totally distinct nervous qualities — sensibility and irrita- bility, or, as it is perhaps better called, affectability. The first means precision and intensity of percep- tion of stimulus; the second is the readiness of motor response to stimulus. These two nervous qualities may, and usually do, vary independently. 1 The clear distinction between sensibility and irritability in the present connection has been of late clearly stated by Sergi, and by Lombroso and Ferrero, but the keen intuition of Coleridge had long before noticed that an important sexual difference is the greater irritability of women, the deeper sensibility of men. It was also perceived some years ago by Galton, who was the first to make accurate investi- gations of sexual sensory differences., " At first," he remarks, " owing to my confusing the quality (sensi- tivity) of which I am speaking with that of nervous irritability, I fancied that women of delicate nerves who are distressed by noise, sunshine, etc., would have acute' powers of discrimination. But this I found not to be the case. In morbidly sensitive persons both pain and sensation are induced by lower stimuli than in the healthy, but the number of just perceptible grades of sensation between them is not necessarily different I found as a rule that men have more delicate powers of discrimination than women, and the business experience of life seems to confirm this." 2 When we come to consider the affectability of women this important distinction will become still clearer.
1 The greater affectability or irritability of women may be perceived at a very early stage of primitive culture and confused with greater sensibility. An interesting example is furnished by Mr. Im Thurn, who tells us that women sometimes take part in the very vigorous whipping game of the Arawacks of Guiana; on such occasions a wooden figure of a bird is substituted for the whips, and a gentle peck given in place of the more serious lash. (Journal Anthrop. Institute % February 1893, Google ISO CHAPTER VII MOTION.
GREATER STRENGTH OF MEN AMONG CIVILISED RACES — RICCARDl'S EXPERIMENTS SHOWING MAXIMUM ENERGY MORE QUICKLY REACHED BY WOMEN — RATE OF MOVE- MENT SLOWER IN WOMEN — BRYAN'S EXPERIMENTS ON RATE OF MOTION — RARITY OF WOMEN ACROBATS — WOMEN'S SLIGHTER MUSCULAR ENERGY PROBABLY AN ORGANIC CHARACTER — MANUAL DEXTERITY — OPINIONS OF TEACHERS — THE GENERAL OPINION THAT WOMEN HAVE LESS MANUAL DEXTERITY THAN MEN — DEXTERITY OF WOMEN IN VARIOUS TRADES — SENSE-JUDGMENTS — BUSINESS EXPERIENCE— VARIOUS EXPERIMENTS — WOMEN PROBABLY AS WELL ABLE TO FORM ACCURATE SENSE- JUDGMENTS AS MEN.
Whatever doubt there may be about sexual differ- ences in the sensory appeal there is little doubt as to the sexual differences in motor response, at all events in its coarser outlines. Except among certain lower races, and then almost exclusively in that more passive form of muscular activity involved in carrying burdens, women everywhere reveal a somewhat less capacity for motor energy than men and a less degree of delight in its display. Among civilised races the difference is great and obvious to all. There is no form of vigorous muscular action, with the sole exception of dancing, for which civilised women show greater attraction and aptitude than men.
Even at that period in the evolution of puberty Google MOTION. t$t when girls are in most respects ahead of boys, they still remain, as Pagliani and others have shown, both in vital capacity and muscular power, very much behind boys. Roughly speaking, the force of the female hand, measured by the dynamometer, is one- third less than that of the male hand; boys can carry about one-third more than girls; and while a man can carry about double his own weight a woman can carry only about half hers (Landois and Stirling). At the Bath meeting of the British Association the mean strength of squeeze was 35-40 kilos in men, 20-25 in women. The Anthropometric Committee of the British Association found that women (chiefly shop assistants and pupils in training institutions for school-mistresses) are little more than half as strong as men. 1 Manouvrier, comparing weight of femur with dynamometric pressure, found that muscular force is to body-weight as 87.1 to 100 in men and only as 54.5 to 100 in women. Sargent found that in strength of expiratory muscles the weakest boys are stronger than the average girl, and although in strength of back, legs, chest, and arms, the girls are slightly better, still 50 per cent girls fail to reach a point of strength surpassed by 90 per cent boys. 2 Gal ton found in his laboratory that of some 1600 women of various ages the strongest could only exert a squeeze of 86 lbs., or about that of a medium man. " If we wished to select the 100 strongest individuals/' he remarks, "out of two groups, one consisting of 100 males chosen at random and the other of 100 females, we should take the 100 males and draft out the 7 weakest of them, and draft in the 7 strongest females." 8 An interesting sexual difference in muscular force has been clearly brought out by Riccardi; experi- menting with the dynamometer on over 350 men 1 Report Anth. Com. Brit. Ass., 1883.
