Woman free

by Ellis Ethelmer

LVII.

1.—“... in jealousy ...”

The male conceit and jealousy of sex, existent among the majority of meaner men, has been perceived and censured or satirised by higher masculine minds both in ancient and modern literature. To take a few scattered instances from the latter, Shakespeare says:—

“... however we do praise ourselves,

Our fancies are more giddy and infirm,

More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won

Than women’s are.”

—(“Twelfth Night,” Act II., Sc. 4.)

Goethe says pungently (in “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship”): “People ridicule learned women and dislike even women who are well informed, probably because it is considered impolite to put so many ignorant men to shame.”

As our own plain-spoken Sydney Smith has said, in his essay on Female Education:—“It is natural that men who are ignorant themselves, should view, with some degree of jealousy and alarm, any proposal for improving the education of women.”

A ludicrously pitiful modern-day instance of the jealous ignorance or ignorant jealousy to which Goethe and Sydney Smith make reference, is afforded by a seriously-written leading article in No. 545 of the Christian Commonwealth, a London weekly newspaper, under date of 24th March, 1892:—

“The Woman question will not down. She is asserting herself in every direction, and generally with considerable force. In America she is positively alarming the lords of creation by her rapid progress in educational matters. She is actually outrunning the men in the race for intellectual attainments. And this fact is becoming so evident, and so prominent, that a new problem is being evolved from it. This is, how are the finely educated young women of America to find congenial husbands? It is assumed by some writers that already there is a great disparity between the culture of the young men and young women, and that every year the chasm between them is becoming deeper and wider. This is a truly lamentable state of things, but the woman movement in this country is likely to take a more practical course. The agitation of the question of Woman Suffrage may bring about a reaction against her excessive culture. If woman is permitted to enter the cesspool of politics, it is probable she will not be very long distressed with an overplus of those qualities which are just now endangering her conjugal felicity in the United States....”

It is refreshing and consolatory to revert from such verbiage to what Sir Humphrey Davy said (“Lectures, 1810 and 1811”): “It has been too much the custom to endeavour to attach ridicule to the literary and scientific acquisitions of women. Let them make it disgraceful for men to be ignorant, and ignorance will perish.”

To Shakespeare and Goethe may be added the corroboration of French intellect:—

“N’est-il pas évident que Molière, dans ses Femmes Savantes n’a pas attaqué l’instruction, l’étude, mais le pédantisme, comme, dans son Tartuffe, il avait attaqué non la vraie dévotion, mais l’hypocrisie? N’est-ce pas Molière lui-même qui a écrit ce beau vers: “Et je veux qu’une femme ait des clartés de tout?”—Monseigneur Dupanloup, Evêque d’Orléans (“Femmes Savantes et Femmes Studieuses,” 1868, p. 8).

“C’est à Condorcet et non pas à Jean Jacques, comme on le croit généralement, qu’appartient l’initiative des réformes proposées dans l’éducation et la condition des femmes.”—Daniel Stern (“Hist. de la Révolution de 1848,” Vol. II, p. 185).

“Quand la loi française”—(shall we not say also every other?)—“déclare la femme inférieure à l’homme ce n’est jamais pour libérer la femme d’un devoir vis-à-vis de l’homme ou de la société, c’est pour armer l’homme ou la société d’un droit de plus contre elle. Il n’est jamais venu à l’idée de la loi de tenir compte de la faiblesse de la femme dans les différents délits qu’elle peut commettre; au contraire, la loi en abuse.”—A. Dumas fils (“Les Femmes qui Tuent,” etc., p. 204).

Mill says:—“There is nothing which men so easily learn as this self-worship; all privileged persons, and all privileged classes have had it.” And he also speaks of a time—“when satires on women were in vogue, and men thought it a clever thing to insult women for being what men made them.”—(“Subjection of Women,” pp. 76, 77).

We have seen (Note XLV., 5) how Professor Huxley postulates scientific training equally for girls and boys; he has also said:—“Emancipate girls. Recognise the fact that they share the senses, perceptions, feelings, reasoning powers, emotions of boys, and that the mind of the average girl is less different from that of the average boy, than the mind of one boy is from that of another; so that whatever argument justifies a given education for all boys, justifies its application to girls as well.”—(“Emancipation, Black and White.”)

Balzac asserted: “A woman who has received a masculine education possesses the most brilliant and fertile qualities, with which to secure the happiness of her husband and herself.”—(“Physiologie du Mariage,” Méditation XI.).

