised power1 at the same time in that very reverence1 conventionalised into an ideal1 he obviously safeguards himself against her power4 ,apparently1 women can be kept in a subordinate position if ignorance of human conduct is imposed upon them as a necessary condition of social approval4 ,it can be inferred that a fearless attitude towards human life is the first essential quality of a free woman1 and that conventional morality is imposed with such emphasis upon women because the creation of moral values is their own peculiar vocation4 ,men are more concerned to prevent women from having untrammelled judgment and action in affairs of morality than from having access to the possession of wealth4 ,in other words1 women are hindered not only from external power1 but from the inward power of creating independent moral and religious values4 ,it is precisely this power which is exercised by creative women in their treatment of others1 and the conventionalised ideal of the ignorant good woman is the deepest disability laid upon women in a men's ,state4 ,the conventionally good woman helps to perpetuate the formal traditions created by man1 traditions which harden into empty shells unless they are continuously vitalised by the independent judgments of women4 ,she accepts the masculine standpoint that human conduct is to be judged entirely by the values of consciously organised life1 which are devised for the preservation of existing systems1 and are not necessarily humane4 ,she acquiesces in repression and punishment instead of seeking to understand and cherish4 ,men praise her for this subserviency and unconsciously despise her4 ,but in preventing her from aggression upon their forms and traditions men lose more than they gain4 ,she is humbugged out of her womanhood1 but she is still a woman1 and does not cease to influence their inner life4 ,the systems of society--such as marriage--are preserved1 but the individual man suffers4 ,he meets hardness where he looks for tolerance1 and condemnation where he needs help4 ,worse still1 for her conventionality is borrowed and therefore unintelligent1 he finds himself imprisoned in traditions which he himself would destroy and create anew were it not for the timidity of the conventional women4 ,thus in a typical men's ,state where the creative work of women is ignored1 where women are prevented by legal and economic barriers from access to external sources of power and hampered by conventional ignorance of life1 they have an insidious influence which evades all the means by which men try to keep it in check4 ,the fabric of the ,state1 the organised systems1 remain apparently intact1 but the private life of men becomes sour and stale4 ,the more men deny the rights of women in public1 the more they are delivered over to the obscure dissatisfactions of their women in private4 ,the conventional women whom men evoke for their own protection have in the end a more fatal1 because a thwarted1 influence on human life than the fearless women4 ,among the ,hindus1 for example1 where the social systems of men have hardened into cast-iron 7perhaps because the women have been prevented from free expression71 the negative power of women is very great4 ,women are not merely inferior imitations of men3 they create men or destroy them4 ,the question may be put1 ,if the whole of human experience is the natural concern of women1 and if women are indeed endowed with the capacity to understand and foster the growth of the human spirit1 how is it possible for women to accept a narrow conventional morality8 ,it is possible because unconscious life is remarkably suggestible1 and in a society where womanly traditions are mainly negative the continuous pressure of conventional values is applied to girls almost from childhood4 ,only rare women with a genius for womanhood can resist the potency of such suggestions4 ,that it is a woman's destiny to create human beings1 whether she fulfils it or not1 is amply confirmed by the natural bias of her interests4 ,in spite of convention her interest in human beings is stronger and more spontaneous than her interest in anything else4 ,almost from the cradle a girl studies the people around her more attentively than a boy does1 and is quicker in imitating their tricks of speech and behaviour4 ,a little later she turns naturally to dolls1 not because of an absurdly precocious maternal instinct1 but because dolls are substitutes for human beings1 and her creative fancy can play upon them without restriction4 ,a doll is not necessarily a son or daughter3 it is by turns a confidant1 a scapegoat1 and a talisman4 ,later still her interest in other people becomes practically a ruling passion3 and since she is not merely a potential wife and mother but a potential woman1 she is interested not only in possible sweethearts but in everybody4 ,she is inquisitive about human relationships of every kind4 ,she is indifferent to things which have no human interest3 she values things for their associations1 or the power they give her over other people4 ,the intimacy between an adolescent girl and her bosom friend for the time being is based on a mutual interest in human nature and a common standard of critical values which they apply to each other as well as to the world4 ,they analyse motives1 