The Man‐Made World
As for those limitations of the “feminine mind” which render her unfit to consider the victuallage of a nation, or the justice of a tax on sugar; it hardly seems as if the charge need be taken seriously. Yet so able a woman as Mrs. Humphry Ward has recently advanced it in all
earnestness.
In her view women are capable of handling municipal, but not state
affairs. Since even this was once denied them; and since, in England, they have had municipal suffrage for some time; it would seem as if their abilities grew with use, as most abilities do; which is in truth the real answer.
Most women spend their whole lives, and have spent their whole lives for uncounted generations, in the persistent and exclusive contemplation of their own family affairs. They are near‐sighted, or near‐minded, rather; the trouble is not with the nature of their minds, but with the use of them.
If men as a class had been exclusively confined to the occupation of house‐service since history began, they would be similarly unlikely to manifest an acute political intelligence.
We may agree with Tennyson that “Woman is not undeveloped
man, but diverse;” that is women are not undeveloped men; but the feminine half of humanity is undeveloped human. They have
exercised their feminine functions, but not their human‐functions; at least not to their full extent.
Here appears a distinction which needs to be widely appreciated.
We are not merely male and female—all animals are that—our chief
distinction is that of race, our humanness.
Male characteristics we share with all males, bird and beast; female characteristics we share with all females, similarly; but human characteristics belong to genus homo alone; and are possessed by both sexes. A female horse is just as much a horse as a male of her species; a female human being is just as human as the male of her species—or ought to be!
In the special functions and relations of sex there is no contest, no possible rivalry or confusion; but in the general functions of humanity there is great misunderstanding.