quote for writing women, women's bodies

I mentioned it briefly in class, but the quote that stuck out to me most vividly was on page 375: "Aristotle, for instance, considered the sperm the active seed that gave identity to the passive ovum; he claimed that "the female is female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities" and should be viewed, therefore, as an "imperfect man".

It left me a bit confused; don't both men and women lack qualities of the other biological sex? Women can't impregnate themselves, sure, but men also cannot give birth. They are codependent on each other; how does this make either quality "lesser"?

I also wonder why women are often compared to land or soil when discussing their ability to bear children or not; women are not dirt that lays inanimate, doing nothing. They are living beings that have the ability to endure such a grueling process. This isn't even the first time I've thought about this, either; I'm sure most of us read "The Scarlet Letter" in high school. Nathaniel Hawthorne places Hester on infertile, barren land as a euphemism for her inability to have any more children.