provoke moods1 love and hate with such intensity that emotional explosions are inevitable4 ,their interest is not that of mere spectators at the human comedy3 they are ready to play important parts in it2 and they test at every point their influence over others4 ,when fifteen-year-old girls write essays on 8,what ,i should like to be10 the aspirations disclosed are rarely intellectual or material4 ,nearly every girl wants to be popular1 to be an influence for good1 to establish a reputation for cheerfulness and kindness1 in short1 to be successful in handling human beings4 ,when she leaves school the same bias continues4 ,the average girl is more interested in the people around her than in her work1 especially if her work has little direct human interest4 ,if her daily work does not consist of personal relations to other people1 her efficiency in it depends upon the approval of her employers rather than upon her pride in the work itself4 ,she sees herself as the sunbeam in the office1 or as the comforter of her employer's broken life1 or as a moral influence--in other words1 where no human interest exists in her surroundings she takes pains to invent it4 ,it is this entirely womanly impulse which generates most of the sentiment and scandal among women4 ,in married life women display the same passionate interest in other people1 even though husbands and families absorb a certain amount of it4 ,neighbours1 servants1 and children are their dearest topics4 ,no woman is bored when she is discussing other people2 and this is true of both educated and uneducated women4 ,the things which primarily concern women as women are human affairs and experiences1 material which helps them more capably to scrutinise1 to interpret1 and to meddle with the people they meet4 ,the result is that they often meddle tediously with other people's lives4 ,like ,hedda ,gabler1 they must have their fingers in somebody's destiny1 destructively if not creatively4 ,destruction of this kind instead of creation is tragic1 but it arises at least from a pre-occupation with humanity1 and so1 unlike war1 it is womanly4 ,thus the current of women's interests sets definitely towards actual human beings and concrete situations rather than abstract theories4 ,there are other aspects of womanhood which confirm the hypothesis that women's strength lies in unconscious rather than in conscious life1 and which can be briefly enumerated4 ,the first of these is too obvious to require comment4 ,by general consent of men1 women are more irrational and impulsive than men are4 ,secondly1 women have a strong1 if inarticulate1 affinity with what is called ,nature2 a fact which is symbolised by the personification of ,nature as a woman4 ,nature in this sense is the sum of that growing life which has not reached the conscious level of humanity4 ,to this growing life1 vegetable or animal1 women are never indifferent3 their reactions to it are strongly emotional1 whether sympathetic or antipathetic4 ,when because of some timidity they cannot exercise their creative power on human beings1 they readily foster plants or animals instead1 and there are women who can do so with the sureness of intuitive knowledge4 ,they are more obviously affected by natural phenomena than men2 their sexual life1 for example1 is governed by the phases of the moon1 and it is claimed that their fertility varies with the rainfall and the earth's magnetic currents4 ,thirdly1 they have an immediate sense of the significance of life3 they have the same vivid interest in even trivial affairs that one finds in dreams4 ,women have none of the detachment which is equally prepared to prove that life is significant or that it is meaningless4 ,they assume without proof that life1 especially human life1 is significant2 they are so deeply immersed in life that it is not possible for them to question its value as men do4 ,for this reason they are more tenacious of life than men4 ,fourthly1 they come to maturity earlier than men do1 although they live longer on the average4 ,this does not mean that women remain in a state of arrested development as compared with men3 the advent of puberty does not put a stop to mental and spiritual development4 ,but it may be interpreted as a sign that the creative work of womanhood requires a less elaborate conscious equipment than that of men4 ,the wisdom of conscious life is a structure slowly built by the individual1 and needs a long apprenticeship2 it is possible that the wisdom of unconscious life exists independently of the individual and waits only for admission4 ,incidentally1 the fact that women have a reasonable expectation of living for twenty-five years after they have ceased to bear children is another proof--if proof be needed--that maternity is not merely a physical function3 women go on living as long as their children need them4 ,lastly1 although their creative work consists in the handling of individuals1 and although they are finely aware of their own individual reactions1 women rarely achieve a conscious individuality4 ,they are so largely unconscious of themselves that they need emotional support for their personalities3 it is their danger that they tend to live in a state of perpetual reference to other people2 and when they express themselves as individuals1 