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June 1926
Talent, Opportunity, and Female Aspirations
by Faith Fairfield
The progress of man has never been impeded by preconceived ideas regarding his abilities, his proper interests, and his appropriate activities. Woman has always been so hampered. For generations her existence was narrowly prescribed because she was considered an inferior creature lacking a soul and possessing but a rudimentary intellect … Woman … is repeatedly reminded that the greatest scientists, musicians, and artists have never been numbered among her sex …
The average woman must still choose between domesticity and a career … In exceptional cases a woman continues her work without interruption after marriage, her home life being as subordinated to her career as a man’s would be. The work these women accomplish is often exceptionally valuable, perhaps because they are emotionally as well as intellectually satisfied. This solution of the modern social problem … is probably most efficacious in giving woman an opportunity to develop her possibilities …
An intellectual man may be married to a low-grade moron with the sanction of society, but the husband of a woman of unusual ability is considered an object for pity or merriment unless his accomplishments equal or excel hers.
Volume 137, No. 6, pp. 801–804
Read the full article here.
