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Are Sex Roles Biologically Determined?

by Freda Salzman

‘Science for the People’ Vol. 9, No. 4, July-August 1977, p. 27—32 & 43

Freda Salzman is a longtime member of SftP, and for the past year has been working with the Sociobiology Study Group of the Boston Chapter. She worked for a number of years with a group of women in the Women, Science and Social Control Collective. She teaches physics at the University of Massachusetts/Boston.

Re-emergence of “Biology is Destiny” 

In the past ten years, a succession of highly publicized scientific works have purported to demonstrate that women’s subordinate position in our society is due, in good part, to innate (genetic) differences between males and females, and not to external factors as claimed by the women’s movement. These theories are simply new constructions of that old theme, “Biology is Destiny.” Furthermore, these theories argue that sex roles are resistant to change and that dire consequences will result if we try to change them. 

The current wave of theories about biological sex role differences took off in the mid-sixties with the beginning of a deluge of books of the “naked apery” genre.¹ By selectively using and misrepresenting the available data,² the proponents of the “naked apery” theory of human behavior claimed that male aggression, male dominance and war in our society were, and are, inevitable products of the genes which we share with the apes, the species evolutionarily closest to us. Other research reports seemed to confirm innate male aggressiveness by supposedly discovering that males with an additional Y chromosome commit violent crimes at a higher rate than do normal XY males. It was claimed that the Y chromosome contributes to aggressive tendencies in normal males, and that XYY “supermales” with two Y chromosomes are prone to “superviolence.” (It is now known that there is no correlation of XYY males with higher rates of violent crime³—nor is there any credible evidence that normal males are innately more aggressive than females.⁴) 

In 1973, sociologist Steven Goldberg published The Inevitability of Patriarchy, which directly attacked the women’s movement. The title of the book speaks for itself. Using highly questionable evidence,⁵ Goldberg claimed that the subordination of women is an inevitable outcome of hormonal effects on males, which produce male aggression, genius and ability and which leads to male dominance. Finally, the attack on the women’s movement—and on people in general who are seeking social change—escalated to a new and dangerous level with the publication in 1975 of E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, a book which received the greatest acclaim of all in the current wave.  

Sociobiology attempts to show that salient features of our present society are biologically determined. According to the theory, socially significant human traits are genetically based and have evolved under the influence of natural selection. Employing the same discredited methodology as the “naked apery” theory,⁶ Sociobiology has at its heart the thesis that hierarchy and patriarchy are inevitable. The growing number of popularizations of the theory have particularly focused upon claims for innate male-female differences. The reemergence of interest in sex-difference research is part of a general resurgence of biological determinist theories which try to demonstrate that our highly stratified society, based mainly on class, race and sex, is due to genetic differences between these groups and not to societal factors. Historically, biological determinism as a theory of the status quo has been widely publicized and encouraged during periods of considerable social unrest and questioning of societal institutions. 

Clearly, the group which benefits most from such theories is an extremely small but wealthy and privileged class. This elite, through its extensive control of the media, education and funding institutions, can strongly influence public opinion and the direction of research. The elite finds it far easier to promote theories which undermine demands for equality than to spend money to eliminate inequality. For example, the main way in which women are discriminated against is through sex-stereotyped jobs. Women now comprise about forty percent of the wage labor force and are demanding equal pay for equal work. From the corporate managers’ point of view, it would be excessively expensive to create that many new well-paying jobs. 

Sociobiology is clearly comparable, in principles, scope and framework, to Social Darwinism, the most widely held theory of biological determinism in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Social Darwinism, which applied the ideas of evolutionary biology to social development, strongly justified the established social order of the period—a fiercely and brutally competitive capitalist economic system and a stratified social structure, again based primarily on class, race and sex. In the U.S. Social Darwinism provided important support for the eugenics movement which led to sterilization laws in a number of states and the immigration law of 1924, which restricted immigration on the basis of national origin. 

In the remainder of this article, I will focus on the study of the sexual differentiation of the brain, for two reasons. One is that the mechanism currently proposed by scientists to explain sex-differentiated behavior is the effect of sex hormones on the brain. Since this research is fairly sophisticated and sounds credible, I think we should know more about this work, the questions it asks, and the evidence it offers. Second, I hope to show that the attempt to establish a genetic basis for social-sexual differences (or for inequalities based on class and race) in a society in which the sexes are differentially reared is “bad” science. Moreover, even if we could establish a genetic basis for sex differences in our society, this would tell us nothing about how plastic or resistant these traits would be to changes in the environment. The same criticisms have been leveled against attempts to establish a genetic basis for class and race differences. (This has been discussed with respect to the I.Q. controversy.) 