they do so spontaneously and not deliberately4 ,thus women as a body show a timidity which easily relapses into conservatism1 and can only be overcome by urgent necessity4 ,conservatism becomes the spiritual death of women1 as of men3 but in women it springs from a timidity of intellect1 from a weakness in conscious life2 in men from a timidity of emotion1 from a fear of the unconscious4 ,this difference between men and women is illustrated in dress1 for example4 ,as the consciously organised life of men develops1 their clothing expresses less of the emotion1 the temperament1 the spontaneity of unconscious life3 it becomes a uniform1 symbolic of their status as rational members of an organised society4 ,they are sure of themselves and of their traditions1 consequently fashion is a convention which sits as easily upon them as other conventions1 and changes as slowly4 ,it is a reasonable law1 deliberately accepted for the sake of convenience and orderliness4 ,women1 on the other hand1 are not afraid of temperament and colour in dress2 they express in their clothing the spontaneous1 vivid1 and irrational qualities of unconscious life4 ,but because they are unsure of themselves as members of a public body1 they need the assurance of 8being in the fashion0 to give them the necessary confidence for wearing even the most daring creations4 ,fashion among women is thus not a law accepted for convenience2 it is a kind of emotional support1 and it fluctuates as often and as widely as emotions4 ,v ,in this weakness of women's conscious life we have the key to men's domination over them4 ,it is the domination of the more articulate over the less articulate consciousness4 ,man is the intellectual organiser of life4 ,he arranges life in patterns1 or1 as has been already suggested1 translates it into conscious forms1 and he is therefore more interested in the nature of his patterns than in the material out of which he composes them4 ,he begins1 where woman ends1 with the individual human being and individual experiences2 his aim is to lift these into a world of enduring and proved forms4 ,the ,platonic idea1 for example1 is a purely masculine conception4 ,it is possible that man's world of ultimate abstractions is another aspect of the world from which woman works towards the individual1 and that his consciously constructed philosophy1 if it were perfected1 would coincide with the content of her intuitive wisdom4 ,thus a circle would be completed in which woman seeks to express the infinite in terms of the individual life1 while man seeks to express the individual in terms of the infinite4 ,the difference between them remains1 however1 not merely a difference in aim but a difference in equipment4 ,woman is the gateway through which the wisdom of the unconscious comes to be translated by man into conscious form4 ,her wisdom1 derived from unfathomable sources1 must be expended upon life incarnate and narrowed into the practical details of everyday circumstance4 ,her intelligence is fettered1 as it were1 to actual life1 and is best stimulated by concrete situations4 ,man1 on the other hand1 moves away from human life3 his intelligence ranges freely in a world of speculation and can create perfectly abstract universes of knowledge4 ,his work consequently takes visible shape beneath his hand3 it can be tested2 it can be destroyed and shaped again2 it can achieve completion4 ,the work of woman has none of these attributes3 she has no objective proof of success2 in the last resort she must depend upon her subjective valuations4 ,thus the more organised and objective certainties of men impose themselves easily upon women4 ,men can prove their theories even when they are wrong2 women cannot prove their intuitions even when they are right4 ,in his world1 that of organised form1 man dominates woman naturally4 ,but woman should dominate man in her own field1 the creation of free and harmonious individuals2 for the potential progress of humanity may be determined by man1 but its actual progress is determined by woman4 ,in a society which recognises the domination of men and denies that of women1 the creative work of both is hampered4 ,the danger for men lies in that very quality of detachment which gives their work its value4 ,left to themselves they become more and more detached1 substituting for the fluctuations of life a stable and systematic perfection of theory which is rigidly imposed upon individual members of society4 ,religion becomes a creed1 morality a code of law1 government a party machine3 even art1 which is of all their activities the most accessible to the vitality of unconscious life1 is intellectualised and engenders theories of sthetics instead of works of art4 ,human beings become mere pegs on which to hang the theories1 economic units1 and man1 the heir of all the ages1 is in danger of being crushed under the weight of his own machines4 ,the financial machine in our own day is an excellent example of masculine activity pushed to extremes3 it has been successfully detached from human values so that it exists for the production of money and not for the production of goods and services to humanity4 ,the mere individual has ceased to be of any importance1 and even the inventions or discoveries of his intelligence are valued only in