Woman Between Islam and Western Society
3. Western Woman
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mothering skills are mostly learned, it is a fact that
if animals are raised in isolation and then put in a
room with the young of the species, it is the females
who go to the infants and take care of them.
“Perhaps the known biological differences can be
totally overcome, and society can approach a state
in which a person’s sex is of no consequence for any
significant activity except child bearing,” admits
Jerome Kagan.”But we must ask if such a society
will be satisfying its members.” As Kagan sees it,
“complementarity” is what makes relationships
stable and pleasurable.
Psychoanalyst Martin Symonds agreed. “The basic
reason why unisex must fail is that in the sexual act
itself, the man has to be assertive, if tenderly, and
the woman has to be receptive. What gives trouble
is when men see assertiveness as aggression and
women see receptiveness as submission.” Unisex,
he sums up, would be “a disaster” because children
need roles to identify with and rebel against. ‘You
can’t identify with a blur. A Unisex world would be
frictionless environment in which nobody would be
able to grow up.”
