MAN AND WOMAN AS CREATORS
MAN AND WOMAN AS CREATORS
BY ALEXANDER GOLDENWEISER
“A hen is no bird, a woman—no human,†says a Russian proverb. In this drastic formulation stands written the history of centuries. Woman’s claim to “humanâ€ness was at times accepted with reservations, at other times it was boldly challenged and even to-day when woman’s legal, social, economic and political disabilities have been largely removed, woman’s acceptance in society as man’s equal remains dependent on a definition of the “equal.â€
As in the case of the mental capacity of races, the question of woman’s intellectual status was never judged on its merits. Rather, it was accepted as a practical social postulate, then rationalized into the likeness of an inductive conclusion. The problem seems so replete with temptations for special pleading that a thoroughly impartial attitude becomes well-nigh impossible. However, let us attempt it!
Is woman psychologically identical with man? or, if there is a difference, is it one of superiority and inferiority? And of what practical significance is this issue to society?
Two ways of approach are open: subject men and women to psychological tests, or observe performance in life and, exercising due critical care, infer capacity.
Both methods have been tried. The first enjoys to-day a certain vogue: it is the method of science, of experimental psychology. Unfortunately, the findings of science in this field have to date resulted in precisely nothing. It was feasible to assume that woman was man’s equal in elementary sensory capacity, in memory, types and varieties of associations, attention, sensitiveness to pain, heat and cold, etc. Experimental psychology has confirmed these assumptions. But what of it? What can we make of it? Precisely nothing. What we are interested in is whether woman can think “as logically†as man, whether she is more intuitive, more emotional, less imaginative, more practical, less honest, more sensitive, a better judge of human nature. These, among many other interesting issues cannoteven be broached by experimental psychology “within the present state of our knowledge.â€
Remains the second method, to observe performance and infer capacity.
To examine in this fashion all the issues involved would require a small library. I select only one, creativeness. Is woman man’s equal in creativeness? The choice is justified by the highly controversial character of the issue as well as its practical bearings.
Two periods in the history of civilization lend themselves admirably for our purpose, the primitive and the modern.
The primitive world was not innocent of discrimination against woman. In social and political leadership, in the ownership and disposition of property, in religion and ceremonialism, woman was subjected to more or less drastic restrictions. It would, therefore, be obviously unfair to expect her creativeness in these fields to have equaled or even approximated that of man. Not so in industry and art, where division of labor prevailed, but no sex disability. As one surveys the technical and artistic pursuits of primitive tribes, woman’s participation is everywherein evidence. The baskets of California, the painted pots of the Pueblos, the beaded embroideries of the Plains, the famous Chilkat blankets, the tapa cloth of Polynesia, all of these were woman’s handiwork. Almost everywhere she plans and cuts and sews and decorates the garments worn by women as well as men. Also, in all primitive communities she gathers the wild products of vegetation and transforms them into palatable foods. More than this, in societies that know not the plow woman is, with few exceptions, the agriculturist. It follows that the observations, skills, techniques and inventions involved in these pursuits must also be credited to woman.
It will be conceded that in primitive society woman’s record is impressive: wherever she is permitted to apply her creativeness she makes good, and the excellence of her achievement is equal to that of man, certainly not conspicuously inferior to his.
In evaluating these findings, however, it is important to take cognizance of the submergence of individual initiative by the tribal pattern, a feature characteristic of primitive life. Thisapplies to men and women, to artisans and artists. Imaginative flights being cut short by traditional norms, the individualism and subjectivism of modern art are here conspicuous by their absence.
How does this record compare with a survey of the modern period?
Here again woman’s disabilities in the social, political and religious realms were so marked that creative participation was impossible. The same is true of architecture. Then come philosophy, mathematics, science, and sculpture, painting, literature, music and the drama. In philosophy and mathematics there is no woman in the ranks of supreme excellence. Even Sonya Kovalevsky, though a talent, was not a great mathematician. In science also, where women have done fine things, none are found among the brightest luminaries. It must be added, moreover, that the few women who have made their mark in the scientific field, notably Mme. Curie, have done so in the laboratory, not in the more abstract and imaginative domain of theoretical science.
At this point some may protest that the periodduring which women have had a chance to test their talents in philosophy, mathematics and science was too short, their number too small, and that here once more performance cannot fairly be used as a measure of possible achievement. We must heed this protest.
As to sculpture, painting, literature, music and the drama, I claim that woman’s protracted disabilities cannot in any way be held accountable for whatever her performance may be found to be. Women artists, musicians, writers and, of course, actresses, have been with us for a long time. Their number is large and on the increase. Whether married or single, they devote their energies to these pursuits quite unhampered by social taboos. There are in this field no taboos against women. In the United States, in fact, these occupations are held to be more suitable for women than for men.
But what do we find?
In painting and sculpture, no women among the best, although considerable numbers among the second best and below. There is no woman Rodin or Meunier or Klinger or Renoir or Picasso.
