In the irrational trial and error method by which our human institutions have been developed, the logical expectation would be that the great physiological sex difference in reproductive function would probably influence vocational activities just as it has done. We find in the traditional division of labor between the sexes exactly what we should expect to find, even though there were an identity of intellectual abilities and interests. It seems both psychologically and socially desirable that the one incontestable conditioning factor in the vocational differentiation of men and women be raised clearly to consciousness, rather than submerged, as in the past, by an elaborate system of defense mechanisms and traditional devices of social control. It would be going afield from the immediate purpose of this chapter to offer constructive suggestions for such changes in economic and domestic management as might be necessary to overcome this conditioning factor, and thus to give free vocational opportunity to both sexes alike. To effect these changes in such a way that the maximum social betterment may be achieved thereby will be a task not simple but complex. It will call for the best thought and the most enlightened effort of which we are capable, and will be accomplished only with the passing of years and decades.
The essential thing at present is to know whether any basis for future action may now be found in the established facts of human nature. In the present state of scientific knowledge it would be as dogmatic (and therefore as undesirable) to state that significant sex differences in intellect do not exist, as to state that such differences do exist. All we can say is that up to the present time experimental psychology has disclosed no sex differences in mental traits which would imply a division of labor on psychological grounds. The social gain would be very great if the public could be brought to recognize intelligently that to many of the questions regarding the vocational aptitudes of women no definite answers can at present be given, because the necessary data for the formulation of answers have never been collected. So far as is at present known, women are as competent intellectually as men are, to undertake any and all human vocations.