Lester F. Ward (1841–1913), a pioneering scholar in biology and sociology, was a vocal advocate for first-wave feminism and “women’s liberation.” Like today’s difference feminists, he emphasized biological differences between the sexes and argued that women were the superior sex due to their greater evolutionary and reproductive value.
Sound familiar? It should, because it’s essentially the same gynocentric framework promoted in large parts of the manosphere today, which holds that “women are born with inherent value, and men less so.”
Ward is celebrated as a pioneering male feminist by historian Ann Taylor Allen,1 and Michael Kimmel classifies him as a feminist sociologist.2 Yet it’s not only today’s feminists who champion his ideas. All three waves of feminism embraced his gynocentric theory — or variations of it — as a triumph of scientific truth and as justification for women’s deserved special treatment.
Critics often claim that feminists have never believed in biology — that they’ve always championed blank-slate theory. In reality, feminists have consistently proven to be opportunists: they deny biology when it suits them, and more often appeal to it when convenient. For example, they readily highlight biological facts such as women’s greater vulnerability due to smaller average size, pregnancy, lactation, and menstruation as reasons why women deserve perpetual entitlements. Not to mention that many first-wave feminists openly championed biological gynocentrism (specifically using that term) as a justification for men to further pedestalize and protect women.
Lester Ward delivered his famous “Gynæcocentrism Theory” speech to an enthusiastic group of 1st wave feminists in the year 1888 – including Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Miss Phoebe Couzins, and many others well known.3 The title of the speech was Our Better Halves, and consisted of an elaborate claim that women were biologically superior to males due to their evolutionary and reproductive roles, and thus women were more important than males who were described as mere helpers in the evolutionary scheme.
Ward’s feminist audience rejoiced at his conclusions, which seemed to scientifically validate women’s preeminence at a time when such claims were widely doubted. According to historian Cynthia Davis, this scientific backing for female superiority “led conservatives to identify Darwin as modern feminism’s ‘originator,’ and Ward as its ‘prophet.’”4
First wave feminist Charlotte Perkins-Gilman (1860 – 1935) declared that Ward’s theory of gynocentrism was “the most important contribution to the woman question ever made.”4,5 Addressing doubters, she wrote: “You’ll have to swallow it. The female is the race type; the male is her assistant. It is established beyond peradventure.”6 While continuing to praise Ward’s theory as a brilliant contribution, Gilman went further, arguing that women were more evolutionarily advanced than men and were continuing to evolve at a faster rate.4
In his 1903 book Pure Sociology,7 Ward published a more lengthy chapter explaining his gynæcocentric theory. His theory travelled around the world and fomented feverish debates, as can be seen from this sample of articles published at the time:
- – ‘Gynæcocentricity’ Poem from the London Punch (1903)
- – The Evolution of Sex According to Lester F. Ward (1909)
- – The Future of Women – by D. M. N. (1909)
- – Ernest B. Bax Responds to Lester Ward’s ‘Gynocentric Theory’ (1909)
- – “The Evolution of Sex” – A Protest Against Ward’s Gynæcocentric Theory (1909)
- – The Book of Women’s Power – edited by Ida M. Tarbell (1911)
- – Woman and Gynæcocentric Social Progress – by S. Nearing (1912)
- – Ernest B. Bax: Examines Lester Ward’s ‘Gynœcocentric Theory’ Fallacy (1913)
- – Some Biological Aspects of Feminism – by R.E. Ryan (1914)
- – The Influence of Gynaecocentric Theory On Feminism – by C. Walsh (1917)
- – Race Motherhood: Is Woman The Original Human Race? – D. Montefiore (1920)
- – Book Review of D. Montefiore’s ‘Race Motherhood’ by D. M. N (1920)
- – ‘Gynocentric Theory’ in Colleges and Popular Culture, by M. M. Knight (1920)
- – The Foundations Of Feminism – by Avrom Barnett (1921)
- – The Lure of Superiority: ‘Gynæcocentric Feminism’ by W.F. Vaughan (1928)
Furthermore, Ward’s gynæcocentric theory was enthusiastically championed by Marxists, who saw it as scientific validation for elevating women’s rights. A 1909 article in the socialist newspaper Justice explained its importance this way:
“Why the statement of these theories is of such immense importance to Socialists is that the gynæcocentric theory is a striking corroboration of the correctness of the Marxian interpretation that the economic independence of women will be one of the most important phases of the Social Revolution.”
