Sometimes they say...

Sometimes they say: "Woman is the being, having long hair and a deficient brain", "Woman is the partition between animal and man" and so on. It is still more amazing that some Westerners, having taken a 180 degree turn, have lately begun trying to put forward a thousand and one arguments to prove that by creation, man is inferior and imperfect and that woman is superior and perfect.

If you have read the book, 'Woman, the Superior Sex', by Ashley Montague, you may know how its author, by misrepresenting the facts and adducing incongruous arguments, has tried to prove that woman is more perfect than man. As far as the medical and psychological studies and social statistics are concerned, this book is very valuable, but where the author tries to draw his own conclusions to prove his claim, which is the title of the book, he goes to the utmost extent of absurdity.

It is not understood why it is necessary that the Westerners should one day disparage woman so much that the next day, to make amends for the past, they are compelled to absolve her from all the defects which they had ascribed to her, and instead debit man with them. What is the necessity of regarding the differences between man and woman as the result of the perfection of one sex and the imperfection of the other, so that we may be compelled sometimes to take man's side and sometimes woman's?

The author of this book insists that woman is superior to man and regards the privileges of man as the product of historical and social factors and not the result of natural causes. In fact, the differences between man and woman are a question of proportion or suitability and not that of perfection or imperfection. The law of creation has decreed that as man and woman have been created to lead a joint life, they should bear a specific proportion of their capabilities despite all differences.

This point will be clarified later. A PLATONIC THEORY The subject of dissimilarity between man and woman is not a new question, which might have cropped up during our time. It is at least 2,400 year old. It was discussed, in its present form, by Plato in his book, "The Republic". He expressly maintains that men and women have the same capabilities, and women can perform the same jobs and enjoy the same rights as men do.