“Sex in Brain”—Past 

In The Study of Sociology (1873), Herbert Spencer ascribed women’s inferior mental capabilities to their “arrested” evolutionary development, which was required in order to save their “vital power to meet the cost of reproduction.” Furthermore, through “struggles for existence” in which the fittest women were those who survived against “aggressive, unscrupulous, intensely egoistic” stronger males, “women’s nature” evolved to please men, to disguise their own feelings, to rely on intuition, and to admire male power—and power in general. These supposedly innate feminine attributes obviously reflected the upper- and middle-class Victorian ideal of true Womanhood. 

Sociobiology has at its heart the thesis that hierarchy and patriarchy are inevitable.

Scientists attempted to “verify” women’s mental inferiority and inferior “nature” by studying the size, weight, shape and fissural patterns of the brain. In 1887, a well-known New York neurologist and former United States Surgeon General claimed in an article in the Popular Science Monthly that the female brain was measurably inferior to that of a man. Incensed, Helen Hamilton Gardener (pen name of Alice Chenoweth Day, a prominent women’s suffrage leader)⁷ took up the study of brain anatomy and in 1888 wrote a paper entitled, “Sex in Brain.” Assuming the data to be as alleged, she set out to prove that the brain mass of a woman was not demonstrably different from that of a man who grew up under the same conditions and with the same opportunity for development. As a result of her studies, she discovered that on the average, brain differences between persons of the same sex and achievements were much more marked than any that were known to exist between the sexes. Gardener willed her own brain to the famous Wilder Brain Collection at Cornell University. Examination of her brain was reported to reveal high development in all regions and supposedly fewer sex differences than in other female brains. At the time, this was attributed to her being an exceptional woman.⁸ The general effort, however, to correlate gross brain structure with intellectual achievements and personality traits was unsuccessful, and interest in this work tapered off. 

At first women perversely came out ahead on what were considered to be crucial measurements: ratios of brain weight to body weight⁹ and scores on the first Stanford-Binet IQ test in 1916.¹⁰ These results were quietly put aside. Subsequent IQ tests were standardized so that males and females had equal averages. 

Freud’s theory of the psychology of women finally located a woman’s crucial deficiency—she lacked a penis. From this indisuptable anatomical fact, Freud constructed a whole theory—now known to be without substance¹¹—which explained women’s subordinate role in society, a theory based on the biological determinist notion that “Anatomy is Destiny.” The selective use of Freudian ideas in this country helped to reinforce woman’s traditional—and subordinate—role as wife and mother and to provide an ideology by which the increasing number of women who were entering the wage labor force failed to see themselves as real workers. Due to the predominant belief that the differential social and economic status of different groups in society was biologically determined, Freudian ideas were readily accepted even by women. 

Current Research 

There has been considerable effort in current research to demonstrate that supposed innate differences in male-female behavior are due to the effects of sex hormones on the brain. Extensive studies in rats have shown that in a critical period during the first week after birth, the testes of males secrete the male hormone testosterone which organizes or, as it descriptively put, “lays down the circuits for,” a male brain. The male-organized brain is irreversible, leads to an essentially acyclic (male) pattern of sex hormone production, and determines characteristic stereotyped male behavior, which in rats is mounting and fighting. The brain of a rat which is not exposed to testosterone (or high levels of other sex hormones which are closely related) during the critical period develops an irreversible female-organized brain. This leads to a cyclic pattern of ovarian function and ovulation, with an estrus period (“heat”), when stereotypical female behavior is displayed. This behavior includes assuming the lordosis position (elevation of the rump) in the presence of mature males. 

The part of the brain of the rat which is most involved in this sex-differentiated behavior is the hypothalamus and the limbic system (an “old” or “primitive” part of the mammalian brain in terms of evolutionary development).” The hypothalamus-limbic system is concerned with the self-regulation of the various body functions such as eating, drinking, and mating behavior, as well as emotion and motivation. The hypothalamus both secretes and responds to hormones. The hypothalamus of the female rat has been shown to regulate, through its effect on the pituitary and the feedback influence of ovarian hormones, the cyclic pattern of ovulation. This mechanism appears to be the basic one for female cyclicity in all mammalian species. 

