The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage

by Almroth Wright

¹ This is a question on which Mill (vide Subjection of Women ,
last third of Chapter I) has endeavoured to confuse the issues
for his reader, first, by representing that by no possibility can
man know anything of the "nature," i.e. , of the "secondary
sexual characters" of woman; and, secondly, by distracting at-
tention from the fact that "acquired characters" may produce
unfitness for the suffrage. 81

The primordial argument against giving
woman the vote is that that vote would not
represent physical force.
Now it is by physical force alone and by
prestige--which represents physical force in
the background--that a nation protects itself
against foreign interference, upholds its rule
over subject populations, and enforces its own
laws. And nothing could in the end more cer-
tainly lead to war and revolt than the decline
of the military spirit and loss of prestige which
would inevitably follow if man admitted
woman into political co-partnership.
While it is arguable that such a partnership
with woman in government as obtains in Aus-
tralia and New Zealand is sufficiently unreal
to be endurable, there cannot be two opinions
on the question that a virile and imperial race
will not brook any attempt at forcible control
by women.
Again, no military foreign nation or native
race would ever believe in the stamina and 82
firmness of purpose of any nation that submit-
ted even to the semblance of such control.
The internal equilibrium of the State also
would be endangered by the admission to the
register of millions of electors whose vote would
not be endorsed by the authority of physical
force.
Regarded from this point of view a
Woman's Suffrage measure stands on an ab-
solutely different basis to any other extension
of the suffrage. An extension which takes in
more men--whatever else it may do--makes
for stability in the respect that it makes the
decrees of the legislature more irresistible.
An extension which takes in any women
undermines the physical sanction of the
laws.
We can see indications of the evil that would
follow such an event in the profound dissatis-
faction which is felt when--in violation of the
democratic principle that every man shall
count for one, and no man for more than one 83
--the political wishes of the large constituen-
cies which return relatively few members to
Parliament, are overborne by those of con-
stituencies which, with a smaller aggregate
population, return more members.
And we see what such evil finally culminates
in when the over-representation of one part of
a country and the corresponding under-rep-
resentation of other portions has led a large
section of the people to pledge themselves to
disregard the eventual ordinances of Parlia-
ment.
If ever the question as to whether the will
of Ulster or that of the Nationalists is to pre-
vail is brought to the arbitrament of physical
force, it will be due to the inequalities of parlia-
mentary representation as between England
and Ireland, and as between the Unionist and
Nationalist population of Ulster.
The general lesson that all governmental
action ought to be backed by force, is fur-
ther brought home to the conscience when we
take note of the fact that every one feels that 84
public morality is affronted when senile, in-
firm, and bedridden men are brought to the
poll to turn the scale in hotly contested elec-
tions.
For electoral decisions are felt to have moral
prestige only when the electoral figures quan-
titatively represent the physical forces which
are engaged on either side. And where vital
interests are involved, no class of men can be
expected to accept any decision other than one
which rests upon the ultima ratio.
Now all the evils which are the outcome of
disparities between the parliamentary power
and the organised physical force of contend-
ing parties would "grow" a hundredfold if
women were admitted to the suffrage.
There would after that be no electoral or
parliamentary decision which would not be
open to challenge on the ground that it was
impossible to tell whether the party which
came out the winner had a majority which
could enforce its will, or only a majority ob-
tained by the inclusion of women. And no 85
measure of redistribution could ever set that
right.
There may find place here also the considera-
tion that the voting of women would be an un-
settling element in the government of the
State, forasmuch as they would, by reason of a
general lack of interest in public affairs, only
very; seldom come to the poll: would, in fact,
come to the poll in full strength only when
some special appeal had come home to their
emotions.
Now an electorate which includes a very
large proportion of quite uninterested voters
would be in the same case as a legislature
which included a very large proportion of
members who made a practice of staying away.
It would be in the same case, because the ab-
sentees, who would not have acquired the train-
ing which comes from consecutive attention
to public affairs, might at any moment step
in and upset the stability of State by voting
for some quite unconsidered measure.
Coming back in conclusion to our main is- 86
sue, I would re-emphasise an aspect of the
question upon which I have already elsewhere
insisted.¹ I have in view the fact that woman
does, and should, stand to physical violence in
a fundamentally different relation to man.
Nothing can alter the fact that, the very mo-
ment woman resorts to violence, she places
herself within the jurisdiction of an ethical
law, which is as old as civilisation, and which
was framed in its interests.

