The Female Eunuch Read Online Free PDF Page A

produced in the same number as male-producing ones. It is tempting to speculate whether this might not be a natural compensation for the greater vulnerability
    of males. 3

    While woman remains nearer the infantile type, man approaches more to the senile. The extreme variational tendency of man expresses itself in a larger percentage of genius, insanity and idiocy; woman remains more nearly normal.
    W. I. Thomas, ‘Sex and Society’, 1907, p. 51

    Recently, criminologists have come up with another disconcerting observation about the Y-chromosome. They found that there was a high proportion of males with the XYY-chromosome, that is an extra Y, among those men in prison for crimes of violence, and it seemed
    to be linked to certain deficiencies in mental ability. 4
    The development of the sexual characteristics is not simply de- termined by the chromosomes: these constitute the primal difference, but the development of the different physical characteristics involves the whole endocrinal system and the interaction of various hormones. Women have been made especially aware of their hormones

    because of the use of synthetic hormones in the contraceptive pill; as usual when such notions are popularized, the function of the hormones has been too simply described. In fact, the full range of activity of hormones is very imperfectly understood. In tampering with the delicate and fluctuating balance of female hormones, physicians have had to admit that they have produced alterations in non-sexual and non-reproductive functions which they did not expect. It is difficult enough to understand the simple mathematics of genes and chromosomes: when it comes to the chemistry of hor- mones, the processes are much more difficult to trace. We know that the male hormone, testosterone, induces the growth of male sexual characteristics, and that it is linked somehow with the other male hormone, androgen, which stimulates the growth of muscle, bone and guts. The secretion of androgen is under the control of the pituitary interstitial cell hormone, as is the female hormone oestrogen which is very like it. Both sexes produce both; all we know is that if we give oestrogen to men their secondary sexual characteristics be- come less evident, and if we give androgen to women the same happens. For some functions oestrogen needs the help of the other female hormone, progesterone. All of our secretions have comple- mentary and catalytic reactions: almost every investigation of these turns up new chemicals with new names. Despite the haphazard bombardment of women with large doses of hormones in order to prevent conception, the commonest attitude towards them among those who know is one of respect and wonder. The search still goes on for a pill which will inhibit only the function essential to concep- tion, and women ought not to feel confident until it is found.
    The sex of a child is established at conception because each sper- matozoon contains one Y-and one X-chromosome, and the mature ovum contains one X. The specialized chromosome causes the primary difference, but the development of sexual features grows out of specialized chemical substances in the chromosomes. Up

    to the seventh week the foetus shows no sexually differentiated characteristics, and when sexual development begins it follows a remarkably similar pattern in both sexes. The clitoris and the head of the penis look very alike at first, and the urethra develops as a furrow in both sexes. In boys the scrotum forms out of the genital swelling, in girls, the labia. If we examine the tissue in these analog- ous sites we see that it is in fact different, although women do have
    tissues similar to the male tissues in different sites. 5
    Nature herself is not always unambiguous. Sometimes a girl child may have so well-developed a clitoris that it is assumed that she is a boy. Likewise, many male children may be underdeveloped, or their genitals deformed or hidden and it is assumed that they are