Scientists are now trying to explain the differences in behavior between men and women by the effects before birth of sex hormones on the brain.

What do these results mean for human behavior? Biological determinists claim that the hypothalamus-limbic system is “wired” or “programmed” for instinctual behavior, as Wilson does in the opening paragraphs of Sociobiology: 

The hypothalamus-limbic complex of a highly social species such as man [sic], “knows,” or more precisely it has been programmed to perform as if it knows, that its underlying genes will be proliferated maximally only if it orchestrates behavioral responses that bring into play an efficient mixture of personal survival, reproduction, and altruism.¹²

Other biological determinists are less “deterministic” with respect to the role of sex hormones in establishing male-female differences. They realize that the diversity among individuals of one sex is greater than the average difference between males and females. Furthermore, there is tremendous cross-cultural variation concerning what is considered “male” and “female” behavior. These “limited” determinists acknowledge that the predominant influence in establishing gender differences is the social transmission of behavioral norms. Money and Ehrhardt, in their book Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, describe cases in which chromosomal XX females were successfully reared as males and chromosomal XY males as females. These cases indicate the overriding importance of social factors. Nevertheless, on the basis of sex hormone studies in animals and extremely limited studies of humans, Money and Ehrhardt emphasize throughout the book the effect of prenatal hormones in organizing male-female brains. They state that the presence or absence of male hormones establishes “certain patterns or organization in the brain, especially, by inference, in the hypothalamic pathways that will subsequently influence certain aspects of sexual behavior.”¹³ They claim that chromosomal females exposed to excess prenatal androgens, the male hormones, are prone to be “tomboys,” while chromosomal males exposed to insufficient prenatal androgens are prone to be “rather placid.”¹⁴ This theme is rapidly being picked up by others, who then argue that inequality of the sexes is due in good part to biological differences arising from hormonally produced, sexually differentiated propensities in behavior.¹⁵ Thus, for example, anthropologist Patricia Draper speaks of the importance of fetal hormones in “pre-programming” the brain which causes the sexes to respond differentially to certain stimuli. Sociologist Alice Rossi adds a “bio-evolutionary perspective” to show how sexually-differentiated behavior evolved under the influence of natural selection, a purely speculative discussion once again made respectable by sociobiology. 

What have actual studies in humans demonstrated? Needless to say, human females have not been observed to go into estrus during which time they present their rumps to mature males. In humans and in non-human primates, there does not seem to be a critical period for the irreversible differentiation of the brain with respect to the male or female pattern of hormonal production,¹⁶ although some sex-differentiation is expected in the hypothalamus. The cyclic female pattern can occur after human (and non-human primate) females have been exposed to high levels of androgens before and after birth, and experiments on rhesus monkeys indicate the capacity for cyclical response remains totally intact in adult males. So even this “old” part of the brain, which one might expect to be the most “wired” or programmed with respect to this specific physiological function, appears to be far more plastic in humans—and non-human primates—than originally anticipated, and also not to be sexually differentiated.

The hypothalamus appears not to be sexually differentiated in humans and so is incapable of explaining sex differences in behavior.

In order to explore the effects of hormones on behavior, studies of the behavior of women with respect to hormonal change during the menstrual cycle have been carried out. These studies—clearly not done to help women—seek evidence of a “wired-in” response, that is, correlations between mood, sexuality and mating positions, and hormonal levels. At best we can say that these studies are inconclusive and provide evidence of the methodological problems with all such investigations. Hormones cause real, noticeable physiological changes, as women using birth control pills have found out. The so-called premenstrual syndrome experienced by many women and characterized by heightened irritability and tensions may be due to physiological factors such as water retention, constipation, nausea and breast pains.¹⁷ In particular, depression and water retention may be caused by sodium retention and potassium depletion in cells, due to the sharply dropping levels of progesterone (one of the hormones produced in the cycle) prior to the onset of the period. Inadequate diet and insufficient excercise may also contribute to the physiology of the syndrome. Socialization appears to be an important factor since a woman’s attitude towards her oncoming period may influence her mood. In addition, the very definition of the premenstrual syndrome appears to be questionable.¹⁸