terms of money4 ,it is a curious paradox that men who1 as individuals1 are surer of themselves than women1 and who command their conscious energies more freely1 should inevitably create systems to which the individual is subordinated4 ,a system of this kind is not necessarily an evil1 but when it makes no allowance for women's values1 for their sense of the significance of human life and the individual human being1 it moves to its extreme logical conclusion and becomes inhuman4 ,this over-emphasis of masculine activities was conceivably necessary at a point in history when civilisation was in its infancy and the need for organisation was greater than the need for individual freedom4 ,perhaps at such a point the domination of men over women began4 ,but the discrepancy between human and institutional values is now so great that even men feel it acutely2 it has disquieted women for some time and is forcing them into the open4 ,it looks as if during the next few generations the really creative ,new ,woman will emerge1 for conventional morality is no longer so powerful among women1 and they are gradually deserting the blind alleys into which they rushed in their first efforts at self-assertion4 ,it does not follow that women by themselves can save humanity4 ,men must face their own problems1 and women are naturally ill-equipped to create new forms of society4 ,but it is the business of women to create the creators of social forms1 and they cannot escape a certain responsibility for the present tension in our organised life4 ,absolute domination by either sex is no longer necessary2 the modern world needs the creative work of both4 ,woman by herself loses a sense of proportion1 just as man by himself loses touch with reality4 ,man's intellectual conclusions must be checked by woman's intuitive knowledge of the human spirit1 and woman's spontaneous wisdom must be helped by man's intellectual vision4 ,both are creative although they depend upon each other3 there is no room on either side for false pride or humility4 ,,vi ,it is now advisable to consider attentively the statement that creative women need new and independent moral values since conventional morality expresses a man's standpoint rather than a woman's4 ,if the latter part of this statement can be proved1 that conventional morality is necessarily masculine1 then the first part must inevitably be accepted4 ,it has already been postulated that women derive their greatest strength from unconscious life and are concerned with growth4 ,their energies and interests turn spontaneously towards the living human beings upon whom their influence is exerted4 ,this influence1 because it is largely unconscious1 is not rational but emotional2 when it is directed positively towards other people it is best described as love4 ,creative love is the fundamental attribute of womanhood1 as perhaps creative thought is of manhood4 ,its aim is to foster harmony and strength in the individual4 ,woman thus sees humanity as a collection of individuals of whom no two are identical1 growing separately like trees in a common direction1 expressing in visible forms1 each of which is significant1 a common unseen life4 ,if one may use a rough symbolism1 women see humanity in vertical lines1 while men see it in horizontal strata4 ,the perfection of each individual is women's business1 and the combination of individuals into social systems is man's business4 ,these two aspects of life are necessarily continuous and inseparable3 the difference between them here1 as throughout1 is one of emphasis4 ,women emphasise the wholeness of the individual in himself2 men1 the relation of the individual to his neighbours4 ,it follows that women cannot disregard or eliminate anything which manifests itself in the life of the individual4 ,man resembles a tree only by analogy2 he cannot be lopped of his branches2 he can achieve strength and harmony only by carrying everything with him4 ,nothing is accidental or superfluous in his behaviour2 virtues and vices are alike significant4 ,from this point of view whatever prevents the harmony of the complete individual is bad2 but it cannot be cut off1 it must be fused into the whole1 if possible4 ,woman therefore cannot shirk any issue or turn from the investigation of any human impulse1 whatever its nature4 ,she believes in the significance and continuity of all that life which passes into human consciousness1 and to her goodness and badness are relative terms1 depending on the nature of the immediate problem4 ,thus she cannot believe in original sin1 although she recognises mistakes4 ,man1 on the other hand1 believes in the significance of his systems which cut across life horizontally1 and he desires to fit the individual into his patterns4 ,whatever disrupts his patterns is bad and must be cut off4 ,this condition naturally is uniform in its operation1 and therefore badness is a constant quantity1 something definite which can be written down in a code of prohibitions4 ,nonconformity with the law is original sin1 and arouses his indignation4 ,but as there are many systems1 each system has its own code of offences and penalties1 and each casts out its own offenders4 ,the ,church excommunicates them1 the ,state imprisons them1 ,society boycotts them1 professional bodies expel