But the instances are innumerable where the intellect of higher men expressly or unconsciously rebukes the jealous sexual conceit of their less intelligent brethren. Dr. Bonavia says, very tersely:—“The fact is, many men don’t like the idea of being surpassed or even equalled by women. They stupidly feel their dignity wounded. This jealousy, however, is not only extremely contemptible and unjust, but disastrous to the true interests of the race, for men have mothers as well as women, and imbecility—the result of atrophied frontal lobes—is just as likely to be transmitted to the one sex as to the other, as far as we yet know. Just see the injustice of men’s jealousy in matters of intellect. Only recently the talent of Miss Ormerod—an entomologist who can hold her own anywhere on earth—was kept under by the Royal Agricultural Society. She did the entomological work, and made the discoveries, while they took the credit. In their reports they did not even mention her name in connection with her own work!—A more contemptible proceeding, it would appear, has never been brought to light, in the struggle of the sexes, if that case has been correctly reported.”—(“Woman’s Frontal Lobes.”)

Bebel treats this jealousy with a fine irony in his exposition of “the motives which induce most medical professors, and indeed the professors of every faculty, to oppose women students:”—“They regard the admission of women as synonymous with the degradation of science (!) which could not but lose its prestige in the eyes of the enlightened (!) multitude if it appeared that the female brain was capable of grasping problems which had hitherto only been revealed to the elect of the opposite sex.”—(Op. cit., p. 132.)

Had Bebel recorded masculine mercenary considerations, rather than sham misgivings as to the interests of science, his sarcasm would have been very grim truth. Indeed, what is sometimes called the “loaves and fishes” argument is at the root of most of this masculine jealousy which cloaks itself under a pretension of tender consideration for woman’s delicacy. To cite Bebel again: “Another objection is that it is unseemly to admit women to medical lectures, to operations, and deliveries, side by side with male students. If men see nothing indecent in studying and examining female patients in the presence of nurses and other female patients, it is difficult to understand why it should become so through the presence of female students.”—(Op. cit., p. 132.) And as to the actual fitness of women for exercising the profession of medicine or surgery:—

“‘Women always improve when the men begin to show signs of failing,’ were the words of a distinguished physician and surgeon, who had seen years of service on a remote wintry station of the army. ‘I have had fellows brought to me to have the leg amputated—perhaps both—close to the body, and never anywhere in Paris, London, or New York, saw I better surgeon’s assistants than some of our women made, especially the Sisters of Charity, of whom we had a few at the post, for three or four years. Heads as clear as a silver bell; hands steady and unshrinking as a granite rock, yet with a touch as light as a spring leaf; foot quick and indefatigable, whether the time was noonday or midnight; memory perfect; tenderness for the sufferer unfailing. Talk about love, courage, fortitude, and endurance in your sex! I tell you,’ he added, with a needless affirmation at this point, ‘they seem to be nothing else, when these are most wanted, and the man who doubts them is an ass.’”—Eliza W. Farnham (“Woman and Her Era,” Vol. II., p. 157). See also Note XXIX., 8.

Id. ... Here may fittingly follow the report of a trained masculine judgment as to woman’s ability in yet a further profession—that of the law:—

At the recent opening of the Southern California College of Law, at Los Angeles, John W. Mitchell, the president, in his lecture upon “The Study of the Law,” spoke of the utility of women studying law, in the following language:—

“This part of this discourse it is believed would be radically incomplete without calling attention to one other and particular class of persons who need an insight into the rudiments of law—which class, it seems, has also been neglected by those occupying a like position to my own—I mean the women. He is, indeed, blind to the signs of the times who does not recognise the expanding field of women’s work, and their increased influence in the professions as well as in the fine arts. That women are entering the lists with men, in behalf of themselves and womankind, is well; for they must make up their minds to take up the task of urging the reforms they need, and must solve the woman problem in all its bearings. Women are doing this. They are becoming competitors with men in the pursuits of life, it is true; but it is as much from necessity as choice. But it is not only the women who have to labour and earn their own living who need legal knowledge to aid them. It is more needful to the woman of property, be her possessions but an humble home or a colossal fortune; whether she be married or single. Women want this experience to make them cautious of jeopardising their rights, and less confiding in business matters. The courts are full of cases showing how women have been wrongly stripped of their belongings. And, perhaps, if one woman had known the legal effect of some of her acts, one of the largest fortunes ever amassed in this State of Crœsus-like wealth would not have been carried to distant States, and there scandalously distributed amongst scheming adventurers and lawyers, making a little Massachusetts county-seat the theatre of one of the most remarkable contests for a fortune in the whole annals of probate court law.

