File 5 - Role of women in society.

Publication from the American Eugenics Party (AEP) on their stance on the role of women in society. The AEP suggest that women are "deviating from their proper role in society" and that the demands of feminism were more than necessary to correct any injustices imposed on women. The AEP proposes women are not exact equals or complete opposites of men, but that “similarities”, “compliments”, and “opposites” in mental faculties exist. As such, the AEP argue the correct role of women in society is one where women’s complimentary mental faculties help men do “inventive” work that advances society while women’s opposite mental differences make them “more important in the home”.

To support their arguments about the differences between men and women, the AEP list several pseudo-scientific claims about women having smaller brains and lower IQs. The AEP also suggest women possess a “soft-on-negroes instinct” which leads to integration in society, and that genetic mixing is rampant among white women and Black men. In addition to helping “cause dysgenics and socialism”, the AEP suggests that equal roles for women in society will lead to an increase in mental illness and suicides in women, traffic accidents, and “disharmonies” and “unhappiness” in the family. The AEP concludes that their approach to the role of women in society is the balanced middle ground between the two extremes, “equalitarian” and “over-dependent”.