¹ Vide Appendix, pp. 176-179. 87

II

WOMAN'S DISABILITY IN THE MATTER OF
INTELLECT

Characteristics of the Feminine Mind--Suffragist Il-
lusions with Regard to the Equality of Man and
Woman as Workers--Prospect for the Intellectual
Future of Woman--Has Woman Advanced?

THE woman voter would be pernicious to
the State not only because she could not back
her vote by physical force, but also by reason
of her intellectual defects.
Woman's mind attends in appraising a state-
ment primarily to the mental images which it
evokes, and only secondarily--and sometimes
not at all--to what is predicated in the state-
ment. It is over-influenced by individual in-
stances; arrives at conclusions on incomplete
evidence; has a very imperfect sense of pro-
portion; accepts the congenial as true, and re-
jects the uncongenial as false; takes the imagi- 88
nary which is desired for reality, and treats the
undesired reality which is out of sight as non-
existent---building up for itself in this way,
when biased by predilections and aversions, a
very unreal picture of the external world.
The explanation of this is to be found in all
the physiological attachments of woman's
mind: ¹ in the fact that mental images are in
her over-intimately linked up with emotional
reflex responses; that yielding to such reflex
responses gives gratification; that intellec-
tual analysis and suspense of judgment involve
an inhibition of reflex responses which is felt as
neural distress; that precipitate judgment
brings relief from this physiological strain;
and that woman looks upon her mind not as an
implement for the pursuit of truth, but as an
instrument for providing her with creature
comforts in the form of agreeable mental im-
ages.
In order to satisfy the physical yearning

¹ Certain of these have already been referred to in the letter
printed in the Appendix ( vide p.167 infra ). 89

