[10]. Vide Chapter X of Woman: A Vindication.
The whole change revealed in the leaders of the movement and numbers of their followers a transmutation of the once powerful bodily passion into something more feeble, more volatile, and more exclusively dependent on vanity; while accompanying it throughout were the two elements growing daily more acute—the longing to be rid of the thraldom of sex, and hostility to man, which these women like to see more general.
Nothing startling has come of women’s political power, and we can prophesy with perfect confidence that nothing ever will; even when, as may quite possibly happen, Parliament consists only of females. So far, the measures they have introduced or clamoured for have indicated merely a continuation and intensification of the Puritanical tradition, but not a sign of anything hopeful or new, in the sense that it was beyond degenerate men.
But the very demand for the vote was, in itself, merely a confirmation of the view, held by ourselves and a few others, that no possible good could come from Feminism, that it offered no hope of a better world, and that it was a quack remedy for our sickness. For, if there had been any intrinsic quality in it, any political or other genius peculiarly feminine and foreign in kind and degree to anything found in man, how can we explain that one of its first claims was to obtain a political privilege, the futility and undesirability of which had been demonstrated ad nauseam long before this century dawned? Modern democracy with its political machinery is so thoroughly discredited, and is moreover such a menace to our national greatness, that, if there had been any social acumen or shrewdness in woman, she would have proved it by utterly scouting this political faux pas of degenerate manhood. A creative woman’s movement, if such an idea can possibly be conceived, would have introduced something new and hopeful into our political life. It might, at least, have tried to resuscitate the best in our pre-democratic past; and, even if it did not show this amount of flair, it might, when it got the vote, straight-way have shown its power by initiating reforms that are peculiarly within woman’s province. It might have demanded a reform of our food-conditions, and of the proprietary-food, patent-medicine and culinary-aid industries, which are in a scandalous state; or a reform of the conditions under which midwifery is practised in this country. But it neither attempted, nor showed any inclination to attempt, any one of these feats. It demanded the preposterous vote; and, having got it, proceeded, both in Parliament and out, to try to effect only Puritanical reforms, some of which were frankly hostile to men.
We are likely to suffer a rude awakening, therefore, if we look to Feminism for any marked improvement in our affairs. Nobody with any profound understanding of woman’s nature, and of her past achievements, can possibly expect it. What we can expect, however, when once the forces of Feminism are completely organized, is a systematic intensification of all the tendencies that have culminated in the modern Women’s Movement.
The hostility to man and the jealousy of happy and passionate youth, felt by all disaffected women, whether spinsters or wives, is sure to lead to every effort being made to lure girls more and more from bodily happiness. We can, therefore, expect an increasing emancipation of girls and women from domestic arts and duties, together with an aggravation of our present vices regarding foods. This will be accompanied by the intensive manufacture of every kind of condensed, preserved, compressed, and synthetic food, with a corresponding multiplication of aids to minimize trouble in food-preparation. The ideal will be a standardized and complete food, containing its own correctives for failing digestion, to be obtained probably in tabloid form, and requiring no further preparation whatsoever. Ultimately, there can be little doubt that this form of food will be discovered, and may possibly become the product of a special Government Department. Meanwhile, the human system will have undergone years of painful attempted adaptation to increasingly bad food-conditions, and acute indigestion, with repeated intestinal operations, will probably have become as common as dental caries and tooth-extraction are to-day.
The tendency as regards men will be to rear ever larger numbers of them along the lines already indicated by modern taste—that is to say, their manliness will be limited more and more to military courage and proficiency at games. Thus, while they will prove increasingly harmless and amenable to female rule—as Aristotle said such men always would—they will be even more besotted, more lacking in mastery, will-power and understanding, more feeble as lovers, and more contemptible than the men of to-day.
We can expect an increasing assertion of the rights of females in every branch of industry, commerce, and the professions, accompanied by such a multiplication of ready workers that competition between the sexes will become acute. The first moment of violent strain will occur when women employers and women labour-leaders, both working under Feminist guidance, appropriate certain industries wholly to female labour. This will be accompanied by a vast extension of an idea already materialized—the female bank, that is to say, financial houses and interests devoted entirely to the women’s cause. Epicene organizations and staffs will then tend to disappear, and soon the national industry will be divided into two sections, each of which will be conducted by and for one sex only, and in which the most poorly paid workers will belong to the other sex. These two sections will confront each other jealously like two competing nations, and, while each will try to encroach on the domain and wealth of the other, it will also try to compass the other’s failure.
Occasionally this bitter rivalry will lead to riots and savage street-fighting, in which, owing to the fact that moral indignation will always be on the side of the women, the men are certain to be routed, and to lose credit, prestige, and lives. In any case, owing to the continued besotment of men, the female domain will steadily corrode and eat into the male, and soon men will cease to be employers altogether, and become the poorest-paid workers in an industry run entirely by women.
Abetting and assisting this movement, we shall see engineering and machinery so much perfected that skill in operative work will entirely vanish. A team of intelligent monkeys will then be adequate for the productive work of the nation, and, with this final blow at the spiritual and physical qualifications of both sexes, women will overrun every department of production. This development was adumbrated during the Great War, when it was found that, although 5,000,000 men had left their work, girls and women easily took it over. Hundreds of thousands of these men imagined that they had been doing both skilled and manly work. The ease with which they were replaced by inexperienced girls and women proved that they were wrong. It also proved, incidentally, that such was the extent of our urban degeneration and emasculation that only the fewest among the peace-occupations of the country were essentially masculine or demanded masculine qualifications.