One of the most frequently cited human examples which is claimed to demonstrate the sexual differentiation of the brain (and which supports the contention that the results found in rats also apply to humans) is that of a small number of chromosomal XX females who were exposed while still in the womb to unusually high levels of androgens, the “male” hormone. These fetally androgenized females, as they are called, were actually born with male genitalia in various stages of development and later underwent corrective surgery. The subsequent behavior of a group of twenty-five fetally androgenized females, along with that of a control group, was studied by Money and colleagues and reported in Man and Woman, Boy and Girl. These fetally androgenized females were reported to engage in more “tomboyish” activities than the controls, but not to such an extent as to make them conspicuously different from other girls. This whole effect can be explained plausibly by environmental differences, resulting from the parents’ ambivalence toward their daughters born with male genitalia. Some of the females, in fact, were actually assigned the male sex at birth. 

It is now clear that in humans and non-human primates, the cerebral cortex (the “new” brain) tends to dominate brain functions, and modifies the influence of the hypothalamus-limbic system on the expression and regulation of emotion. In humans, the cerebral cortex has primary control of all higher functions and is extremely plastic. A given physiological state in humans can have a variety of quite diverse behavioral expressions, depending on past learning experience and the social situation.¹⁹

The latest claims for a sex-differentiated brain are based on psychological tests of functions which involve the cerebral cortex. The brain is divided into two hemispheres, and a number of functions appear to be controlled in the left or right hemisphere. This is called left or right lateralization. Language and analytic abilities appear to be left lateralized; visual-spacial functions to be right lateralized. There are some reports that boys’ and girls’ brains may be lateralized differently with respect to certain tasks such as those involving visual-spacial ability. The hypothesis is now being put forward that these differences in lateralization are correlated with differences in performance.²⁰ This suggestion has been seized upon to explain women’s supposedly inferior mental achievements—and, as usual, has gotten front-page publicity in the newspapers, as in an article entitled “Why there are few female geniuses,” which appeared recently in a Boston newspaper.²¹

Rats from the same litter placed in different environments have measurable differences in brain anatomy and chemistry. Such a fact makes it difficult to attribute even differences in brain anatomy to genetic factors.

Differences in lateralization in boys’ and girls’ brains (if these results are correct) bring us back to the claims being made in the 1880’s of innate male-female differences in gross brain anatomy and their correlation with intellectual achievement and personality traits. Helen Hamilton Gardener’s objection to these claims is still valid today and is supported by other experiments which show that structural and functional differences in the brain may result from environmental influences. 

General Critique 

What conclusions can we draw from these studies? My various remarks give some of the basis for the statement, that there is at this time no credible scientific evidence that genetic basis exists for any socially significant human behavior trait (in the normal range) or for social forms in our society—and, of course, this includes male-female behavioral differences and sex-roles in our society. Claims to date of genetic bases for socially significant traits are either methodologically flawed or purely speculative. 

It is simply not possible to divide behavior into separate genetic and environmental components and to discuss them separately.

One might still ask: What about sex-differentiation of the brain? As I indicated above, on the basis of experiments on rodents, it has been anticipated that there will be some biological differences between male and female brains at the level of the hypothalamus, although less than once believed. If differences in lateralization in boys’ and girls’ brains exist, they may well be accompanied by measurable differences in the brain anatomy. (Parenthetically, I must add at this point that differences in the average performance between any groups based on race, class or sex, are usually small compared to differences between individuals of a given group. Thus, there is usually considerably overlap in abilities. It is rather manipulative use of statistics to explain, for example, sex-roles as being due to average differences between males and females, since in almost all traits there are a good number of females who score higher than most males and this great diversity is not at all reflected by the positions which males and females have in our society.) 

The question, then, is if biological differences exist, what is their significance? That is, to what extent are the differences due to genetic or to environmental determinants? In effect, we are back at the Nature-Nurture question which re-emerged with the claim made by Jensen and Herrnstein that the difference in mean IQ scores between races and classes was due to genetic factors. Some of the crucial data, that of Cyril Burt, on which Jensen and Herrnsteiil based their argument, has been shown to be fraudulent. But even if this were not the case, careful critiques show that the fundamental question which Jensen and Herrnstein raised is strictly meaningless scientifically.²² It is simply not possible to divide behavior into separate genetic and environmental components and to discuss them separately. 

