ten, I believe, less sentimental, and even less
tender-hearted than men, and they have a far swifter and truer
intuition of character. Though the two sexes can never really
understand each other's point of view, because no imagination can cross
the gulf of fundamental difference, yet I am certain that women
understand men far better than men understand women. The whole range of
motives is strangely different, and men can never grasp the comparative
unimportance with which women regard the question of occupation.
Occupation is for men a definite and isolated part of life, a thing
important and absorbing in itself, quite apart from any motives or
reasons. To do something, to make something, to produce something--that
desire is always there, whatever ebb and flow of emotions there may be;
it is an end in itself with men, and with many women it is not so; for
women mostly regard work as a necessity, but not an interesting
necessity. In a woman's occupation, there is generally someone at the
end of it, for whom and in connection with whom it is done. This is
probably largely the result of training and tradition, and great
changes are now going on in the direction of women finding occupations
for themselves. But take the case of such a profession as teaching; it
is quite possible for a man to be an effective and competent teacher,
without feeling any particular interest in the temperaments of his
pupils, except in so far as they react upon the work to be done. But a
woman can hardly take this impersonal attitude; and this makes women
both more and less effective, because human beings invariably prefer to
be dealt with dispassionately; and this is as a rule more difficult for
women; and thus in a complicated matter affecting conduct, a woman as a
rule forms a sounder judgment on what has actually occurred than a man,
and is perhaps more likely to take a severe view. The attitude of a
Galileo is often a useful one for a teacher, because boys and girls
ought in matters that concern themselves to learn how to govern
themselves.

Thus in situations involving relation with others women are more liable
to feel anxiety and the pressure of personal responsibility; and the
question is to what extent this ought to be indulged, in what degree
men and women ought to assume the direction of other lives, and whether
it is wholesome for the director to allow a desire for personal
dominance to be substituted for more spontaneous motives.

I