2 Sargent, "Physical Development of Women," Scribner's Mag.> 1889. » Journal Anthrop. Institute, 1885.
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and women, he found that while, with the right hand, 36 per cent, only of the men exhibited their maxi- mum force at the first attempt, 38 per cent, at the second attempt, and 16.8 per cent, at the third, 57.8 per cent of the women gave a maximum result at the first attempt, 20.4 at the second, only 9.9 at the third For the left hand the results were: for the men, 49.8 at the first attempt, 24.8 at the second, 21.9 at the third, and for the women, 49 per cent at the first attempt, 36.2 at the second, and 9.9 at the third: This result, showing that weaker women reach their maximum quicker than men, and that the weaker left hand of men resembles women in this respect, indi- cates a connection between weakness and promptness of reaction, and perhaps has some bearing on the general character of motor action in women. 1 Several series of investigations have been carried on concerning sexual differences in the rate of volun- tary movements. Cattell and Fullerton found that this rate, which is very constant, is decidedly slower in women than in men. 2 Jastrow found, among the students of Wisconsin University, that normal move- ments, when no special direction is given, are quicker in women, but that the maximum movements, parti- cularly in the case of longer movements, are quicker in men. 8 Bryan has made an elaborate study of rate of movement on about 800 school children (the sexes being nearly equally divided) belonging to Worcester, Mass. A fairly simple instrument was devised to receive tapping movements on the button of a Morse key and to record them on a clock face; the amount of force required was insignificant, and the tapping movements could be executed by the arm, forearm, or finger, so as to give the rate for the various joints. The differences between boys and girls were not found to be considerable, but there was a slight superiority 1 Dr. P. Riccardi, Arch, per P Ant rop., Fasc. 3, 1889.
9 On the Perception of Small Differences, Philadelphia, 1890, p. 114.
9 Am, Journal Psych., April 1892, p. 425.
Google MOTION. I S3 of boys over girls on the whole. It must be noted, however, that the best single record was made by a girl of twelve who " looked the type of robust health/' and when asked if she played the pfano, replied, " Only by ear; but I play base-ball though," and adding, " I can strike two over an octave on the piano." Another interesting record was that of a girl of thirteen who had taken lessons on the violin for two years and who showed the influence of special practice by the high rates of the joints involved in playing the violin and the low rates of others, such as the left shoulder, not thus exercised. The superiority of the boys over the girls increases' slightly from the age of 6 to that of 9, and more decidedly from 14 to 16. They are nearest together between 10 and 12. At 13 the girls are superior to the boys for each of the eight joints tested. The period from 12 to 13 is one of retardation of rate in boys and acceleration in girls. Boys are more superior to girls as regards the right side than as regards the left, so that the two sides are more alike in girls than in boys. The acceleration of rate in girls between 12 and 13 is followed by a retardation between 13 and 14; while in boys between 13 and 14 there is an acceleration followed by a decline between 14 and 15. It is significant that the decline and antecedent accelerations are more extreme in girls, and that the recovery is slower; so that girls of 13 almost reach, and sometimes surpass, girls of 16, and girls of 13 also surpass in every joint boys of 13, and in the case of four joints are faster than boys of 14. Comparison of the increments of rate in boys from 15 to 16 with those in girls from 14 to 15 shows the former to be decidedly greater in the case of every joint, and in the case of seven of the eight joints the increment of rate in boys from 15 to 16 is greater than in girls from 14 to 16. Some additional experiments with reference to precision of movement also showed a slight superiority of boys. In summing up his Google 1 54 MAN AND WOMAN.
general results, Bryan remarks: " It would seem something more than a reasonable surmise that the general acceleration of the rate in girls from 12 to 13, and in boys from 13 to 14, is an expression of high tension in the nerve-centres in many individuals at those ages; that the decline following is an expres- sion of nervous fatigue consequent upon the functional charges at those periods; and that the re-acceleration is a sign of recovery from that fatigue. It is signifi- cant that the antecedent acceleration and the decline are more extreme in girls than in boys, and that the girls recover more slowly. It seems not unlikely that these facts may prove of hygienic significance." l It is interesting to compare these results, which, however, require confirmation, with what we know as to the rate of growth in boys and girls about the period of puberty, and the accelerations and retardations in that growth; it is very probable that there is a real connection.
