MODERN TYPES.
(By Mr. Punch's Own Type-Writer.)
No. VI.—THE POLITICAL WOMAN.
The Political Woman is one upon whom, if she may be believed, the world has never smiled. She avenges herself by recounting her wrongs and those of her sex to all who can be induced to listen to her. In early youth she will have taught herself by a superficial study of political history that all great movements have depended for their success upon Women, and that men, though they may ride on the whirlwind have had but little hand in directing the storm. The base ingratitude which has hitherto attended feminine effort in general, has aroused in her breast a quite particular and personal resentment against all men who have the misfortune to disagree with her. Hence it comes that the males who bask in the sunshine of her approval are but few. It is noticeable, that although she openly despises men, she makes herself, and wishes to make her fellow women as masculine as is compatible with the wearing of petticoats, and the cultivation of habitual inaccuracy of mind. Moreover, although she has a fine contempt, of which she makes no concealment, for most women, she selects as the associates of her political enterprises and her daily life, only those men whose cast of mind would suit better with the wearing of gowns than of trousers.
The Political Woman is far removed from the ordinary members of Primrose Leagues and Women's Federations, with whom the country abounds. Her over-mastering political appetite would find no satisfaction in the mere wearing of badges, the distribution of blankets, the passing of common-place resolutions, or the fearful joy of knowing a secret password and countersign. Such trifles are, in her opinion, mere whets for the political banquet. For herself she requires far stronger meat. From the fact, that the race of women is in physical energy inferior to that of men, she has apparently deduced as an axiom, that nature intended them to be equal in every respect. Few women agree with her, fewer still show any desire for the supposed boons to the attainment of which she is constantly urging them. Yet, the knowledge of these facts only seems to render the Political Woman more determined in the prosecution of her quest, and more bitter in her attacks upon men.
At school the Political Woman will have been highly thought of as a writer of vigorous essays, in which unconventional opinions were expressed, in ungrammatical language. She will have formed a Debating Society amongst her fellow-pupils, and, having caused herself to be elected perpetual President, she will leave the Presidential arm-chair at the beginning of every debate, in order to demolish by anticipation all who may venture to speak after her. She will play various kinds of music upon the piano with a uniform vigour that would serve well for the beating of carpets, and will express much scorn for the feeble beings who use the soft pedal, or indulge in the luxury of a "touch."
Having left school with an ill-assorted mass of miscellaneous knowledge, she will show her contempt for ordinary feminine accomplishments by refusing to attend dances, and by crushing mild young men whom misfortune may have thrown in her way. Having discovered from one of these that he imagines the Rebecca Riots to be an incident of Old Testament History, and has no definite views upon the currency question, she will observe, in a tone of some bitterness, that "These are our Governors!" and, having left him in a state of collapse, will scale the ramparts of political discussion, in company with a Professor, who happens to be unmarried and a Member of Parliament. After making love for some months, by means of an interchange of political tracts, these two will be married in a registrar's office, and will spend their honeymoon in investigating the social requirements of Italian organ-grinders.
From this moment she exists chiefly as a Member or President of innumerable Committees. No sooner does the shadow of a political idea flit through her brain, than she forms a Committee to promote its development. When not engaged in forming or in sitting upon Committees, she occupies herself in delivering lectures "to Women only," or in discussing the Woman's Suffrage question with the Member of Parliament for her district (whom she despises) by means of letters, which she subsequently publishes in the journal of which she is, by this time, the proprietor, editor, and staff combined.
In a regrettable moment of absent-mindedness she bore to the Professor a son, whom she brings up on Spartan principles, and little else. Her home is a centre of slatternly discomfort. She rises early, but, having locked herself into her study, for the better composition of a discourse on "The Sacred Right of Revolt for Women," she forgets that both the tea and the coffee are locked in with her, and learns subsequently with surprise, but without regret, that her husband drank water to his breakfast. She then proceeds to regenerate the working-man, by proving to him, that his wife is a miserable creature for submitting to his sway, and rouses an audience of spectacled enthusiasts to frenzy by proclaiming, that she is ready to lead them to the tented field for the assertion of rights which the malignity of men has filched from them. Later on, she presides over her various Committees, and she returns home to find that her child has burnt himself by falling on to the dining-room fire, and that her cook has given warning.
She will eventually fail to be elected a member of the School Board, and having written a strong book on a delicate social question, will die of the shock of seeing it adversely reviewed in The Spectator.