In literature the case for woman stands better. Here women have performed wonderfully, both in poetry and prose. If they have fallen short, it is only of supreme achievement.[2]
Finally we come to music and the stage. The case of music is admirably suited for our purpose, is really a perfect test case. What do we find? As performers, where minor creativeness suffices, women have equaled the best among men. As composers, where creativeness of the highest order is essential, they have failed. We have a Carreño or Novaes to match a Hofmann or Levitski, a Melba or Sembrich to match aCaruso or deReszke, a Morini or Powell or Parlow to match a Heifetz or Elman or Kreisler; but there is no woman to match a Beethoven or Wagner or Strauss or Mahler or Stravinsky, or Rachmaninoff—a composer-performer.
The situation in drama is almost equally illuminating. Here women have reached the top, have done it so frequently and persistently, in fact, as to challenge men, some think successfully so. But as dramatic writers the few women who tried have never succeeded to rise above moderate excellence. A Rachel or Duse can hold her own as against a Possart or Orlenyev, a Bernhardt looms as high as an Irving, Booth or Salvini; but there is no woman to compare with a Molière or Ostrovski or Rostand or Hauptmann or Chekhov or Kapek.
If now we glance once more at the primitive record the conclusion suggested by an analysis of music and the drama is greatly reënforced. In primitive society woman, whenever opportunity was given her, equaled man in creativeness; in modern society she has uniformly failed in the highest ranges. The results are not incompatible. As indicated before, in early days culturalconditions precluded the exercise of creativeness on the part of the individual except on a minor scale, in modern society major creativeness is possible and has been realized. Woman’s creative achievement reaches the top when the top is relatively low; when the top itself rises, she falls behind.
To analyze this fact further is no easy task. We may not assume, as some do, that the difference between major and minor creativeness lies in degrees of rationality. This is certainly erroneous. The true creator is what he is, not because of his rationality but because of what he does with it. The differentia, as I see them, are two: boldness of imagination and tremendous concentration on self. The creator, when he creates, is spiritually alone; he dominates his material by drawing it into the self and he permits his imagination, for once torn off the moorings of tradition and precedent, to indulge in flights of gigantic sweep. Imagination and personality exalted to thenth power—not rationality—are the marks of the highest creativeness.
In the possession of these traits, then, as here understood, woman is somehow restricted. Shehas them, of course, and exercises them, but not on the very highest level.
We might stop right here, but it is hard to suppress at least a tentative interpretation.
If the personality-imagination complex is where woman fails at the top, then it becomesa prioriprobable that this difference between man and woman constitutes a remote sex characteristic. And if this is so, then it may prove worth our while to look for a corresponding difference on a level more directly connected with sex life. No sooner is this done than a difference does indeed appear, and it meets our expectations, for it lies in the direction of personality or self-concentration as well as of imagination. Woman is never so much “a part of†as when she loves, man never so “wholeâ€; her self dissolves, his crystallizes. Also, woman’s love is less imaginative than man’s: man is more like what woman’s love makes him out to be than woman is like what man’s love makes her out to be. Relatively speaking, his love is romantic, hers realistic.
This difference in the diagnostic features of man’s love and woman’s love confirms our suspicion that the discrepancy in performance,where the personality-imagination complex is involved, constitutes a remote sex characteristic.
We must now turn once more to woman’s achievement in the different fields of cultural creativeness, for the variation in the degree of excellence reached by her provides a valuable clue as to where her strength lies. In an ascending series of woman’s achievements musical composition is at the bottom of the list, then come sculpture and painting, then literature (with a strange drop in dramatic writing), then instrumental and vocal performance; acting, finally, heads the list.
This order is most illuminating. The relative excellence of woman’s achievement is seen to rise with the concreteness of the task and the prominence of the technical and human elements. Creativeness is more abstract in music than in the plastic and graphic arts, more abstract in these than in literature; and in each case woman’s relative achievement increases as abstractness decreases. Even the peculiar drop in dramatic writing when compared with other forms of literature is explicable in terms of a more abstract sort of creativeness required by the formalelements of dramatic art. Again, the high position in the list of musical performers and actresses, must in part be ascribed to the importance of the technical element in these arts. The preeminence of the musical performers is probably entirely due to this factor, although the intrusion of the human element (performing for an audience) may also have a share in the result.
In the case of acting the human element is the most important factor, for here there is not only an audience to act to but the human content of the acting itself. The human orientation also accounts for the relatively high position of literature in the list when compared to sculpture and painting and to musical composition. Finally, the creativeness of musical performance and acting—two fields in which woman excels—is concrete when compared to that of literature, the arts and musical composition. Incidentally, a sidelight is thus thrown on the case of science where woman’s relative preeminence is found in the concrete and technical domain of the laboratory.
The preceding analysis leads to the conclusion that woman’s strength lies in the concrete ascontrasted with the abstract, the technical as contrasted with the ideational, the human as contrasted with the universal and detached. This conclusion, it may be of interest to note, harmonizes perfectly with the general consensus of mankind, as expressed in lay opinion and the judgments of literary men.
