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Authors: Ashley Montagu

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The Natural Superiority of Women

BOOK: The Natural Superiority of Women
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cover<br/>

 

 

title
:
The Natural Superiority of Women
author
:
Montagu, Ashley.
publisher
:
AltaMira Press
isbn10 | asin
:
0761989811
print isbn13
:
9780761989813
ebook isbn13
:
9780585189918
language
:
English
subject
Women--Psychology, Feminism--Psychological aspects, Sex role.
publication date
:
1999
lcc
:
HQ1206.M65 1999eb
ddc
:
305.4
subject
:
Women--Psychology, Feminism--Psychological aspects, Sex role.
Page 3
The Natural Superiority of Women
Ashley Montagu
Fifth Edition
A Division of Sage Publications, Inc .
Walnut Creek · London · New Delhi
 
page_4<br/>
Page 4
Copyright © 1999 by Ashley Montagu
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address:
AltaMira Press
A Division of Sage Publications, Inc.
1630 North Main Street, Suite 367
Walnut Creek, California 94596
[email protected]
www.altamirapress.com
SAGE Publications, Ltd.
SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
6 Bonhill Street
M-32 Market
London EC2A 4PU
Greater Kailash 1
United Kingdom
New Delhi 110 048 India
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Montagu, Ashley, 1905-
The natural superiority of women / by Ashley Montagu. 5
th
ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7619-8981-1 (cloth)
ISBN 0-7619-8982-X (pbk.)
1. WomenPsychology. 2. FeminismPsychological aspects. 3.
Sex role. I title.
HQ1206.M65 1999
305.4 dc21 98-40173
CIP
99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Production and Editorial Services: Pattie Rechtman
Editorial Management: Jennifer R. Collier
Cover Design: Joanna Ebenstein

 

Page 5
To Marjorie 
With all my love
 
page_7<br/>
Page 7
Contents
About the Author
8
Foreword by Susan Sperling
11
Preface to the Fifth Edition
41
Preface to the First Edition
43
Prologue
45
1
The Natural Superiority of Women
49
2
The Subjection of Women
65
3
The Social Determinants of Biological "Facts"
and Social Consequences
91
4
Who Said, "The Inferior Sex"?
111
5
When "X" Doesn't Equal "Y"
127
6
The Sexual Superiority of the Female
141
7
Are Women More Emotional Than Men?
151
8
Was It True About Women?
181
9
The Intelligence of the Sexes
187
10
Women and Creativity
203
11
The Genius of Woman as the Genius of Humanity
229
12
Mutual Aid
241
13
Changing Traditions
257
14
Woman's Task
279
Appendix A
United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
291
Appendix B
On the Origins of My Views on the Natural Superiority of Women
297
Notes
303
Index
325

 

page_8<br/>
Page 8
About the Author
The times call for the social scientist who controls at a good
level the many different sciences that deal with human nature.
In this area Ashley Montagu is our and the world's best man.
The New York Times
Born in England in 1905, Ashley Montagu was educated at the University of London, University of Florence, and Columbia University. After serving as a research worker in natural history at the British Museum, he became curator of physical anthropology at the Welcome Medical Historical Museum in London. He has taught anthropology at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of California. He has been director of research for the New Jersey Committee on Growth and Development, and for many years served as chairman of the Anisfield-Wolf Award Committee on Race Relations. He wrote, directed, and produced the film "One World or None," and was the rappporteur of the Scientific Committee which, in 1950, drew up the famous UNESCO "Statement on Race." He has been called "the most successful writer to a literate public science H. G. Wells." His hobbies are book collecting and gardening.

 

page_9<br/>
Page 9
True Science teaches that the elevation of woman is the only
sure road to the elevation of man.
Lester F. Ward
If ever the world sees a time when women shall come together
purely and simply for the benefit and good of mankind, it will be
a power such as the world has never known.
Matthew Arnold
If I were asked . . . to what the singular prosperity and growing
strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should
reply: To the superiority of their women.
Democracy in America, Pt . II,
Bk. III, Ch. 12, 1840,
Alexis De Tocqueville
Adams owed more to the American woman than to all the Ameri-
can men he ever heard of, and felt not the smallest call to de-
fend his sex who seemed able to take care of themselves; but
from the point of view of sex he felt much curiosity to know how
far the woman was right, and, in pursuing this inquiry, he caught
the trick of affirming that the woman was the superior. Apart
from truth, he owed her at least that compliment.
The Education of Henry Adams,
Ch. 30
What is better than wisdom? Woman.
And what is better than a good woman? No-thing.
"The Tale of Melibeus,"
Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer
The best half of creation's best.
The Angel in the House Coventry Patmore
The most interesting study of womankind is man.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

page_11<br/>
Page 11
Foreword
By Susan Sperling
On a recent visit to a friend on the faculty of a prestigious midwestern university, I examined a curious letter I found on top of a stack of manuscripts in her guestroom. It had been sent to faculty and administrators and consisted of a long, literate, racist and antifeminist tract. It vilified blacks and Latinos as substandard in intelligence, Jews as morally degraded, and feminists as poisoning relations between men and women. The general tone of this anonymous document was
epater les progressives .
While further out in rightfield than some of the polemic on race and gender recently generated within the academy, some of its messages were quite resonant with the ideas of academics such as Murray, Hernnstein, and Dinesh de Sousa.
I read on in fascinated horror. The author of the tract soon fixed his hostile gaze on those seminal figures of twentieth-century anthropology, Franz Boas and his acolyte, Ashley Montagu. He indicted them both for, presumably, through their writings, provoking ethnic and racial intermixing. The author went on to uphold the very sort of nineteenth-century racism posing as science that Boas and Montagu were instrumental in unmasking. It is tempting to call such views as these marginal, but it would be a mistake to do so. Some of the ideas in this diatribe have increasingly important cachet in the United States of the late twentieth century. Witness what now floats on the ether of the internet and sits on the shelves of popular bookstores. The year 1994 saw the publication of both
The Bell Curve
and Phillipe Rushton's
Race and Evolution,

1
the latter of which states that blacks are genetically inclined to greater libido, less intelligence, and less parental investment in their children. Rushton is no anonymous writer of diatribes, but a former Guggenheim Fellow and tenured faculty person, and a recipient of almost a million dollars from the racist Pioneer Fund. Biological

 

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