The reason for this is that there is an extremely important part, called the genetic-environmental interaction, which makes such a division mathematically impossible. The following hypothetical example illustrates this point: Organism A with a particular set of genes (called genotype) performs better than organism B with a different genotype on some task in a particular environment. Let us assume that 80 percent of this difference is due to genetic factors. This does not mean that in every conceivable environment A will perform better than B. In another environment, A may well perform worse than B. In humans, many genes are expected to contribute to the expression of any single trait. We have no basis for assuming that the performance of all genotypes will vary in the same way with environment. This means that even if we could establish that the difference between two groups in the performance of a particular task was partially due to genetic differences, this result would only be meaningful with respect to the particular environment studied. It would tell us nothing about how either group would perform in another environment. 

Reports that boys’ and girls’ brains may be lateralized differently have been seized upon to explain women’s supposedly inferior achievements.

We now come to the more immediate methodological problem in the nature-nurture question which we posed earlier: What can we say about biological differences if they exist between two groups in our society? This methodological problem is illustrated by studies of rats conducted by M. Rosenzweig and colleagues and described in an article “Brain Changes In Response to Experience.”²³ Their experiments demonstrate that rats from the same litter, who are placed in environments which provide different experiences and stimulation, show measurable differences in brain anatomy and chemistry. The experimenters find, for example, that the rats in the “enriched” stimulative environment have thicker cerebral cortices than those from the “impoverished” environment. There are other changes as well, down to structural differences at the synaptic junctions where nerve cells make contact. 

The conclusion is that it is impossible to say anything about the genetic basis for differences observed between any two groups raised in different environments. Discovery of biological differences in brain function or differences in performance between two groups reared in different environments cannot be attributed to genetic differences between groups. There is, moreover, a good body of evidence that indicates that environments for boys and girls differ from the time that social interactions begin following birth. Just as in the case of the supposedly more biologically determinist theories which claim that differences in socially significant behavioral traits are genetically based, the suggestions that the fetal hormones organize the brain into male-female patterns which predispose the sexes to have certain “tendencies” or make them differentially sensitive to certain stimuli cannot be tested for humans. Under these circumstances, any attempt to perform these experiments is “bad” science. Moreover, all the observations for which this hypothesis has been invoked to explain can quite plausibly be explained by environmental factors, as critics of Money and Ehrhardt²⁴ and Patricia Draper²⁵ have pointed out.

Finally, we see that studying the genetic basis of human traits in any given environment tells us nothing about what the trait would be like in another environment—particularly, how plastic or resistant a trait will be to changes in the environment. We lack a general theory to make any predictions. Even though we do not have a general theory, however, there is very good evidence that we can proceed empirically to try to effect social change. In certain third world countries, the position of women has altered radically in the last few decades: in China, Cuba, and Vietnam, the position of women has improved dramatically; in parts of Africa, which are undergoing further penetration and development under the influence of Western capitalism, women’s position has deteriorated.²⁶ Such rapid changes, some for the better and some for the worse, are difficult to explain by biological determinism, since genetic changes are extremely slow. These changes are clearly correlated with rapid economic, political and social changes. We have every reason to believe that the creation of a just and equal society is humanly possible.

Acknowledgement: The analysis presented in this article is based in part on work done by the Women, Science and Social Control Collective. I am indebted to Marian Lowe for helpful discussions. 