them2 they are dishonoured and ignored1 thrust out of the system whose stability they threaten4 ,we penetrate to the very heart of the difference between men and women when we observe that the outcast1 whose individuality is formally denied by his fellows1 remains none the less an individual to the women who love him4 ,obviously a morality which satisfies the one point of view does not satisfy the other4 ,the morality honoured by men is thus a morality designed to preserve the systems which men create4 ,because it upholds the values of consciously organised life it distrusts the impulses of unconscious life1 which it calls original sin1 or personifies as a devil4 ,less civilised and more impulsive races are easily suspected of being direct agents of the devil1 as are also the adherents of rival or opposing systems4 ,women1 because they are natural supporters of spontaneous action1 are particularly to be distrusted1 and masculine morality1 as we have seen1 imposes a still more stringent code on women than on men4 ,so it happened that ,eve1 a creative woman vindicating the importance of individual moral values and of an individual conscience that should make each man the equal of ,god1 was necessarily abhorrent to an organised theology4 ,so in the ,united ,states it happens that the earnest business man regards negroes and ,socialists as public dangers2 and in exactly the same way in ,scotland the earnest ,calvinist believes that ,roman ,catholics are damned4 ,the follower of a systematic morality has always a black list4 ,each system produces its own code of offences for nonconformity1 and its moral standards are therefore valid only for itself3 they are not necessarily religious or universal4 ,in such a morality the individual is considered only as one who conforms or does not conform to the code required1 never as an individual in himself4 ,further1 because it distrusts the spontaneity of unconscious impulses1 systematic morality believes that all individuals are bad in their hearts1 that they are good only when they are afraid to be bad1 and that penalties for badness must be sufficiently grievous to frighten them4 ,thus systematic morality depends upon fear of punishment4 ,the kind of punishment imposed has only an arbitrary relation to the nature of the offence committed1 and no relation at all to the psychological problems in which the offender is involved3 it is designed merely to make him suffer1 and1 if he persists in offending1 to remove him4 ,the public school imposes its two hundred or its four hundred 8lines0 or so many strokes with the birch1 or resorts to expulsion2 the ,state fines varying sums1 or imprisons for varying periods1 or resorts to capital punishment2 the business firm reprimands1 or fines1 or resorts to dismissal4 ,in each case the system and the code which supports it are more important than the life of the individual4 ,morality of this kind1 when it is perfectly developed1 is quite impersonal2 its abstract impersonality is revered by men as an ideal1 which they call ,justice4 ,this systematic morality with its impersonal judgments1 its definite codes1 its uniformly graded punishments1 and its unquestioning repudiation of the offender is a logical pendant to the systems which men create4 ,it is precisely what is usually called conventional morality1 and it is essentially masculine in its attitude to the individual4 ,women1 if they are to create free and harmonious individuals1 cannot sacrifice an individual to a code2 they cannot agree that goodness is only the fear of punishment2 they cannot believe in the efficacy of external punishment1 and they cannot permit the offender to be cut off4 ,to the creative woman an offender is a question which she must try to answer4 ,her morality must be psychological rather than punitive1 personal rather than impersonal1 and fundamentally religious4 ,it is clear that many actions which systematic morality considers bad must appear good to the creative woman1 and inversely what she considers good must often be condemned by systematic morality4 ,women must therefore create their own independent moral values4 ,it may be objected that if each woman creates her own morality the result will be confusion4 ,this objection1 however1 arises out of a misapprehension4 ,it is not the business of women to condemn or to punish1 or to exact conformity with any definite code of conduct3 it is their business to understand the processes at work in the human soul and to help each individual to the fullest and most harmonious expression of his powers4 ,there will always be enough men in the world to secure the existence of systematic morality2 any confusion produced by the action of women will be only the rich confusion of life itself4 ,besides1 creative love is not mere sympathy or even affection2 if women cannot sacrifice an individual to a code they are equally unable to sacrifice their intuitions about the human race to an individual4 ,creative love demands a high discipline from those who would exercise it4 ,,vii ,the first condition that is required from women is that they shall know themselves4 ,a woman who is ignorant of her own weaknesses cannot help others1 for she is incapable of correcting distortions caused by her own fear or anger4 ,the conventional woman hangs