After tracing the origins of this theory, an obvious question arises: Do we really want to keep promoting these feminist-inspired ideas today?
Whatever one thinks of the scientific merits of Ward’s biological case for gynocentrism (there are none), the theory has flourished ever since — not only in feminist circles and parts of the men’s movement, but also within evolutionary psychology. The core claim remains the same: humans are a fundamentally gynocentric species, and men simply need to accept it.
Feminists naturally embrace this 135-year-old narrative, and they have led the way in embedding it into the canon of modern ideas. From my observations, those most invested in a gynocentric lifestyle, whether men or women, are its strongest defenders today.
For anyone wanting to check the scientific veracity of biological-gynocentrism theories, I can think of no better corpus than that of Peter Ryan; a researcher educated in molecular biology who has debunked all of the usual “scientific” appeals to gynocentrism as amounting to pseudoscience. You can read his article on Ward’s gynocentrism theory here, and his entire series of articles here.
While human relationships and wider culture can indeed tilt in a gynocentric direction, this does not mean it is a necessary evolutionary norm. The intense gynocentrism we see today is better understood as maladaptive behaviour — the result of novel cultural forces exploiting our existing biological potentials.
This scenario is analogous to a cellphone interfering with an airplane’s systems. We switch phones to flight mode precisely because we don’t want corrupted signals or dangerous novel reactions. The plane is not programmed to perform spinning cartwheels, yet the existing systems can still be disrupted enough to produce that outcome. In the same way, the claim that gynocentrism is hardwired in us as a “natural instinct” is misleading. It is more accurately viewed as a set of corrupting cultural forces acting on our biology to generate pathological, maladaptive responses.
This problem has been succinctly summarized by Hannah Wallen’s concept of the ‘Natural Gynocentrism Fallacy,‘ which refers to the belief that sexually mature women are the most important unit within the human species due to the role they play in reproduction – ie. it is a belief in which women are assumed to be more valuable to human society, and to human relationships, than are men, children and even the perpetuation of one’s genes. A corollary assumption is that women’s lives and wants should be prioritized over those of men and children.
The natural gynocentrism fallacy, according to Wallen, involves a denial of the fact that all adult humans, including women, are child-centric, gene-centric, and utilitarian toward that end. Thus the hypothesis that humans are a ‘gynocentric species’ amounts to a denial of women’s evolutionary value as an instrument of the child’s creation and protection, i.e., not because her gender is valued per se outside this utilitarian function. Wallen summarizes that gynocentrism is not a naturally occurring phenomenon, is not inevitable, and is something that can be corrected. She states that historical gynocentric attitudes that have been treated as “natural,” and thus as the reason why gynocentrism could never be eliminated, are false.
With the knowledge that biological theories of gynocentrism originated with first-wave feminists, we should at least pause to re-examine the assumptions we’ve absorbed about humans being a naturally gynocentric species.
Regardless of which side of the debate we ultimately land on, it’s long past time to reject this longstanding feminist dogma and stop treating it as settled truth — whether in the sciences, where it has lingered for well over a century, or in the manosphere, where it has taken root over the last 15 years.
References:
[3] Ward, L. F. Our Better Halves.
[4] Davis, C. (2010). Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Biography. Stanford University Press.
[5] Gilman, C. P. (1911). The Man-Made World; or. Our Androcentric Culture.
[6] Gilman, C. P. (1911). Moving the Mountain. Charlton Company.
[7] Ward, L. F. (1903). Pure sociology: A treatise on the origin and spontaneous development of society. Macmillan Company.