for such comforts, a considerable section
of intelligent and virtuous women insist
on picturing to themselves that the reign of
physical force is over, or as good as over; that
distinctions based upon physical and intellec-
tual force may be reckoned as non-existent;
that male supremacy as resting upon these is a
thing of the past; and that Justice means
Egalitarian Equity--means equating the
weaklings with the strong and the incapable
with the capable.
All this because these particular ideas are
congenial to the woman of refinement, and be-
cause it is to her, when she is a suffragist, un-
congenial that there should exist another prin-
ciple of justice which demands from the phys-
ically and intellectually capable that they shall
retain the reins of government in their own
hands; and specially uncongenial that in all
man-governed States the ideas of justice of
the more forceful should have worked out so
much to the advantage of women, that a
large majority of these are indifferent or ac- 90
tively hostile to the Woman's Suffrage Move-
ment.
In further illustration of what has been said
above, it may be pointed out that woman, even
intelligent woman, nurses all sorts of miscon-
ceptions about herself. She, for instance, is
constantly picturing to herself that she can
as a worker lay claim to the same all-round
efficiency as a man--forgetting that woman
is notoriously unadapted to tasks in which se-
vere physical hardships have to be con-
fronted; and that hardly any one would, if
other alternative offered, employ a woman
in any work which imposed upon her a com-
bined physical and mental strain, or in any
work where emergencies might have to be
faced.
In like manner the suffragist is fond of
picturing to herself that woman is for all
ordinary purposes the intellectual equal, and
that the intelligent woman is the superior of
the ordinary man.
These results are arrived at by fixing the at- 91
tention upon the fact that an ordinary man
and an ordinary woman are, from the point of
view of memory and apprehension, very much
on a level; and that a highly intelligent woman
has a quicker memory and a more rapid power
of apprehension than the ordinary man; and
further, by leaving out of regard that it is not
so much a quick memory or a rapid power of
apprehension which is required for effective
intellectual work, as originality, or at any rate
independence of thought, a faculty of fel-
icitious generalisations and diacritical judg-
ment, long-sustained intellectual effort, an un-
selective mirroring of the world in the mind,
and that relative immunity to fallacy which
goes together with a stable and comparatively
unresponsive nervous system.
When we consider that the intellect of the
quite ungifted man works with this last-
mentioned physiological advantage, we can
see that the male intellect must be, and--
pace [with the permission of] the woman suffragist---it in point of fact
is, within its range, a better instrument for 92
dealing with the practical affairs of life than
that of the intelligent woman.
How far off we are in the case of woman
from an unselective mirroring of the world in
the mind is shown by the fact that large and
important factors of life may be represented
in woman's mind by lacunæ [gaps] of which she is
totally unconscious.
Thus, for instance, that not very unusual
type of spinster who is in a condition of re-
tarded development (and you will find this
kind of woman even on County Council's), is
completely unconscious of the sexual element
in herself and in human nature generally.
Nay, though one went from the dead, he could
not bring it home to her that unsatisfied sex-
uality is an intellectual disability.
Sufficient illustration will now have been
given of woman's incapacity to take a com-
plete or objective view of any matter in which
she has a personal, or any kind of emotional
interest; and this would now be the place to
discuss those other aspects of her mind which 93
are relevant to her claim to the suffrage. I
refer to her logical endowment and her political
sagacity.
All that I might have been required to say
here on these issues has, however, already been
said by me in dealing with the arguments of
the suffragist. I have there carefully writ-
ten it in between the lines.
One thing only remains over.--We must,
before we pass on, consider whether woman
has really, as she tells us, given earnest for the
future weeding out of these her secondary sex-
ual characters, by making quite phenomenal
advances within the lifetime of the present gen-
eration; and, above all, whether there is any
basis for woman's confident assurance that,
when for a few generations she shall have en-
joyed educational advantages, she will at any
rate pull up level with man.
The vision of the future may first engage
our attention; for only this roseate prospect
makes of any man a feminist.
Now the basis that all this hope rests upon 94
is the belief that it is a law of heredity that ac-
quired characteristics are handed down; and,
let it be observed, that whereas this theory
found, not many decades ago, under the in-
fluence of Darwin, thousands of adherents
among scientific men, it finds to-day only here
and there an adherent.
But let that pass, for we have to consider
here, not only whether acquired characteristics
are handed down, but further whether, "if we
held that doctrine true," it would furnish scien-
tific basis for the belief that educational ad-
vantages carried on from generation to gen-
eration would level up woman's intellect to
man's; and whether, as the suffragist also be-
lieves, the narrow education of past genera-
tions of women can be held responsible for their
present intellectual shortcomings.
A moment's consideration will show--for
we may here fix our eyes only on the future---
that woman could not hope to advance rela-
tively to man except upon the condition that
the acquired characteristics of woman, instead 95
of being handed down equally to her male and
female descendants, were accumulated upon
her daughters.
Now if that be a law of heredity, it is a law
which is as yet unheard of outside the sphere
of the woman suffrage societies. Moreover,
one is accustomed to hear women, when they
are not arguing on the suffrage, allege that
clever mothers make clever sons.
It must, as it will have come home to us, be
clear to every thoughtful mind that woman's
belief that she will, through education and the
cumulation of its effects upon her through
generations, become a more glorious being,
rests, not upon any rational basis, but only on
the physiological fact that what is congenial
to woman impresses itself upon her as true.
All that sober science in the form of history
and physiology would seem to entitle us to
hope from the future of woman is that she will
develop pari passu [step by step] with man; and that educa-
tion will teach her not to retard him overmuch
by her lagging in the rear. 96
In view of this larger issue, the question as
to whether woman has, in any real sense of the
word, been making progress in the course of
the present generation, loses much of interest.
If to move about more freely, to read more
freely, to speak out her mind more freely, and
to have emancipated herself from traditionary
beliefs--and, I would add, traditionary ethics
--is to have advanced, woman has indubitably
advanced.
But the educated native too has advanced
in all these respects; and he also tells us that
he is pulling up level with the white man.
Let us at any rate, when the suffragist
is congratulating herself on her own progress,
meditate also upon that dictum of Nietzsche,
"Progress is writ large on all woman's ban-
ners and bannerets; but one can actually see
her going back." 97

III