conventional ideas between herself and her own nature1 thus negating her deepest instincts4 ,she despises and represses part of her own humanity2 consequently she has a repressive instead of a fostering effect on other people4 ,women must therefore be frankly sincere with themselves if they are to be creative1 and must make allowances for their own faults in dealing with others4 ,one can only mete out to others the measure one has already meted to oneself4 ,but though the instrument is imperfect the possibilities are great4 ,the second condition for the exercise of creative love is a boundless faith in the capacity of the human soul for growth4 ,this is where women cannot let the doctrine of original sin stand between them and the individuals with whom they have to deal4 ,the gospel for women is contained in the words1 8the kingdom of ,heaven is within you10 qualified by the knowledge that ,heaven is not a static condition of bliss but a vital harmony of body and spirit4 ,such a belief demands the fullest scientific knowledge of what promotes or hinders health of body and of mind2 and it is the business of the creative woman to get all the information she can4 ,religion and morality for women thus resolve themselves into a belief that human life is significant1 serving a destiny greater than itself1 and the interpretation of that belief into terms of conduct4 ,because each individual is a unique problem the details of this conduct can never be codified2 therefore the morality of women is ultimately spontaneous and individual1 depending for guidance upon their creative energies1 expressed through love4 ,the whole world needs creative women1 and seems to be unaware of its need4 ,women themselves do not know how necessary they are4 ,the result is that many waste themselves in trying to be men1 and many are content to justify their existence by simple drudgery4 ,there still remain many who feel that a woman should be more to her husband than the keeper of his house1 and some of these reserve themselves for men with obvious disabilities1 because they think that the average man has no real need of them4 ,but1 although the desire is unformulated1 nearly all women desire to have a creative influence on their husbands4 ,if it were not so1 the 8best-sellers0 which circulate among women would not resemble each other so strikingly in one respect3 the hero is always at odds with the world and is rescued from a gloomy fate by the great love of the heroine4 ,if he is a reputed villain so much the better2 the field of action for the heroine is all the clearer4 ,only a courageous woman looking for really difficult work would marry an ordinary man instead of a villain with a heart of gold4 ,women's creative work is implicitly recognised in many beliefs and customs4 ,the difference between the morality of men and women1 for example1 is finely illustrated among the ,syrian ,arabs1 where a prisoner on his way to execution is absolved from his sentence if he can lay hold of a woman's skirts4 ,it is felt1 though not understood1 by those men of our own country who complain that women have no sense of justice4 ,it is exploited by commercial firms who establish women welfare workers to humanise their business systems1 within limits4 ,and the tradition that woman's place is the home is possibly not entirely determined by the subordinate position of women1 but may arise from a sound intuition about the nature of women and their functions4 ,the home is a strategic centre for the creation of human beings4 ,moreover1 a home does not imply a husband3 marriage is a desirable but not a necessary condition for women's creative work4 ,nor is it bounded by the four walls of a house2 whatever affects the people within the home is a woman's proper business4 ,,viii ,this raises the question of public life for women4 ,there is certainly room for creative womanhood in the public life of the ,state4 ,the modern ,state is a highly organised system of government resting upon other systems1 such as those of finance1 law1 and industry2 but these complicated organisations ramify downwards until they touch the lives of all the individuals who compose the nation4 ,the point at which they do so is a fitting point for the public activities of women4 ,women have already begun to mediate between the system of law and the individuals upon whom punishment by imprisonment is imposed2 they have called attention to the impossibility of reforming offenders in a prison which ignores individuality and the psychology of the individual4 ,it is true that such mediation is at present usually subject to the veto of the controlling system1 and is therefore limited2 a disability which is likely to hamper women until the value of women's work is recognised as equal to that of men4 ,but the obscure dissatisfactions of our time1 caused by the discrepancy between institutional and human values are1 on the one hand1 compelling women to penetrate into public life1 and1 on the other hand1 threatening the stability of all institutions4 ,if women are true to themselves their full co-operation with men is inevitable4 ,this means that women must carry their womanhood with them into all occupations1 otherwise the advantage of their entry into public affairs will be entirely lost4 ,besides1 a woman