But a woman can hardly take this impersonal
attitude; and this makes women both more and less effective,
because human beings invariably prefer to be dealt with
dispassionately; and this is as a rule more difficult for women;
and thus in a complicated matter affecting conduct, a woman as a
rule forms a sounder judgment on what has actually occurred than a
man, and is perhaps more likely to take a severe view. The attitude
of a Galileo is often a useful one for a teacher, because boys and
girls ought in matters that concern themselves to learn how to
govern themselves.
Thus in situations involving relation with others women are more
liable to feel anxiety and the pressure of personal responsibility;
and the question is to what extent this ought to be indulged, in
what degree men and women ought to assume the direction of other
lives, and whether it is wholesome for the director to allow a
desire for personal dominance to be substituted for more
spontaneous motives.
It very often happens that the temperaments which most claim help
and support are actuated by the egotistical desire to find
themselves interesting to others, while those who willingly assume
the direction of other lives are attracted more by the sense of
power than by genuine sympathy.
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