by such discreet vivisections as are possible under our laws, there is
no biological necessity for the superior acumen and circumspection
of women. That is to say, it does not lie in any anatomical or
physiological advantage. The essential feminine machine is no
better than the essential masculine machine; both are monuments to
the maladroitness of a much over-praised Creator. Women, it
would seem, actually have smaller brains than men, though perhaps
not in proportion to weight. Their nervous responses, if anything,
are a bit duller than those of men; their muscular coordinations are
surely no prompter. One finds quite as many obvious botches
among them; they have as many bodily blemishes; they are infested
by the same microscopic parasites; their senses are as obtuse; their
ears stand out as absurdly. Even assuming that their special malaises
are wholly offset by the effects of alcoholism in the male, they
suffer patently from the same adenoids, gastritis, cholelithiasis,
nephritis, tuberculosis, carcinoma, arthritis and so on--in short,
from the same disturbances of colloidal equilibrium that produce
religion, delusions of grandeur, democracy, pyaemia, night sweats,
the yearning to save humanity, and all other such distempers in men.
They have, at bottom, the same weaknesses and appetites. They
react in substantially the same way to all chemical and mechanical
agents. A dose of hydrocyanic acid, administered per ora to the
most sagacious woman imaginable, affects her just as swiftly and
just as deleteriously as it affects a tragedian, a crossing-sweeper, or
an ambassador to the Court of St. James. And once a bottle of
Cte Rtie or Scharlachberger is in her, even the least emotional
woman shows the same complex of sentimentalities that a man
shows, and is as maudlin and idiotic as he is.