Women as Undeveloped Men

Women as Undeveloped Men

Even the hard science of medicine is not always devoid of social information about the culture in which it is written. In ancient Greece, medical texts such as Aristotle’s The Female Role in Generation as well as The Seed and The Nature of the Child, both Hippocratic texts, all reinforced the idea that women are the result of weaker sperm despite differences in the specifics of their arguments. Aristotle wrote about the equivalence of menstrual fluid and male semen, except for menstrual fluid’s inability to generate offspring. The Hippocratic texts concluded that both partners contain sperm, and the combination of the strong male sperm and the strong female sperm creates a male child. The texts also mention the similarities between women and children, which explains the similar treatment of the two in Greece. The connection between eunuchs and women was also pointed out by reinforcing the physical semblance between unfertile men and mature women. All of these arguments come together to scientifically explain the female inferiority to the male sex, an all-encompassing aspect of society in ancient Greece. The medical texts of ancient Greece provide the scientific base for the conclusion of the society that women are undeveloped men and attempt to explain the patriarchal hierarchy of Grecian society that severely limited women’s rights and viewed them as second class citizens.

The subject of semen, its nature and its role in generation inspired theories centering on the male’s ability and the female’s inability in both The Nature of the Child and Aristotle’s piece, The Female Role in Generation. According to the Hippocratic text The Nature of the Child, there is stronger and weaker sperm (346). On the subject of twins the reading states, “the pouch which receives thicker and stronger sperm will contain a male, while that which receives sperm which is more fluid and weaker will contain a female”(Lloyd ed., 346). Therefore a female is the result of weaker sperm, a weaker version of man. Similarly, Aristotle concludes that “menstrual fluid is a residue, and it is the analogous thing in females to semen in males” (Fant and Lefkowitz, 339). He describes the “male as possessing the principle of…generation” (ibid.). The female is simply “that out of which the generated offspring…comes” since “the female does not contribute any semen to generation” (ibid.