Delaunay ("Les Mouvements centripetes et centrifuges," Revue Scientifique^ 25th December 1880) has argued with much ingenuity that motor evolution is from the centripetal to the centrifugal; that centripetal movements, of adduction and of pronation, predominate among species and individuals little advanced in evolution, and among these he includes quadru- peds, apes, the lower human races, women, children, and unintelligent persons; while centrifugal movements, of ab- duction and supination, predominate among the higher human races, in men and in intelligent persons. Corkscrews, etc., are worked from left to right; so are watches, though formerly from right to left; and writing, which was formerly, and still often is among children, from right to left, is now from left to right. " Women," he remarks, " preferably execute centripetal movements. Thus they give taps or slaps with the palm of the hand, men with the back. According to my observation men make circumferential movements like the hands of a watch, women in the opposite direction. Again, all women's garments, from chemise to mantle, button from right to left, while men's garments button from left to right. When a woman puts on a man's coat she buttons it with the left hand, with a centripetal 1 W. L. Bryan, "On the Development of Voluntary Motor Ability," Am. Journal Psych,, November 1892.
Google MOTION. 1 55 movement." It may be added that, apart from evolutionary progress, the characteristically masculine attitude of aggression is centrifugal, the characteristically feminine attitude of defence centripetal; compare, for instance, the poses of the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus de Medici.
In strength, as well as in rapidity and precision, of movement women are inferior to men. This is not a conclusion that has ever been contested. It is in harmony with all the practical experience of life. It is perhaps also in harmony with the results of those investigators (Bibra, Pagliani, etc.) who have found that, as in the blood of women, so also in their muscles there is more water than in those of men. 1 To a very large extent it is certainly a matter of differences in exercise and environment It is probably, also, partly a matter of organic constitution. That this latter factor can in any case account for more than a small proportion of the immense muscular difference which exists between civilised men and women is impossible, when we consider the muscular strength displayed by the women among some savage races. But it is suggested by the parallelism between rate of move- ment and rate of growth. It is a significant fact that on the music-hall stage feats of strength are, com- paratively, rarely performed by women, and the proficiency they reach is less. A very competent authority remarks: " It is a question whether women should ever be trained as acrobats; it is certain that they can never attain the same pro- ficiency as men. As a matter of fact very few women are trained for this particular kind of performance, and in some apparent exceptions — in the well-known luaot z^family, for instance, where some one dressed as^ a woman holds a man on the shoulders and two girls at arms' length — the performer is a man in woman's clothes. Compare, too, the professional * strong women/ such as Athleta, who is very good in 1 Arch, per VAntrop. t vol. vi. p. 173.
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her way, with the * strong man/ such as Sandow, and you will see that no comparison or competition is possible." It must be remembered that acrobats are frequently the children of acrobats, and receive the most skilled and careful training from the earliest age, and that girls probably have as good a chance of becoming successful acrobats as men. The general tendency of men to violent muscular action, and the greater tendency of women to repose and the storing" up of force, has been ex- pressed by saying that men are katabolic, women anabolic; this generalisation, which is perhaps a little too wide, does not explain; it simply states. The motor superiority of men, and to some extent of males generally, is, it can scarcely be doubted, a deep-lying fact It is related to what is most funda- mental in men and in women, and to their whole psychic organisation. It was not an accident that at Pompeii and Herculaneum, while the men were found in a state indicating violent muscular efforts of resist- ance, the women were in a condition of resigned despair, or clasping their infants.
