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our androcentric culture-第7章

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race type; and her function is to select among these varying males the
specimens most valuable to the race。  In the intense masculine
competition the victor must necessarily be stronger than his fellows; he
is first proven equal to his environment by having lived to grow up;
then more than equal to his fellows by overcoming them。  This higher
grade of selection also develops not only the characteristics necessary
to make a living; but secondary ones; often of a purely aesthetic
nature; which make much of what we call beauty。  Between the two; all
who live must be up to a certain grade; and those who become parents
must be above it; a masterly arrangement surely!

Here is where; during the period of our human history; we in our newborn
consciousness and imperfect knowledge; have grieviously interfered with
the laws of nature。  The ancient proprietary family; treating the woman
as a slave; keeping her a prisoner and subject to the will of her
master; cut her off at once from the exercise of those activities which
alone develop and maintain the race type。

Take the one simple quality of speed。  We are a creature built for
speed; a free swift graceful animal; and among savages this is still
seenthe capacity for running; mile after mile; hour after hour。 
Running is as natural a gait for _genus homo_ as for _genus cervus。_ 
Now suppose among deer; the doe was prohibited from running; the stag
continuing free on the mountain; the doe living in caves and pens;
unequal to any exercise。  The effect on the species would be;
inevitably; to reduce its speed。

In this way; by keeping women to one small range of duties; and in most
cases housebound; we have interfered with natural selection and its
resultant health and beauty。  It can easily be seen what the effect on
the race would have been if all men had been veiled and swathed; hidden
in harems; kept to the tent or house; and confined to the activities of
a house…servant。  Our stalwart laborers; our proud soldiers; our
athletes; would never have appeared under such circumstances。  The
confinement to the house alone; cutting women off from sunshine and air;
is by itself an injury; and the range of occupation allowed them is not
such as to develop a high standard of either health or beauty。  Thus we
have cut off half the race from the strengthening influence of natural
selection; and so lowered our race…standards in large degree。

This alone; however; would not have hid such mischievous effects but for
our further blunder in completely reversing nature's order of sexual
selection。  It is quite possible that even under confinement and
restriction women could have kept up the race level; passably; through
this great function of selection; but here is the great fundamental
error of the Androcentric Culture。  Assuming to be the possessor of
women; their owner and master; able at will to give; buy and sell; or do
with as he pleases; man became the selector。

It seems a simple change; and in those early days; wholly ignorant of
natural laws; there was no suspicion that any mischief would result。  In
the light of modern knowledge; however; the case is clear。  The woman
was deprived of the beneficent action of natural selection; and the man
was then; by his own act; freed from the stern but elevating effect of
sexual selection。  Nothing was required of the woman by natural
selection save such capacity as should please her master; nothing was
required of the man by sexual selection save power to take by force; or
buy; a woman。

It does not take a very high standard of feminine intelligence;
strength; skill; health; or beauty to be a houseservant; or even a
housekeeper; witness the average。

It does not take a very high standard of masculine; intelligence;
strength; skill; health or beauty to maintain a woman in that
capacitywitness average。

Here at the very root of our physiological process; at the beginning of
life; we have perverted the order of nature; and are suffering the
consequences。

It has been held by some that man as the selector has developed beauty;
more beauty than we had before; and we point to the charms of our women
as compared with those of the squaw。  The answer to this is that the
squaw belongs to a decadent race; that she too is subject to the man;
that the comparison to have weight should be made between our women and
the women of the matriarchatean obvious impossibility。  We have not on
earth women in a state of normal freedom and full development; but we
have enough difference in their placing to learn that human strength and
beauty grows with woman's freedom and activity。

The second answer is that much of what man calls beauty in woman is not
human beauty at all; but gross overdevelopment of certain points which
appeal to him as a male。  The excessive fatness; previously referred to;
is a case in point; that being considered beauty in a woman which is in
reality an element of weakness; inefficiency and ill…health。  The
relatively small size of women; deliberately preferred; steadfastly
chosen; and so built into the race; is a blow at real human progress in
every particular。  In our upward journey we should and do grow larger;
leaving far behind us our dwarfish progenitors。  Yet the male; in his
unnatural position as selector; preferring for reasons both practical
and sentimental; to have 〃his woman〃 smaller than himself; has
deliberately striven to lower the standard of size in the race。  We used
to read in the novels of the last generation; 〃He was a magnificent
specimen of manhood〃〃Her golden head reached scarcely to his
shoulder〃〃She was a fairy creaturethe tiniest of her sex。〃  Thus we
have mated; and yet expected that by some hocus pocus the boys would all
〃take after their father;〃 and the girls; their mother。  In his efforts
to improve the breed of other animals; man has never tried to
deliberately cross the large and small and expect to keep up the
standard of size。

As a male he is appealed to by the ultra…feminine; and has given small
thought to effects on the race。  He was not designed to do the
selecting。  Under his fostering care we have bred a race of women who
are physically weak enough to be handed about like invalids; or mentally
weak enough to pretend they areand to like it。  We have made women who
respond so perfectly to the force which made them; that they attach all
their idea of beauty to those characteristics which attract men;
sometimes humanly ugly without even knowing it。

For instance; our long restriction to house…limits; the heavy
limitations of our clothing; and the heavier ones of traditional
decorum; have made women disproportionately short…legged。  This is a
particularly undignified and injurious characteristic; bred in women and
inherited by men; most seen among those races which keep their women
most closely。  Yet when one woman escapes the tendency and appears with
a normal length of femur and tibia; a normal height of hip and shoulder;
she is criticized and called awkward by her squatty sisters!

The most convenient proof of the inferiority of women in human beauty is
shown by those composite statues prepared by Mr。 Sar
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