Male & Female

The feminist generation between World Wars I and II emphasized the similarities between men & women. Anthropologists are now swinging to the view that those similarities were somewhat exaggerated.

This week a scientific journalist set out to bring the whole subject up to date in Women and Men (Harcourt, Brace; $3.50).

Amram Scheinfeld spent five years studying and assembling what modern scientists have discovered about sex. Some of their findings upset established notions: e.g., that women are more likely to be hysterical than men; during the bombing of London there were 70% more shock cases among civilian men than women. Another myth: that primitive women bear children as easily as animals do; actually they take as long to recuperate as civilized mothers.

The Stronger Sex. Man's inability to understand women, says Scheinfeld, is largely biological. The more scientists study the question, the more fundamental differences they find between men & women. Girl babies are generally born five to nine days sooner than boys; they teethe and talk earlier; their bones harden sooner; they have fewer red corpuscles and a faster pulse; they are more emotional (more active thyroid glands); they mature more rapidly. A girl sleeps more than a boy, needs less food, has a lower metabolism rate, is warmer in winter (because of better insulation) and cooler in summer.

Woman is also the stronger sex. Though her muscular strength is only half that of a man, she is a much more efficient organism for survival. Her hormones protect her better against illness and shocks. Boys are more likely to inherit physical defects; a third more of them are blind; eight times as many are colorblind; hemophilia is exclusively a male disease. Although women have a 20% higher illness rate in almost every disease, men have a much higher death rate (an exception: 40% more women die during the course of dementia praecox).

Boys have a 25% higher prenatal and infant death rate, a five-year shorter life expectancy. And although more boys than girls are conceived, fewer boys grow to maturity. Result: the U.S. is approaching the European condition of a large surplus of females over males--in 1930 there were 1,125,000 more white men than women in the U.S.; today there are 331,000 more women. Among Negroes, the "relative surplus of women is even larger.

The Domineering Sex. Though more vulnerable, the male surpasses the female in every test of physical capacity except those requiring fine, coordinated movements (e.g., sewing, buttoning, dressing, etc.). No woman has ever equaled men's records in any athletic activity. Even in horse racing, stallions are faster: only one mare has won the Derby (Regret, 1915)--and she had a big weight advantage.

Scheinfeld observes that no overall comparison of male & female intelligence can be made. Women average higher in languages, esthetic skills (such as matching colors) and social accomplishments. But men show up better in tests for reasoning, ingenuity, comprehension, abstract thinking, mathematics, science. Scheinfeld thinks that male domination is not entirely responsible for the fact that no woman has ever produced a great invention, composed a great piece of music, or ranked with the great artists and writers. Says he: Women must always be handicapped in competition with men by the physical facts of life (childbearing, menstruation, etc.) and the necessity of making themselves attractive. He observes that even Soviet Russia, after conducting the greatest equal rights experiment in history, has dropped coeducation, stresses motherhood, abounds in beauty parlors.

Scheinfeld suggests that women can be most successful at home--or anywhere else--by making the most of their special gifts of "sympathy, kindness and human warmth." Scheinfeld is inclined to agree with the French deputy who, during a debate on the sexes, jumped to his feet and cried enthusiastically: "Vive la difference!"

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