One of the most interesting or at least most discussed
papers read before the British Association was by Miss Becker, on "The Supposed Differences in the Minds of the Two Sexes of Man." Miss Becker holds that men and women are only unequal in physical strength, their minis being not only equal but absolutely identical, the apparent differences being the result of ages of sub- jection, and of a vicious system of education. In proof of her posi- tion, she quoted some plants and species of animals in which the female is the equal or superior of the male, pointed to the pecu- liarities of intellect developed by almost every profession, and observed that if any woman was discovered to be superior to the majority of her own sex she was also found superior to the majority of men. Superiority and inferiority are in such discus- sions very meaningless terms, women possessing many faculties in much higher perfection than men, and men than women. What we maintain is not the inequality, but the diversity in the minds of the sexes. Can women, for instance, originate ? and if so, why have they never produced an original genius in the one depart- ment they study as men do,—music ?
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