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Preformationism," Gould says he learned in school, "was a nonsensical doctrine espoused by men who could not bear to give up the dream of a static world order ruled by an omnipotent God--and who therefore could not admit the plain evidence of their senses when watching the development of the chick in the egg."
This is a principle which the materialisms, pangenesis and preformationism, do not comprehend.
Aristotle will have more arguments to offer in book 2 against preformationism, the view that an animalcule or homunculus is transferred from the father and planted in the mother's body, with her functions being strictly incubation and feeding.(23) His mention of it at this point (722b5), however, permits us to note that preformationism had been employed in Greek cultural life to deny women any role in generation, and consequently to deny them any significant connection with their children and any connection of their children with them.
Aristotle's opposition to preformationism is not founded on the grounds that it demeans women's part in generation.
Some of Aristotle's feminist critics have misread him on this fundamental issue, mistaking Aristotle's theory for a version of preformationism, and hence they have assigned to him the sexist consequences of that theory.
Recall that he rejected preformationism on just such grounds: How could the father's body supply the sex-specific body parts for female offspring?