“As to the professions: women were for a long time barred from them, but now the barriers to all of them have been removed, and there is not a profession in which women are not distinguished. They have graduated in the sciences from most universities with the highest honours, and have stood the same tests as the men. The law was about the last to admit them within its precincts, and there they are meeting with an unexpected measure of success. Not only in this, but in other countries, there are successful women practitioners. And in France, where the preparatory course is most arduous, and the term of study longest, a woman recently took the highest rank over 500 men in her graduating examinations, and during the whole six years of class study she only lost one day from her work—an example that is commended to you students. Undoubtedly, the weight of the argument is in favour of women studying law.”—(Women’s Journal, Boston, U.S., 6th February, 1892.)

Id.... Even the vaunted politeness and gallantry of the Frenchman is not proof against the far more deeply-bedded masculine jealousy. M. de Blowitz, the erudite correspondent at Paris of the Times, reports that—

“The law students yesterday hooted down Mdlle. Jeanne Chauvin, 28 years of age, who was to have argued a thesis for a legal degree. She had chosen as her theme, ‘The Professions accessible to Women and the Historical Evolution of the Economic Position of Woman in Society.’ The uproar was such that the examiner postponed the ceremony sine die. Mdlle. Chauvin is the first Frenchwoman who has sought a legal degree, but two years ago a Roumanian lady went through the ordeal without obstruction.”—(The Times, July 4, 1892.)

To revert to the “loaves and fishes” argument, an incident now to be given will show that medicine and the law are not the only professions in which the objections to the equal status of the sexes are largely prompted by a “jalousie de métier” of a selfish and mercenary character:—

“The following letters have been received at Auckland from the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in relation to the memorial lately sent from New Zealand in favour of the opening of degrees to women:—

“‘Dear Professor Aldis,

“‘Your very interesting memorial reached me yesterday. I still await the explanatory letter and analysis. After receiving I will write again.

“‘Yours etc.,

John Peile,

Vice-Chancellor.

Christ’s College Lodge,

‘Cambridge, Nov. 2nd, 1891.’

“‘My Dear Professor Aldis,

“‘The petition of the memorial received by me from Miss Lilian Edger and yourself, respecting degrees for women at the University of Cambridge, and the analysis of the signatures to that memorial, have been printed by me in the University Reporter, the official organ of communication of any kind of business to the members of the Senate. The memorial itself will be preserved in the Registry of the University. Immediate action on this question by the Council of the Senate—the body, with which, as you are aware, all legislation in the University must begin—is not probable. The question was raised about three years ago; and it became at once plain that, if persevered in, it would produce a very serious division in the ranks of those members of the University who had all shown themselves, in the past, friends to the highest education of women. Many of those who had earnestly supported the admission of women to Tripos examinations, would not support their admission to the B.A. degree. Into their—mostly practical—reasons I cannot fully enter: One was the belief that admission to B.A. must lead, in the end (in spite of any provisions which might be introduced), to admission to M.A., and consequently to a share in the management of the University; it was also apprehended that difficulties would arise in the several colleges with respect to fellowships, etc. I do not mention these difficulties as insuperable. But they are felt by so many that there is, I am persuaded, no prospect of successful action in this matter at the present time. I shall, therefore, not myself propose anything in the Council, nor so far has any other of the friends of women’s education, of whom there are many on the Council, given notice of any motion. At any future time, when such a motion is made, your most influential memorial will certainly have its due weight with the members of the Council, and if they decide to take action, I hope also, with members of the Senate.

“‘I am, etc.,

John Peile,

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

Christ’s College Lodge,

Cambridge, Nov. 20th, 1891.’”

—(New Zealand Herald, 5th Jan., 1892.)

6.—“... potency ...”

“The Brain is different from all other organs of the body. It is often a mass of structural potentialities rather than of fully-developed nerve tissues. Some of its elements, viz., those concerned with best-established instinctive operations, naturally go on to their full development without the aid of extrinsic stimuli; others, however, and large tracts of these, seem to progress to such developments only under the influence of suitable stimuli. Hence natural aptitudes and potencies of the most subtle order may never be manifested by multitudes of persons, for want of the proper stimuli and practice capable of perfecting the development and functional activity of those regions of the brain whose action is inseparably related to the mental phenomena in question.”—Dr. H. C. Bastian (“The Brain as an Organ of Mind,” p. 374).