284 TEE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY
concluBions^ usually prefacing their remarks merely with the convenient phrase, " It is very well known.^' It is certain, at all events, that they did not arrive at their conclusions by introspection; and it scarcely seems likely that much trustworthy information will be accessible on this subject till women have prosecuted their own researches into it. As in the case of variability, the most recent and thorough study, in fact the only precise study, made as to the effects of school work on the periodic function fails utterly to confirm theory. A. E. Arnold," who made the study, announces as his conclusion, after closely following up the records of over 1,000 women over eighteen years of age during two years of college work, that all effects thus far observed have been in the direction of improvement.'*
It is amusing to note how every sex difference that has been dis- covered or alleged has been interpreted to show the superiority of males. When students of institutional statistics discovered that there are more males among inmates of idiot asylums, and supposed this to mean that there must be more males than females among the feeble-minded, this apparently unfavorable fact was at once interpreted as confirmatory evi- dence of greater male variability; and as such it became immediately favorable to the theory of male superiority. Had it been found that there were more females among inmates of idiot asylums, how easily it could have been used as evidence of the general inferior quality of female mind.
Conclusion. — ^We may now sum up the argument as follows: The restrictions of woman's sphere on the groimd that certain occupations are not natural for woman because they are not customary feminine oc- cupations in modern civilization, rests on sheer ignorance of history and ethnology, which reveal a very considerable range of activity under vary- ing social conditions. Anatomically, it may definitely be stated that both sexes occupy the same level. A comparison of male and female brains fails to establish the superiority of either sex. With the removal of folk- psychological prejudices, and with the advance of psychological ex- periment, a corresponding conclusion is gaining ground as to the aver- age mental equipment. And while the scarcity of female geniuses, and corresponding infrequency of epoch-making achievement, has been at- tributed to greater male variability, a sex difference in variability has never been scientifically demonstrated. Finally, the hackneyed ob- jection, that women are unable to perform work with male efSciency because of their catamenial function, appears as pure dogma. The verdict of present-day science is thus an uncompromisingly negative one: no rational grounds have yet been established that should lead to artificial limitation of woman's activity on the ground of inferior efiSciency.
10 "The Effects of School Work on Menstruation, Amer, Phys. Bd, Bev., 1914.
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