The Pittsburgh Press (November 30, 1944)
Millett: ‘Weaker sex’ is no more
‘Inferiors’ have super traits
By Ruth Millett
A war plant doctor in Seattle claims that women tire less easily than men, learn faster, live longer, endure routine more cheerfully and take orders better.
Assuming that the doctor is right (and it’s a pleasant assumption), how come? The doctor didn’t say. But maybe: Women tire less easily than men because though there is always some woman to say “You poor dear” to the man who claims he is “dog tired,” nobody loves a tired woman.
Maybe the reason women learn faster is because they meet life’s greatest challenge when they are young. A man works up gradually to becoming an important person or a man of responsibility, but a woman has her main job in life thrust on her when she becomes a “Mama,” and that is usually when she is just a girl herself. To handle that job, she has to learn fast.
Why they live longer is easy. No wife wants a successor in her husband’s affections and her only way of making sure she won’t have one is to outlive him.
And the sex that is condemned for life to cooking three meals a day and doing the dishes afterwards just has to endure routine good-naturedly.
As for taking orders well, men have conditioned women to that by building up the bugaboo that there is something mighty funny about a woman’s taking herself seriously enough to get to the place where she can give orders herself.
Which just adds up to the fact that our superior traits are probably largely the result of our inferior position.