Our Androcentric Culture, or The Man Made World

re we had intelligence enough to perceive, much less understand, them. Our proven knowledge of

forces work with and on one another. Ethics is the science of social

ce of ethics leaves us in the same helpless position in regard to one anoth

ugh "rule of thumb" method, as animals do, and used great forces without understanding them. But their lives were safer an

rom stark savagery to our present degree of civilization; we shall go

have varied widely and still do so. In different races, ages, classes, sexes, different views of ethics obt

m without, there arose the crude first codes of ethics, the "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not" of the blundering savage. It was mostly "Thou shalt not." Inhibition, the checking of an impu

e forbidden; and all our dim notions of ethics to this day,

ked her. And she answered, "Mary Don't." It is also the main body of our legal systems-a complex mass of prohibitions and preventions. And even in manners a

ere required to bring tribute to the gods and their priests, sacrifices, tithes, oblations; they were set little special performances to go through at given times; the range of things forbidden was broad; the range of things commanded was

we have shown astonishing fluctuations and vagaries in our judgment. Not only in our religions, which have necessarily upheld each its own set of prescribe

y, and the paying of a tradesman who had fed and clothed one as a quite negligible matter. If the process of gambling was of social service, and the fu

an instance as is described in "Auld Robin Gray," we see precisely the same code; the girl, to benefit her parents, marries a rich old man she does not love-which is to lead a life of sha

y religion, ancestor worship; and here we lay

have depended for sanction on a cult of promiscuous but efficient maternity. Our recor

the family with the male head soon made that family an instrument of desire, and combat, and self-expression, following the essentially masculine impulses. The children were his, and if males, valuable to serve and glorify him. In his dominance over servile women and he

men; it is not even claimed that a purely feminine culture would have advanced the world more successfully. It does claim that the influence of the two toget

for the advancement of the world. Our progress is, however, seriously impeded by what we may call the masculine tradition, the unconscious dominance of a race hab

is codes of manners, of morals, of laws, in his early concepts of God, his ancient religions, we see masculinity written large on every side. Confining women wholly to their feminine function

human virtue, not a feminine one. But in masculine hands this virtue was enforced upon women under penalties of hideous cruelty, and quite ignored by men. Masculine ethics, colored by masculine instincts, always do

es. The underlying reason for the whole thing is the benefit of the child; and to that end a pure and noble fatherhood is requisite, as well as such a motherhood

need of religion, the noble human character of the great religious teachers,

s and relentless preservation of primitive ideals, is due to the conservatism of women. Men, they say, are progressive by nature; w

ded, this belief might be maintained. But what do we see? All the old religions made by men, and forced on the women whether they liked it or not. Often women not even considered as part of the scheme-denied souls-given a much lower place in

Christian religion, we find that its progressiveness is to be measured, not by the numbers of its women adherents, but by their relative freedom. The women of America, who belong to a thousand sects, who

omanhood. That women at present are the bulwark of the older forms of our religions is due to the action of two classes of men: the men of the world, who keep women in their restricted position, and

ligious. A religion is partly explanation-a theory of life; it is partly emotion-an attitude of mind, it is partly action-a system of morals. Man's special effect on this large field of human development is clear. He pictured his early gods as like to himself, and they behaved in accordance with his ideals. In the d

d Paradise of the Mohammedan. These are men's heavens all. Women have never been so fond of hunting, beer or blood; and their houris would be of the other kind. It may be sa

. Born with that impulse, exercising it continually, he naturally assumed it to be the major process in life. It is not. Growth is the major process. Combat is a useful sub

masculine error we may trace in the field of religion and ethics the great devil theory, which has for so long obscured our minds. A God without an Adversary was inconceivable to the masculine mind. From this basic misconception we find all our ideas of ethics distorted; that which should have been treated as a group of t

women in forcing them to adopt masculine methods of personal decoration as a means of livelihood, has carried with the concomitant of personal vanity: but to this day and at their worst we do not find i

tainly unbefitting any noble idea of God. Desire, combat and self-expression all have had their unavoidable influence on masculine religions. What deified Maternity a purely feminine culture might have put

s; they belong to us as social factors, not as physical ones. As we learn to recognize our humanness, and to leave our sex characteristics where they b

to be found in a popular proverb. Struggling upward from beast and savage into

s sex-that was beyond the range of Ethics or Religion. By the state of what he calls "morals," and the laws he makes to regulate them, by his attitude in courtshi

ir in lov