[167] A statistic compiled by Blaschko gives the following information in regard to the extension of sexual diseases among the various occupations. First come the secret prostitutes with 30 per cent; then the students with 25 per cent; merchants with 16, and workingmen with 9 per cent.
[168] In special cases women may be excluded from certain lectures with the consent of the minister of education.
[169] The organization of free clinical treatment of patients in the large cities of Russia.—German Quarterly of Public Hygiene.
[170] What difficulties are entailed for women who have a family and at the same time wish to, or have to, practice a trade or profession, has been ably shown in the book by Adele Gerhard and Helen Simon: “Maternity and Intellectual Occupations” (Berlin, 1901, George Reimer). It contains the personal experiences and opinions of writers, artists, singers, actresses, etc., and these opinions prove that society must be completely reorganized to give full play to the great amount of female intelligence that exists and strives for expression, since it is in the interest of society itself that it should be given full play.
[171] According to the last report for 1908, England has 16 female factory inspectors, Miss A. M. Anderson and 15 assistants.
[172] The first woman factory inspector was appointed in Bavaria in 1897. From then until 1909 the number of woman factory inspectors rose to 26. Fourteen states had until then not appointed any.
[CHAPTER XV.
The Legal Status of Women.]
[1.—The Struggle for Equality Before the Law.]
The social dependence of a race, class, or sex, always finds expression in the laws and political conditions of the country in question. The laws of a country are the formulated expression of its ruling interests. Women, being the dependent and oppressed sex, find their legal status mapped out to them accordingly. Laws are both negative and positive. They are negative by failing to take notice of the oppressed in the distribution of rights. They are positive inasmuch as they point out his dependent position and denote whatever exceptions there may be.
Our common law is founded on the Roman law, which considers the human being solely in his quality as a propertied being. The old German law, that dealt more favorably with women, has maintained its influence only to a slight extent. In the French language, as in the English language, human being and the male are denoted by the same word, “l’homme”—man. In the same way, the French law only recognizes the man as a human being, and, until a few decades ago, this was true also of England, where women were maintained in abject dependence. It was the same in ancient Rome. There were Roman citizens and wives of Roman citizens, but no Roman citizenesses.