To summarize: in all fields of cultural activity opened to her, woman has shown creative ability, but since cultural conditions have made major creativeness possible, she has failed, in comparison with man, in the highest ranges of abstract creativeness. On the other hand, woman has shown in her psychic disposition affinities for the concrete, the technical and the human.
Before closing, these findings may be utilized for a prognostication of woman’s activities in the immediate and more remote future.
The present tendency toward equalizing the cultural opportunities of man and woman will no doubt persist. Thus the range of woman’s cultural contributions will expand and the excellence of her creative achievement will rise, especially in the fields in which she has so far had but little chance to try her hand. It is to beexpected, however, that in the highest ranges of abstract creativeness in philosophy, science, art, music, and perhaps literature, she will fail as she has hitherto failed to equal man. Her concrete-mindedness will ever continue to provide a useful counterpoise to the more imaginative and abstract leanings of her male companion. Her technical talents will shine more brilliantly in a world in which the crafts will again occupy the prominent place which was theirs once before. But her unique contributions will come in the range of the human element.
In this respect, woman’s principal affinity is calculated to bear its choicest fruits in a world better than the one we live in. When formalism recedes from the field of education, as indeed it has already begun to do, and gives room for more individual and psychologically refined processes, woman’s share in education will grow in scope and creativeness. When the family has left behind the agonies of its present readjustments, the reconstruction of a freer and happier family life will largely rest on the shoulders of woman. When prisons will be turned into hospitals and criminals will be treated as patients, woman’ssensitiveness, insight and tact will bring her leadership in this field. When a return of leisure and the reduction of economic pressure will permit a revival of the more intimate forms of social intercourse, woman’s social talents will find new fields to conquer. When the world of nations will sheathe its sword forever—an event toward the realization of which woman will probably contribute more than man—woman, to whom nothing human is foreign, will at last be free to show the world what she can accomplish as the mother of the family of man.
FOOTNOTES:[2]We need not mention a Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes or Milton. Perhaps these are too far back. Not so Tolstoi, Dostoyevski, Turgenev, Goethe, Heine, Balzac, Maupassant, the Goncourts, Flaubert, Byron, Browning, Shelley, Emerson, Walt Whitman. Where are their equals among women? And coming down to the modern period, when literature is flooded with feminine figures, is there one who can be placed beside Anatole France or d’Annunzio or Proust or Gorki or even Bernard Shaw (not to mention Ibsen)? The feminine names that might be cited in comparison are obvious enough, but would any of them measure up to these—quite? However, let me mention Katherine Mansfield, Edith Wharton, EdnaSt.Vincent Millay. And I may add Sheila Kaye-Smith, Willa Cather, Selma Lagerlöf and Marguérite Audou.I realize, of course, that such comparisons, except in a most sweeping statement, are invidious. A better picture could be obtained by juxtaposing, one to one, writers of similar type and literary form—but this is a task for a volume.
[2]We need not mention a Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes or Milton. Perhaps these are too far back. Not so Tolstoi, Dostoyevski, Turgenev, Goethe, Heine, Balzac, Maupassant, the Goncourts, Flaubert, Byron, Browning, Shelley, Emerson, Walt Whitman. Where are their equals among women? And coming down to the modern period, when literature is flooded with feminine figures, is there one who can be placed beside Anatole France or d’Annunzio or Proust or Gorki or even Bernard Shaw (not to mention Ibsen)? The feminine names that might be cited in comparison are obvious enough, but would any of them measure up to these—quite? However, let me mention Katherine Mansfield, Edith Wharton, EdnaSt.Vincent Millay. And I may add Sheila Kaye-Smith, Willa Cather, Selma Lagerlöf and Marguérite Audou.I realize, of course, that such comparisons, except in a most sweeping statement, are invidious. A better picture could be obtained by juxtaposing, one to one, writers of similar type and literary form—but this is a task for a volume.
[2]We need not mention a Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes or Milton. Perhaps these are too far back. Not so Tolstoi, Dostoyevski, Turgenev, Goethe, Heine, Balzac, Maupassant, the Goncourts, Flaubert, Byron, Browning, Shelley, Emerson, Walt Whitman. Where are their equals among women? And coming down to the modern period, when literature is flooded with feminine figures, is there one who can be placed beside Anatole France or d’Annunzio or Proust or Gorki or even Bernard Shaw (not to mention Ibsen)? The feminine names that might be cited in comparison are obvious enough, but would any of them measure up to these—quite? However, let me mention Katherine Mansfield, Edith Wharton, EdnaSt.Vincent Millay. And I may add Sheila Kaye-Smith, Willa Cather, Selma Lagerlöf and Marguérite Audou.
I realize, of course, that such comparisons, except in a most sweeping statement, are invidious. A better picture could be obtained by juxtaposing, one to one, writers of similar type and literary form—but this is a task for a volume.