The Man‐Made World
Our trouble is that we have not recognized these human functions as such; but supposed them to be exclusively masculine; and, acting under that idea, strove to prevent women from an unnatural imitation of men.
Hence this minor theory of the limitations of the “female mind.”
The mind is pre‐eminently human. That degree of brain
development which distinguishes our species, is a human, not a sex
characteristic.
There may be, has been, and still is, a vast difference in our treatment of the minds of the two sexes. We have given them a different education, different exercises, different conditions in all ways. But all these differences are external, and their effect disappears with them.
The “female mind” has proven its identical capacity with the “male
mind,” in so far as it has been given identical conditions. It will take a long time, however, before conditions are so identical, for successive generations, as to give the “female mind” a fair chance.
In the meantime, considering its traditional, educational and associative drawbacks, the “female mind” has made a remarkably good showing.
The field of politics is an unfortunate one in which to urge this alleged limitation; because politics is one of the few fields in which some women have been reared and exercised under equal conditions
with men.
We have had queens as long as we have had kings, perhaps longer;
and history does not show the male mind, in kings, to have manifested a numerically proportionate superiority over the female mind, in queens. There have been more kings than queens, but have
there been more good and great ones, in proportion?
Even one practical and efficient queen is proof enough that being a woman does not preclude political capacity. Since England has had
such an able queen for so long, and that within Mrs. Humphry Ward‘s personal memory, her position seems fatuous in the extreme.
It has been advanced that great queens owed their power to the association and advice of the noble and high‐minded men who 103
The Man‐Made World
surrounded them; and, further, that the poor showing made by many kings, was due to the association and vice of the base and low-minded women who surrounded them.
This is a particularly pusillanimous claim in the first place; is not provable in the second place; and, if it were true, opens up a very pretty field of study in the third place. It would seem to prove, if it proves anything, that men are not fit to be trusted with political power on account of an alarming affinity for the worst of women; and, conversely, that women, as commanding the assistance of the best of men, are visibly the right rulers! Also it opens a pleasant sidelight on that oft‐recommended tool—“feminine influence.”
We now come to our opening objection; that society and state, home, and family, are best served by the present division of interests: and its corollary, that if women enlarge that field of interest it would reduce their usefulness in their present sphere.
The corollary is easily removed. We are now on the broad ground of
established facts; of history, recent, but still achieved.
Women have had equal political rights with men in several places, for considerable periods of time. In Wyoming, to come near home, they have enjoyed this status for more than a generation. Neither here nor in any other state or country where women vote, is there the faintest proof of injury to the home or family relation. In Wyoming, indeed, divorce has decreased, while gaining so fast in other places.
Political knowledge, political interest, does not take up more time and strength than any other form of mental activity; nor does it preclude a keen efficiency in other lines; and as for the actual time required to perform the average duties of citizenship—it is a contemptible bit of trickery in argument, if not mere ignorance and confusion of idea, to urge the occasional attendance on political meetings, or the annual or bi‐annual dropping of a ballot, as any interference with the management of a house.
It is proven, by years on years of established experience, that women can enjoy full political equality and use their power, without in the least ceasing to be contented and efficient wives and mothers, cooks and housekeepers.