Woman's Voice

by Unknown

Woman’s Awakening

By Josephine Conger

(Editor “Home Life Magazine.” Formerly editor and publisher “The Progressive Woman.”)

She wrought, and the world wore on its back the cloth her nimble fingers wove.

And as she wrought her mind lay blank beneath the thick-coiled tresses of her hair,

For man had relegated to her that one task of weaving.

And while her mind lay blank, the rulers of the earth reached forth, and (clad in cloth she wove)

Built for them cities, kingdoms, empires, laws,

And ruled within them to their hearts’ content.

And Woman dreamed and wove, and dreamed and wove,

Monotonously for ages dreamed and wove, apparently content.

Then took the rulers of the earth from out her hands her weaving;

Left the Woman empty-handed in her home;

Gave her universal task to vast machines, to mills, to factories;

Took the dignity of social service from her hearth;

No longer in her handiwork was clad the world.

Then Woman sat in brooding silence, or she served,

Growing dark-browed in rebellion, the wheels that spun the cloth she erstwhile wove.

Served machines in mills and factories.

Then saw her children serve; the girl-child, tender, soft;

And the small boy who should have played in freedom with his kind.

And when she saw herself who once had clothed the world in dignity

Turned slave to whirring wheels, to harsh, unsympathetic steel and iron,

When the soft children of her mortal agony were murdered inch by inch and year by year

Before her eyes—when the Woman, bereft, defeated,

Or brooding at her task saw this,

No longer lay her mind asleep. No longer dreamed she

As when she sat beside her ancient tasks at home,

Her children playing near her in the sun.

Awaked the Woman then in every land where slavery to the harsh machine had come.

Awaked and brushed the cobwebs of tradition from her brain.

Spoke of the unfairness of the rulers in the busy marts.

Asked for place beside them in the making of the laws;

In their execution. Asked for justice for the race,

Including women and the children which they bear.

Awaked the Woman when the pressure of the system

Grew too heavy on her heart, and cried: “We must

Abolish this, O Brother Man;

Together you and I must build a better day, a universal humanhood, a superworld.”

Awaked the Woman, and the passion of her cry envelopes all the world today,

As once enveloped human kind the cloth she wove.