The Man‐Made World
We are proud and glad that our women are free to go unveiled, to travel alone, to choose their own husbands; we are proud and glad of every extension of justice already granted by men to women.
Now:—Have any of these concessions been granted because a
majority of women asked for them? Was it advanced in opposition to
any of them that “women did not want it?” Have as many women ever asked for these things as are now asking for the ballot? If it was desirable to grant these other rights and privileges without the demand of a majority, why is the demand of a majority required before this one is granted?
The child widows of India did not unitedly demand the abolition of
the “suttee.”
The tortured girl children of China did not rise in overwhelming majority to demand free feet; yet surely no one would refuse to lift these burdens because only a minority of progressive women
insisted on justice.
It is a sociological impossibility that a majority of an unorganized class should unite in concerted demand for a right, a duty, which they have never known.
The point to be decided is whether political equality is to the advantage of women and of the state—not whether either, as a body,
is asking for it.
Now for the “society” theory. There is a venerable fiction to the effect that women make—and manage, “society.” No careful student
of comparative history can hold this belief for a moment. Whatever
the conditions of the age or place; industrial, financial, religious, political, educational; these conditions are in the hands of men; and these conditions dictate the “society” of that age or place.
“Society” in a constitutional monarchy is one thing; in a primitive despotism another; among millionaires a third; but women do not make the despotism, the monarchy, or the millions. They take social conditions as provided by men, precisely as they take all other conditions at their hands. They do not even modify an existing society to their own interests, being powerless to do so. The “double standard of morals,” ruling everywhere in “society,” proves this; as does the comparative helplessness of women to enjoy even social 100
The Man‐Made World
entertainments, without the constant attendance and invitation of men.
Even in its great function of exhibition leading to marriage, it is the girls who are trained and exhibited, under closest surveillance; while the men stroll in and out, to chose at will, under no surveillance whatever.
That women, otherwise powerful, may use “society” to further their
ends, is as true as that men do; and in England, where women, through their titled and landed position, have always had more political power than here, “society” is a very useful vehicle for the activities of both sexes.
But, in the main, the opportunities of “society” to women, are merely opportunities to use their “feminine influence” in extra domestic lines—a very questionable advantage to the home and family, to motherhood, to women, or to the state.
In religion women have always filled and more than filled the place allowed them. Needless to say it was a low one. The power of the church, its whole management and emoluments, were always in the
hands of men, save when the Lady Abbess held her partial sway; but
the work of the church has always been helped by women—the men
have preached and the women practised!
Charity, as a vocation, is directly in line with the mother instinct, and has always appealed to women. Since we have learned how
injurious to true social development this mistaken kindness is, it might almost be classified as a morbid by‐product of suppressed femininity!
In passing we may note that charity as a virtue is ranked highest among those nations and religions where women are held lowest.
With the Moslems it is a universal law—and in the Moslem Paradise
there are no women—save the Houries!
The playground of a man‐fenced “society”; the work‐ground of a man‐taught church; and this “osmosis” of social nutrition, this leakage and seepage of values which should circulate normally, called charity; these are not a sufficient field for the activities of women.