《論語•陽貨》「唯女子與小人為難養也」這句話，頗令宋代以來的經學家和今日的儒家學者頭疼，不曉得要怎麼說，才能為孔子多少疏脫一些歧視婦女之嫌疑。可惜他們所循的途徑不外是文字更正、文義重詁和訴諸時代背景等三種。本文認為：如果從思考方式下手，回到中國古代的「常性思考」去，這句話根本就不會引起這些問題，更不必費心思為孔子另作辯護。所謂「常性思考」，就是以事物之「通常的」或「經常的」陰陽狀態（氣象、氣質、氣勢、形勢）作為事物之「天性」或「本性」的思考方式。而所謂「常」，是就事物之「自然韻律狀態」或「正常韻律狀態」而言的，與我們今日從西方學來的所謂「必然的本質」或者「或然的結果」無關，而是與「一陰一陽之調和變化方式」有關。萬事萬物不外就是這「一陰一陽之調和變化方式」之不同形式而已。「女子」這種「物」，就是因為「稟陰閉氣多，故其意淺促閉著」，結果跟小人一樣
，近之則承狎而不遜順，而遠之則生不己愛之怨恨，不好畜養。但這句評語乃是一種「倒三角形話語」，「頭放尾收」，旨在指點一種「千古不易」的道理，以便人因應自省自修，不再陷於氣性泥淖之中。至於個別「女子」之是否「好養」，這還得看其天生氣質是否特別中和秀異和是否經過特別修養，懂得應對進退之分寸而定。一般來講，「女子」同「小人」一樣「難養」。這是「常性」問題，與歧視婦女無關。

The sentence ' Only women and petty men are difficult to be reared ' in The Analects of Confucius has been so problematic and controversial to the
Confucian scholars since Song Dynasty that it was handled inappropriately and apologetically by the following three approaches: text correction, text reinterpretation, and appealing to the customs of the era. In this paper, we suggest rather to handle it by the way of the traditional ‘
natural-generality-thinking.’ （常性思考）If doing so, this sentence would be problematic no more.What is called ' natural-generality-thinking ' is that those generally appeared yin-yang stylistic rhythms are taken as the ‘ natural and normal ’ nature of things. They are not the same as the ' necessary essence ' or ' probable result ' of things, which is characteristic of Western mode of thinking about the nature of things.In traditional Chinese thought, ' woman ' as one of the things in the world is characteristically ‘ mostly yin in its natural disposition therefore always being shallow-minded and closed-minded. ’ Because of this, ‘ woman ’ is similar to ‘petty man ’ in that they will not be humble when being closed to a gentleman,and will complain when being kept at arm’s length by a gentleman.This commentary sentence is in fact a kind of ‘ upside-down triangular discourse,’ with indeterminacy upside and determinacy downside, aiming at showing a kind of ‘ generally right ’ proper way of conduct, and is convenient for people to self-reflect and self-cultivate. This does not mean all the women in the world must be difficult to be reared. Whether an individual woman would be so is just a problem of ‘natural-generality, ’ not a problem of women discrimination.