do not only for their own young, but to any young who may be brought in
contact with them. We have known a male mierkat so assiduous in feeding

young that were quite unrelated to himself, taking to them every morsel of
food given him, that we have been compelled to shut him up in a room alone

when feeding him, to prevent his starving himself to death: the male
mierkat thus exhibiting exactly those psychic qualities which are generally

regarded as peculiarlyfeminine; the females, on the other hand, being far
more pugnacious towards each other than are the males.

Among mammals generally, except the tendency to greater pugnacity shown by
the male towards other males, and the greater solicitude for the young

shown generally by the female form, but not always; the psychic differences
between the two sex forms are not great. Between the male and female

pointer as puppies, there is as little difference in mental activity as in
physical; and even when adult, on the hunting ground, that great non-sexual

field in which their highest mental and physical activities are displayed,
there is little or nothing which distinguishes materially between the male

and female; in method, manner, and quickness they are alike; in devotion to
man, they are psychically identical. (It is often said the female dog is

more intelligent than the male; but I am almost inclined to doubt this,
after long and close study of both forms.) It is at the moment when the

reproductive element comes fully into play that similarity and identity
cease. In the intensity of initial sex instinct they are alike; the female

will leap from windows, climb walls, and almost endanger her life to reach
the male who waits for her, as readily as he will to gain her. It is when

the bitch lies with her six young drawing life from her breast, and gazing
with wistful and anguished solicitude at every hand stretched out to touch

them, a world of emotion concentrated on the sightless creatures, and a
whole body of new mental aptitudes brought into play in caring for them, it

is then that between her and the male who begot them, but cares nothing for
them, there does rise a psychic difference that is real and wide. Alike in

the sports of puppydom and the non-sexual activities of adult age; alike in
the possession of the initialsexualinstinct which draws the sex to the

sex, the moment active sexualreproduction is concerned, there is opened to
the female a certain world of sensations and experiences, from which her

male companion is for ever excluded.
So also is our human world: alike in the sports, and joys, and sorrows of

infancy; alike in the non-sexual labours of life; alike even in the
possession of that initialinstinct which draws sex to sex, and which,

differing slightly in its forms of manifestation is of corresponding
intensity in both; the moment actualreproduction begins to take place, the

man and the woman enter spheres of sensation, perception, emotion, desire,
and knowledge which are not, and cannot be, absolutelyidentical. Between

the man who, in an instant of light-hearted enjoyment, begets the infant
(who may even beget it in a state of half-drunken unconsciousness, and may

easily know nothing of its existence for months or years after it is born,
or never at all; and who under no circumstances can have any direct

sensational knowledge of its relation to himself) and the woman who bears
it continuously for months within her body, and who gives birth to it in

pain, and who, if it is to live, is compelled, or was in primitive times,
to nourish it for months from the blood of her own being--between these,

there exists of necessity, towards a limited but all-important body of
human interests and phenomena, a certain distinct psychic attitude. At

this one point, the two great halves of humanity stand confronting certain
great elements in human existence, from angles that are not identical.

From the moment the universalinitialattraction of sex to sex becomes
incarnate in the first concretesexual act till the developed offspring

attains maturity, no step in the reproductive journey, or in their relation
to their offspring, has been quite identical for the man and the woman.

And this divergence of experiences in human relations must react on their
attitude towards that particular body of human concerns which directly is

connected with the sexualreproduction of the race; and, it is exactly in
these fields of human activity, where sex as sex is concerned, that woman

as woman has a part to play which she cannot resign into the hands of
others.

It may be truly said that in the laboratory, the designing-room, the
factory, the mart, the mathematician's study, and in all fields of purely

abstract or impersonal labour, while the entrance of woman would add to the
net result of human labour in those fields, and though a grave injustice is

done to the individual woman excluded from perhaps the only field she is
fitted to excel in, that yet woman as woman has probably little or nothing

to contribute in those fields that is radically distinct from that which
man might supply; there would be a difference in quantity but probably none

in kind, in the work done for the race.
But in those spheres of social activity, dealing especially with certain

relations between human creatures because of their diverse if complementary
relation to the production of human life, the sexes as sexes have often

each a part to play which the other cannot play for them; have each a
knowledge gained from phases of human experience, which the other cannot

supply; here woman as woman has something radically distinct to contribute
to the sum-total of human knowledge, and her activity is of importance, not

merely individually, but collectively, and as a class.
That demand, which today in all democratic self-governing countries is

being made by women, to be accorded their share in the electoral, and
ultimately in the legislative and executive duties of government, is based

on two grounds: the wider, and more important, that they find nothing in
the nature of their sex-function which exonerates them, as human beings,

from their obligation to take part in the labours of guidance and
government in their state: the narrower, but yet important ground, that,

in as far as in one direction, i.e., in the special form of their sex
function takes, they do differ from the male, they, in so far, form a class

and are bound to represent the interests of, and to give the state the
benefit of, the insight of their class, in certain directions.

Those persons who imagine that the balance of great political parties in
almost any society would be seriously changed by the admission of its women

in public functions are undoubtedlywholly wrong. The fundamental division
of humans into those inclined to hold by the past and defend whatever is,

and those hopeful of the future and inclined to introduce change, would
probably be found to exist in much the same proportion were the males or

the females of any given society compared: and the males and females of
each class will in the main share the faults, the virtues, and the

prejudices of their class. The individuals may lose by being excluded on
the ground of sex from a share of public labour, and by being robbed of a

portion of their lawful individual weight in their own society; and the
society as a whole may lose by having a smaller number to select its chosen

labourers from; yet, undoubtedly, on the mass of social, political, and
international questions, the conclusions arrived at by one sex would be

exactly those arrived at by the other.
Were a body of humans elected to adjudicate upon Greek accents, or to pass

a decision on the relativefineness of woollens and linens, the form of sex
of the persons composing it would probably have no bearing on the result;

there is no rational ground for supposing that, on a question of Greek
accents or the thickness of cloths, equally instructed males and females

would differ. Here sex plays no part. The experience and instructedness
of the individuals would tell: their sexual attributes would be

indifferent.
But there are points, comparatively small, even very small, in number, yet

of vital importance to human life, in which sex does play a part.
It is not a matter of indifference whether the body called to adjudicate

upon the questions, whether the temporary sale of the female body for
sexual purposes shall or shall not be a form of traffic encouraged and

recognised by the state; or whether one law shall exist for the licentious
human female and another for the licentious human male; whether the claim

of the female to the offspring she bears shall or shall not equal that of
the male who begets it; whether an act of infidelity on the part of the

male shall or shall not terminate the contract which binds his female
companion to him, as completely as an act of infidelity on her part would

terminate her claim on him; it is not a matter of indifference whether a
body elected to adjudicate on such points as these consists of males

solely, or females solely, or of both combined. As it consists of one, or
the other, or of both, so not only will the answers vary, but, in some

cases, will they be completely diverse. Here we come into that very
narrow, but important, region, where sex as sex manifestly plays its part;

where the male as male and the female as female have each their body of
perceptions and experiences, which they do not hold in common; here one sex

cannot adequately represent the other. It is here that each sexual part
has something radically distinct to contribute to the wisdom of the race.

We, today, take all labour for our province! We seek to enter the non-
sexual fields of intellectual or physical toil, because we are unable to

see today, with regard to them, any dividing wall raised by sex which