>>  Back to Vol. 9, No. 4  <<

REFERENCES

1. R. Ardrey, African Genesis (Dell, 1961), The Territorial Imperative (Dell, 1966) and The Social Contract; K. Lorentz, On Aggression (Bantam, 1966); D. Morris, The Naked Ape (Dell, 1967) and The Human Zoo (Dell, 1969); L. Tiger, Men in Groups (Vintage, 1970); and L. Tiger and R. Fox, The Imperial Animal (Dell, 1971).
2. A. Montagu, ed., Man and Aggression (Oxford, 1968); D. Pilbeam, “The Fashionable View of Man as a Naked Ape,” in New York Times Magazine, September 3, 1972, p.11; S. Slocum, “Woman the Gatherer: Male Bias in Anthropology,” in Toward an Anthropology of Women, ed. R. Reiter (Monthly Review Press, 1975), p.36; and R.R. Leavitt, Peacable Primates and Gentle People (Harper and Row, 1975).
3. H. Witkin, et al., “Criminality in XYY and XXY Men,” Science, 193 (13 August 1976), p.547.
4. R. Bleier, “Myths of the Biological Inferiority of Women,” in The University of Michigan Papers in Women’s Studies, Vol. II (1976), p. 39.
5. R. Bleier, “Myths of the Biological Inferiority of Women,” in The University of Michigan Papers in Women’s Studies, Vol. II (1976), p. 39.
6. B. Chasin, “Sociobiology: A Sexist Synthesis” in Science for the People, 9 (May-June 1977), p. 27.
7. Notable American Women 1607-1950 (Harvard Press, 1971) Vol. II, p. 11.
8. J. Papey, “The Brain of Helen H. Gardener (Alice Chenoweth Day),” Amer. Jour. Phys. Anthrop. II (1) (1927), pp.29-88.
9. J.S. Haller and R.M. Haller, The Physician and Sexuality in Victorian America (Urbana, Ill., 1974) p. 50.
10. N.J. Block and G. Dworkin, “IQ, Heritability and Inequality,” in The IQ Controversy, ed. by N.J. Block and G. Dworkin (Pantheon, 1976), p. 461.
11. B. Deckard, The Women’s Movement (Harper and Row, 1975), Section “Anatomy is Destiny,” p. 15; E. Figes, Patriarchal Attitudes (Fawcett, 1970), Chapt. VI “Learning to be a Woman,” p. 133; K. Millet, Sexual Politics (Avon, 1971) Section “Freud and the Influence of Psychoanalytic Thought,” p. 176.
12. E.O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Harvard Univ. Press, 1975), p. 4.
13. J. Money and A. Ehrhardt, Man and Woman, Boy and Girl (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1972), p. 2.
14. Money and Ehrhardt, p. 245.
15. Patricia Draper, for references and critique see L. Lamphere, “Anthropology,” Signs, Vol. 2, No.3 (Spring 1977), pp. 614-615; A. Rossi, “A Biosocial Perspective on Parenting,” Daedalus, Spring 1977, pp. 1-31.
16. F.J. Karsch, D.J. Dierschke, and E. Knobil, “Sexual Differentiation of Pituitary Function: Apparent Difference Between Primates and Rodents,” Science 179, (1973), p.484.
17. The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves, 2nd ed., revised and expanded (Simon and Schuster, 1976), pp. 35-36.
18. M. Parlee, “The Premenstrual Syndrome,” in Beyond Sex Role Stereotypes, ed. A. Kaplan and J. Bean, (Little, Brown, 1976), p. 124.
19. For a discussion, see: N. Weisstein, “Psychology Constructs the Female” in Woman in Sexist Society, ed. V. Gornick and B. Moran (Basic, 1971), p. 207.
20. D. Kimura, “The Asymmetry of the Human Brain,” Scientific American, March 1973.
21. “Why There Are Few Female Geniuses.”Boston Herald American, February 23, 1977, Front page.
22. N.J. Block and G. Dworkin, ed., The IQ Controversy; S. Rose, The Conscious Brain, updated edition (Vintage, 1976); W. Bodmer and L. Cavalli-Sforza, “Intelligence and Race” in Scientific American, October 1970, p. 19.
23. M. Rosenzweig, E. Bennett and M. Diamond, “Brain Changes in Response to Experience” in Scientific American, February 1972.
24. R. Bleier, “Myths of the Biological Inferiority of Women,” in The University of Michigan Papers in Women’s Studies, Vol. II (1976), p. 39.
25. Patricia Draper, for references and critique see L. Lamphere, “Anthropology,” Signs, Vol. 2, No.3 (Spring 1977), pp. 614-615; A. Rossi, “A Biosocial Perspective on Parenting,” Daedalus, Spring 1977,pp.1-31.
26. E. Boserup, Woman’s Role in Economic Development (St. Martin’s, 1970) Chapt. 3 “Loss of Status under European Rule,” p.53; R.R. Leavitt “Women in Other Cultures” in Woman in Sexist Society, p. 393: B. Deckard, op. cit., Chapt. 9 “Women in Capitalist and Socialist Societies” p. 199.