who tries to do a man's work in a man's way pays too high a price for the effort4 ,a man can be formal and abstract without losing his human qualities or ceasing to be creative1 since his energies are distributed in that way1 but a woman cannot4 ,she must expend more energy than he does to achieve the same formal outlook2 she must abandon the creative love for the individual which is essential for womanhood2 and1 because she has killed herself spiritually1 a formal woman is twice as formal as any man1 and her work is necessarily barren4 ,most women are instinctively aware of this danger and protect themselves from the hardening of traditional routine by simple indifference to their work and an escape into marriage as soon as possible4 ,but this is merely an evasion of the problem which women must solve in the next generation or two1 the problem of leavening the organised systems of society with human values so that mechanical routine is reduced to a minimum4 ,meanwhile1 women are obviously in their proper place in any occupation which deals directly with human beings4 ,,ix ,the differences that have been indicated between the sexes in this essay do not form a hard-and-fast dividing line4 ,men are not all intellect and consciousness1 nor are women all intuition and unconsciousness4 ,it would be juster to say that some men are more intellectual than any woman1 and some women more intuitive than any man3 but even this statement does not adequately cover the case4 ,the different determination of energy which hinders women from supreme intellectual detachment1 and men from supreme human understanding1 is subtly operative between these two extremes throughout the intervening space where men and women have a common field of action4 ,it should therefore be traceable in their respective contributions to art4 ,it is perhaps unwise though interesting to attempt the drawing of distinctions between men's art and women's3 so much depends upon one's idea of the nature of art4 ,but it may be possible without becoming entangled in controversy to suggest tentatively some differences1 and it seems worth while to see how far the argument will carry us4 ,from the point of view of this inquiry a work of art ranks as a supremely conscious creation4 ,it has perfection of form and it is permanent3 ars longa1 vita brevis4 ,but it is also directly and vitally connected with the forces of unconscious life2 it depends upon1 or rather it is characterised by an intensity of emotion which it transmits as if by magic to other people than its creator4 ,its form can be judged dispassionately1 but not its content4 ,it is detached from human life1 and is at the same time a revelation of it in a way which is more immediate and more moving than a mere explanation4 ,thus1 although it is as deliberate a product of conscious processes as a mathematical theory or a philosophical idea1 or an economic system1 it is more intimately linked to unconscious life than any of these2 it is perhaps closer to unconscious life than any other kind of conscious creation4 ,for this reason1 because it belongs to both worlds1 the esteem in which it is held varies according to the values of the people among whom it is practised4 ,and in certain cases the place assigned to art seems to confirm the general theory of this essay1 that women create unconscious more than conscious life1 and that men associate the values of unconscious life with women4 ,for in communities which are too rigidly organised1 because entirely devoted to some system1 and which therefore distrust the personal values of unconscious life1 communities such as those of the business men here or in the ,united ,states1 art is distrusted1 the artist is considered to be effeminate1 and the appreciation and culture of art are left half contemptuously1 half respectfully to the women4 ,on the other hand1 in communities where the framework of conscious life has not hardened and unconscious values are not depreciated1 the formal perfection of art arouses men's admiration1 and the artist is looked upon as the best type of manhood4 ,the artist must thus possess both masculine and feminine qualities2 that is to say1 he has immediate access to the intuitions of unconscious life1 as a woman has1 and he creates conscious form1 as a man does4 ,it has been already admitted that the difference between men and women is only a relative difference1 that men have unconscious and women conscious powers2 the fact that art belongs to both worlds therefore allows both men and women to be artists1 while at the same time it makes more difficult than ever the attempt to draw a distinction between men's art and women's4 ,there are1 however1 one or two possibilities which suggest themselves4 ,in the first place1 if the energy of women is more absorbed by unconscious life than that of men1 it can play less freely in the world of conscious form and is therefore less able to achieve that perfect fusion of form and content on a grand scale which is supreme art4 ,certainly the greatest artists of historical times have been men1 and there is no reason to think that the domination of men is even partly responsible for the lack of great women artists4 ,but if women are handicapped in those arts1 such as literature1 painting1 and the composition of music1 