{"id":20452,"date":"2023-11-08T09:22:15","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T08:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/?p=20452"},"modified":"2026-05-21T19:49:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:49:53","slug":"masculine-ideals-and-feminine-ideals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/en\/masculine-ideals-and-feminine-ideals\/","title":{"rendered":"Masculine Ideals and Feminine Ideals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Assagioli at thirty-three, in 1921, on masculine and feminine ideals: not which sex is superior, but how each can develop the qualities of the other.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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By Roberto Assagioli<\/strong>
Rome, 1921 [i]<\/a>
Doc. #23471, Assagioli Archive, Florence.
Original title: Ideali Maschili e Ideali Femminili<\/em>
Translated and edited with notes by Jan Kuniholm [ii]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editorial Note<\/strong>
The abstract and contextual subtitle in this online edition have been added by the editor, Kenneth S\u00f8rensen, to support readability, navigation, and archival consistency. The original wording has not been altered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Abstract<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In this 1921 essay, the young Roberto Assagioli (then thirty-three) takes up the question of masculine and feminine ideals at a moment when Italian women were entering public life and professions in unprecedented numbers. He rejects the question of “general superiority” of one sex over the other as misplaced, examining instead four spheres of qualitative difference: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. He critiques the “excessive masculinism” of modern civilisation, names the mutual decline of each sex when isolated from the other, and proposes a principle of mutual development: each sex called to develop the gifts of the other. Coeducation is offered as a means, and women are called not to imitate men but to forge their own path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The entry of women into public life is a fait accompli<\/em>. Even before having obtained the right to vote everywhere, before having been formally appointed to public office, women have resolutely invaded workshops, schools of every grade, private and state offices on a vast scale, and have set about practicing professions which hitherto had been the exclusive province of men. This is truly a great thing; it is a radical upheaval of psychological, moral and social conditions and laws, the consequences of which are incalculable and which will exert a perhaps decisive action on the uncertain, indeed gravely compromised fortunes of our civilization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, this great event has particularly called public attention to the ever-present problem: the problem of the differences in constitution and aptitudes that exist between the two sexes; of the different functions, of the different relationships of cooperation and antagonism that there are or may be between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The discussions on this subject have been very lively, and although there has been no lack of wise considerations or fair observations, rash and erroneous statements have often been made, confusions have been created. Through impassioned accusations and unjust denigrations it has even come to the point where a battle between the sexes is being staged, which is not only inappropriate and contrived, but truly against nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, a calm and fair-minded critical review of this complex issue does not seem unnecessary to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all, we propose to clearly and precisely \u201cset out\u201d the individual issues, attempting to dispel some of the misunderstandings, preconceptions and quibblings that complicate and obscure them, and to make some basic facts and principles stand out well, over the tangle of secondary and idle questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debate that is most often ignited and perhaps fascinates the public the most, while in fact being the least serious and conclusive, is that concerning the superiority of one sex over the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will therefore have to pause to examine whether there really is an overall superiority of one sex or the other, or whether instead we are dealing with partial and individual superiorities; and, if so, what these are and how they should be viewed. This will lead us to examine the broader question of the qualitative<\/em> psychological and moral differences existing between men and women. And the observation of them will raise the question of their value and the attitude to be taken towards them. We shall therefore try to recognize which characteristics and dispositions of each sex should be cultivated, and which should be corrected or even eliminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general, should each sex tend to exclusively develop its own characters and capacities \u2014 or should it aim rather to develop the elements that it lacks, and that are strong in the opposite sex? Or should one of the sexes do the former and the other the latter? It seems that our civilization has chosen the third of these ways. For while the female sex tends more and more to develop in the sense and image of the male sex, the latter shows no corresponding propensity; on the contrary, it seems aimed at accentuating and exaggerating its own peculiar characteristics more and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But is this orientation of our civilization really necessary and appropriate, or does it instead present grave dangers? Is not woman in danger of losing her best qualities, of neglecting or impairing the very noble functions inherent in her? And if it is recognized that woman, in imitating and emulating man, is following a wrong path, that indeed our civilization suffers from an excess of machismo<\/em>, what would be the remedies? [i]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us begin by clearing the ground of controversies concerning the superiority of one sex over the other. Time and again, in various eras, it has been asserted \u2014 by men, of course! \u2014 that woman is inferior to man. Among the most ardent in asserting this were some ancient Church Fathers who \u2014 far from the true Christian spirit as manifested in the Gospels \u2014 regarded woman as the source of all iniquity and went so far as to question whether she possesses a Soul!