Manual Dexterity. — Carl Vogt, whose opinion is entitled to consideration, speaking of his university experience in Switzerland, where there is so large a number of women students, while bearing witness to their quickness and excellent memory for what they have learnt by heart, does not find them skilful with their hands: " What makes laboratory work particularly difficult to women is — though one would hardly believe it — that they are often awkward and unskilful with their hands. Laboratory assistants are unanimous in complaining that they are questioned on the smallest matters, and that one woman gives more trouble than three men. One would have thought that the delicate fingers of these young women were specially adapted for microscopic work, for the manipulation of thin lamina of glass, and the preparation of minute sections; but it is the contrary Google MOTION. 157 that really happens. One recognises the place of a female student at a glance by the fragments of glass, broken instruments, notched knives, the stains of chemicals and colouring agents, the spoilt prepara- tions. There are exceptions without doubt, but they are exceptions." * This point is of some interest, and through the kindness of a friend I have obtained the opinions of several experienced and well - known teachers as to the relative awkwardness of men and women in manual dexterity. The letters in response cover rather more than the ground of awkwardness, but they are worth quoting. Professor M'Kendrick, of Glasgow University, writes: — " My experience has been that women are, on the average, as neat and strong and deft in manipulation as men. By 'strong* I mean that they possess sufficient and well co-ordinated muscular power in their fingers, hands, and arms. Lightness and firmness of touch always imply a well- ordered muscular mechanism. In my opinion there is no average difference between the sexes as regards the capacity of performing dexterous manipulations. A certain percentage of both men and women are clumsy and inept in the movements of their fingers, and my experience does not lead me to think that the per- centage is greater in women than in men. Some men possess delicate touch combined with much patience in manipulative work, and some women show the same excellences. At the same time I cannot admit that women, on the whole, are better adapted for delicate manipulative work than men. It really resolves itself into this, that many women can, in this matter, do what any man can do, and that many men can do what any woman can do. This is the result of experience in teaching women for about twenty years."
Professor Halliburton, of King's College, Lon- don, writes: — " My answer would be of much more 1 Carl Vogt, Revue cT Anthropologic, 1 888, quoted in Ploss, Das IVeib, Band i. p. 34.
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value if I could give definite statistics, but as I have kept none, all I can do is to state my general impressions. The success of women students at examinations in science will in part answer your inquiries, but though examinational success is evidence of one kind of ability, it is not, unless taken in con- junction with other things, of superlative value in my eyes. I should rather look to the general work of the students, such as one sees in a practical class. On the whole, then, I should say that women students are on the average better than men students. This may be in part owing to the fact that women do not take up scientific work unless they are earnest about the matter and have some scientific ardour; with men one finds a large class who have no interest in their work, and who, in spite of their laziness or stupidity, or both, have been sent to college by their parents and guardians. The best women students are not, how- ever, so good as the best men. They do not get the same grasp of the subject; they are more bookish and not so practical; they excel, however, in an infinite capacity for taking pains, such as one seldom if ever sees in a man. With both men and women one often finds that good ability, intelligence, industry, and extensive theoretical knowledge are combined with an inability to do practical work. This is not, however, the rule in either sex. Still every now and then we come across instances of people who are not able to use their fingers, be they never so industrious or gifted in other ways; and my further impression is that one meets with this more often in women than among men."
Mr. Vaughan Jennings, who has taught Biology to mixed classes at the Birkbeck Institute for several years, writes: — " I think that in the matter of manipu- lation men are on the whole better than women. In a class equally divided I should expect, I think, to find more men than women showing natural skill in dissection or in using delicate apparatus. (If one had Google MOTION. 1 59 to select a number of untrained recruits to learn such work one would choose them mainly from sailors.) At the same time the men who have no capacity for such work are likely perhaps to be worse than the average woman, probably because they take less trouble. It is difficult to say where the difference lies. It is impossible to tell how much inherited habit has to do with any of the mental differences between the sexes. Some difference in the nervous system seems to be at the root of most of it A certain lack of initiative and a hesitation about 1 taking the next step ' seems to cause a good deal of apparent slowness. I am sure also that greater nervous irritability is responsible for much. The ordinary words ' nervousness/ • impatience/ etc., do not express what I mean — but there is a sort of almost unconscious and automatic exhaustion of the nervous system which often spoils delicate handiwork; and the strong man with the heavily-balanced nerves has a far greater advantage than is generally believed. However, this is only theory. My opinion is by no means a strong or decided one, but I think on the whole it goes to the masculine side."
