A claim constantly made about artistic women is that they are arrogant, hypersensitive, immoral and insane. It is time that someone address this.

The claim about sensitivity is correct. There is a good reason for this. They need to be sensitive in order to produce what they produce. It is not a bug, it is a feature. The same quality makes them exceptionally good at nurturing life, and they become
excellent both as lovers and as mothers.

The claim about arrogance is incorrect. I have known many more arrogant doctors and engineers than I have known arrogant artists. Many doctors think that they are better than everyone else because they finished medical school. Many engineers think that
they are the only hard-working and rational people in the world, and that everyone else is lazy, stupid or insane. I have known construction workers who thought that only their work mattered and that everyone else was a parasite. I have known military
people who thought that they were the only real men in the world. I have known no artist who thought that only art mattered. Which means that the claim that they are more arrogant than the average person is wrong.

The claim about insanity is also incorrect. In order to make an original contribution you need to think in original ways. And a person who thinks in original ways will always have someone describing her as a lunatic. Everything that we have started out
as an original idea, and original ideas happen in minds that think in original ways. These, once again, will always have someone considering them to be crazy; but we owe such people a great deal.

The claim about immorality is also wrong. I have seen such women putting up with severe mistreatment in order that their children have advantages and opportunities. I have seen such women doing difficult and courageous things in order to fight for well-
being for people from whom they had nothing to expect in return. I have seen such women make vast sacrifices for the sake of other people, including people who were bad to them. The ones I have known were not less ethical than the average person; they
were more ethical than the average person. Some of them could be described as heroic.

I have been with several women artists, and they were amazing as partners. The sensitivity that they needed to produce art made them sensitive also to my needs, and they excelled at addressing them. The originality of thinking that many people used to
regard them insane made it possible for them to work with complex concepts and come up with interesting and valuable ideas. I did not find them to be more arrogant or more immoral than the average person; in many cases they had more compassion than did
the average person and had better values.

It is time that such women be appreciated and get respect.

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