where the finished product takes a permanent form detached from the human personality of the artist1 they should have an advantage in arts like dancing1 singing1 and acting1 where the actual personality is the medium of expression4 ,and as a matter of fact in arts of this kind women have attained supreme rank4 ,it seems permissible to say that the nearer they are to concrete human life1 the more freely and naturally they can create4 ,again1 it may be suggested that the tendency to elaborate form at the expense of content is a danger to which men are more susceptible in art than women4 ,women's greater vitality and comparative weakness in conscious life expose them rather to the opposite fault1 a failure to achieve a strictness of form perfectly adequate to the intensity of the emotion expressed4 ,this weakness would be more likely to occur in the rendering of a sustained than of a transient emotion or mood2 consequently one would expect perfection of form from women artists in works of small compass and natural spontaneity1 such as lyric poems1 rather than in an epic or a long descriptive poem4 ,the more elastic the form1 the more shapeless it is1 the more women are able to use it for sustained work4 ,in literature1 at least1 this seems to be true4 ,the loose bulk of the novel makes it attractive to women as a medium of expression2 and any long works of the first rank written by women are to be found in this form4 ,further1 since it is women's business to create individuals rather than systems of society1 one would expect the art of women to be concerned largely with actual individual experience and concrete situations4 ,in one sense1 of course1 all art must do this2 but individual experience can be transmuted into symbols and so generalised1 or projected into future worlds1 and that is precisely what women are unlikely to do4 ,no woman has ever written a great myth or a ,utopia4 ,finally1 if women are essentially creators of human life1 we may surmise that they are more interested in the relation of art to life than in art for art's sake4 ,but this supposition must be made with many qualifications4 ,it is not suggested that in the act of creating or appreciating a work of art women pause to ask1 8,of what use is this to life80 ,if the emotion that they experience is authentic and vivid they will accept its significance simply1 as they accept the significance of any vivid experience4 ,but it is suggested that if they reflect upon art at all1 this is precisely the question1 formulated or not1 which will decide their attitude to it4 ,in estimating a work of art women are more likely to be influenced by its content than by its form1 and they are capable of drawing practical conclusions from it which would hardly occur to men4 ,among the different kinds of art1 those which express themselves in a medium closely related to the normal activities of daily life seem to be the most favourable for women4 ,there are more great women artists in literature than in sculpture or painting1 and more in these than in music4 ,literature is expressed through language1 which is a medium in constant use between individuals2 a paint brush in our civilisation is a less usual means of expression1 and the making of music still less usual4 ,one might also hazard a guess that in literature the vocabulary of women contains fewer unusual words than that of men4 ,for the difference between spoken and written language is roughly analogous to the difference between women and men2 a correspondence which may influence the style of women both as speakers and writers and their preferences as readers4 ,x ,it may be affirmed1 then1 that women are more directly linked to concrete life than men1 and that they naturally incline to utilitarian standards in judging the importance of things4 ,men create ideas1 and women make use of them3 women create human beings1 and men make use of them3 both men and women seize what they need for the service of their own purposes4 ,is this difference discernible in the intellectual work of educated women1 in the subjects they deliberately choose for research1 and in the contributions they make to knowledge8 ,this question1 and many others1 remain to be answered2 and1 with them1 the fundamental question whether the education of women1 and especially their 8higher education10 is planned to secure the development of an enlightened womanhood1 as distinct from manhood4 ,the present inquiry pretends to be nothing more than a stimulus to the further investigation of essential differences between men and women2 but it is clear that if there is any truth in our conclusions1 an honest re-statement of women's aims is necessary4 ,the conception of womanhood which has been adumbrated here1 if it is accepted1 demands so many adjustments in the attitude of women towards themselves1 towards morality1 religion1 sex1 and education that it is impossible within the limits of this essay to give even a hint of them4 ,,printed ,,in ,,great ,,britain ,,by ,,neill ,,and ,,co41 ,,ltd41 ,,edinburgh4 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #a3 ,the ,dominant ,sex1 by ,mathilde and ,mathias ,vaerting4 ,translated by ,eden and ,cedar ,paul4 7,geo4 ,allen ,unwin47 ,,transcriber',s ,,notes ,simple typographical errors have been silently corrected4