It will be seen that the writers of two of these letters (which, I may add, were addressed to a lady) cautiously support Professor Vogt's experience, though with nothing of his characteristic brusquerie of expression. The opinions as to the greater awk- wardness of women students in manipulation are three to one, while Professor M'Kendrick, who forms the minority, guards himself from the assertion that women are less awkward than men. That women possess in specially high degree the "well co-ordinated muscular power " which, as Professor M'Kendrick points out, is involved in skilful manipulation, there is, so far as I am aware, no precise experimental evidence to show, while, as we shall see later on, the " nervous irritability " invoked by Mr. Jennings is an important factor in the activities of women.
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It is not easy, as I have elsewhere had to point out, to compare the relative skill of men and women workers, because men and women rarely perform the same work under the same conditions. The cigar and cigarette trades perhaps furnish as good a field as any for comparison; this work requires in its more important branches very considerable manual dex- terity and neatness, and a quick, accurate eye. It does not call for great muscular strength, and is therefore well fitted for women; as a matter of fact, in East London and Hackney cigar-makers are in the proportion of about 800 men to 1100 women and girls. 1 The women, however, speaking generally, are set to do a lower class of work; they receive from 15 to 40 per cent, less wages than the men, and it seems to be generally agreed that their work is inferior. It should be added, however, that the physique and intelligence of the men are reckoned as above the average. A large number of women and girls are employed as cigarette-makers. This, it need scarcely be said, requires long practice and great dexterity, especially when, as is now the case, so narrow a margin of the paper is allowed to overlap. All the best work is at present done by men; the women are employed chiefly in what is called "push-work," which means that the paper wrapper is first constructed and the tobacco inserted subsequently; this is much less skilled work and produces an inferior kind of cigarette. In Leeds also, according to Miss Collet, experience seems to be in favour of men's work; in the cigar trade there men are said to have a lighter touch than women, and to produce cigars, as a rule, of more equal quality. 2 In cotton weaving (though not in cotton spinning), 1 See in Booth's Labour and Life of the People > 1889, vol. i., the interesting Chap. vi. on "Tobacco Workers," from which the facts stated above are mainly taken.
2 Clara E. Collet, " Woman's Work in Leeds," Economic fournal % September 1 891.
Google MOTION. l6l both in England and France, it appears that men and women are equal, and women (even as far back as 1824) have earned as much or nearly as much as men.
There is, finally, at least one occupation, chiefly involving manual dexterity, in which women are stated to be distinctly superior to men. Women stitch the serge linings to saddles as well as men and 40 per cent more quickly. They are paid at the same rate and earn 35s. a week as against 25s. formerly earned by men. It is an occupation for which women have been more highly trained than men. 1 There is a general belief that women are nimble and dexterous with their fingers. If, however, we except needle-work, in which women are as a rule forced to possess the skill that comes of practice, there seems reason for concluding that on the whole the manual dexterity of women is ^m pw ^af in%?nr This deficiency seems to be more marked in the more special and skilled departments of work. Thus, as Mr. Webb remarks, " women weavers can seldom 'tune' or set their own looms. Women heraldic engravers have, curiously enough, never been able to point their own gravers, and have, in consequence, nearly abandoned that occupation." In such cases as this we have, no doubt, to deal not so much with defective manual dexterity as with a certain lack of resourcefulness and initiative..
Sense-Judgments. — Under this heading we may include various phenomena which, although closely related to pure sensory impressions, are more highly complicated by muscular, reflex, and intel- lectual factors. The power of forming rapid and accurate sense-judgments is of very great importance in practical life. Unfortunately it is not easy to find 1 I quote the two last cases from a very able discussion by Sidney Webb, " Alleged Differences in the Wages paid to Men and to Women for Similar Work," Economic Journal, 1891, p. 635.
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or even to devise reliable investigations regarding the relative skill of men and women in forming sense- judgments; it is rare to find men and women working under absolutely the same conditions at absolutely the same work.
In the business affairs of life, where we may reason- ably expect to find natural selection operating to effect a true sexual distribution, the evidence is conflicting. In salt-making, women often perform work elsewhere done by men, and are said to be more "neat-handed" in "tapping the squares"; at the same time they do less work than men, two men taking the place of three women. 1 As money- counters, women in America are said to be much more expert than men, seldom making a mistake or passing counterfeit coin. They can tell a bad bill by feeling it only, it is asserted, and a bank cashier will make a hundred mistakes where they make one. 2