Mankind has in it a crushing need to feel superior. This doesn't have to bother the very small minority who actually are superior, but it sure troubles the controlling majority who are not. If you can't be really good at anything, then the only way to be able to prove you are superior is to make someone else inferior. It is this rampaging need in humanity which has, since pre-history, driven a man to stand on the neck of his neighbor, a nation to enslave another, a race to tread on a race. But it is also what men have done to women.
Did they actually find them inferior to begin with, and learn from that to try to feel superior to other things outside-other races, religions, nationalities, occupations?
Or was it the other way around: did men make women inferior for the same reason they tried to dominate the outsider? Which is cause, which effect? (Theodore Sturgeon)

Mankind has in it a crushing need to feel superior. This doesn't have to bother the very small minority who actually are superior, but it sure troubles the controlling majority who are not. If you can't be really good at anything, then the only way to be able to prove you are superior is to make someone else inferior. It is this rampaging need in humanity which has, since pre-history, driven a man to stand on the neck of his neighbor, a nation to enslave another, a race to tread on a race. But it is also what men have done to women. Did they actually find them inferior to begin with, and learn from that to try to feel superior to other things outside-other races, religions, nationalities, occupations? Or was it the other way around: did men make women inferior for the same reason they tried to dominate the outsider? Which is cause, which effect?

Theodore Sturgeon

Related topics

able anything begin bother cause controlling crushing done dominate drive effect find good women humanity inferior men learn majority man mankind minority nation neck need neighbor outsider prove race reason small stand superior sure tread try way someone things rampaging

Related quotes