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our times, the German neurologist Moebius,[ii]<\/a> the Viennese philosopher Weininger[iii]<\/a> and the Scandinavian writer Strindberg[iv]<\/a> have been particularly conspicuous in denigrating woman. Some years ago Moebius wrote a small volume on the subject that raised a great stir, which was translated into Italian under the title On the Mental Inferiority of Women<\/em>.[v]<\/a> In it Moebius did not limit himself to pointing out certain shortcomings of a purely intellectual character \u2014 about which, as we shall see, he may be partly right \u2014 but he also asserted the moral inferiority of woman. And the latter assertion was insisted upon even more sharply by Weininger, who in his strange and paradoxical book Sex and Character <\/em>goes so far as to deny all personality and even the soul to woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, there has been no lack of assertions by some women about female superiority over men; but such assertions have been less frequent and less exaggerated. A Venetian woman named Moderata Fante Giorgi wrote a book printed in 1600, The Worth of Women<\/em>, in which women are exalted above men.[vi]<\/a> In 1660 Marie-Anne Guillaume published a work with the title Que le sexe f\u00e9minin vaut mieux que le masculin<\/em>.[vii]<\/a> And recently an English writer, Frances Swiney,[viii]<\/a> who has done very active and beneficial work in favor of female advancement and social morality, has been carried away by her enthusiasm for feminine ideals to the point of believing in the complete superiority of women over men and wanting to prove it in her books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do not deem it necessary to have a discussion of the two opposing theses that refute each other. We will only say that the general error committed by both sides is to believe that one can compare the two sexes with each other, as if they were simple objects of the same nature, as if only quantitative differences existed between them. In reality, the two sexes are profoundly dissimilar in intimate constitution, and have entirely different, indeed in a sense opposite, functions. Thus the problem of the general superiority of one sex over the other is a problem of impossible solution, because it is fundamentally misplaced; it is a \u201cproblem\u201d that makes no sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are indeed partial and limited ways in which one sex is [generally] superior to the other with respect to certain specific gifts and abilities \u2014 but the study of these is part of the more general study of the qualitative differences existing between the two sexes. Such a study is very useful and timely. Indeed, a fairer and deeper understanding on the part of each sex of its own gifts and defects, its own possibilities and dangers, and an equally correct understanding of those corresponding in the other sex, constitute a necessary condition for the success of any work of human advancement, indeed of any intimate coexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study of these differential characteristics is more difficult than it may at first seem. The human being in general is very complex and multifaceted; it is truly a microcosm, of which we are far from knowing all the marvelous regions, the dark depths and the glittering peaks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another serious difficulty, which results in frequent errors of judgment, stems from the fact that no particular man is \u201ccompletely <\/em>masculine,\u201d just as no woman is \u201cabsolutely <\/em>feminine.\u201d In fact, the psychic characteristics of the two sexes are mixed to a very varying degree in each individual, so much so that some men can be said to possess feminine qualities to a greater degree than certain women, and vice versa. This fact is very important and should be kept well in mind, both as a necessary caution in studying the characteristics of the two sexes and because of the value of the practical inferences that can be drawn from it in the educational and social field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attempts have been made many times to trace the differences that exist between the two sexes back to a general and absolute principle. Thus it has been said that man is active and \u201cpositive,\u201d while woman is passive and \u201cnegative.\u201d This concept is partly right, but taken in its own right it is too rigid and one-sided, and does not take into account other aspects of reality; so much so that there have been those who have argued \u2014 with less reason in my opinion, but also not without pointing out some true and usually unnoticed facts \u2014 that woman is more \u201cactive\u201d than man. [ix]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We believe that in order to properly recognize and appreciate the validity and the limits of this and any other difference between the sexes, it must be studied separately in the various spheres in which human beings manifest themselves. These spheres of manifestation can be reduced to four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n