Why can't a woman be more like a man? A Renaissance perspective on the biological basis for female inferiority

Western biomedical theory supported the idea of human female inferiority. The Aristotelian formulation was: Nature intends to produce the perfect male form with external genitalia; the female with internal genitalia is less than perfect and thus a defect of nature. In the Renaissance, peripubertal virilization in females was interpreted as further evidence that females were ''defective'' males capable of developing into the more perfect male form.