The Truth About Woman

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

There is a wide difference between the mental and social attitudes of men and women. Men have been responsible to society at large for their work and conduct, woman's outlook has been much narrower; she has been responsible to men, and has only touched outside life through them. In this way women have developed on wrong lines. It is significant, for instance, how many women have written books under men's names. Women's work and conduct has been largely restricted by this adjustment to men, with the result that not only their mental capacity and work-power has suffered, but their attention has been fixed, for the most part, to the enhancing of the attractiveness of their persons as an aid to hold men to their service. The feminine mind and interests have been set so strongly towards personal display that they will not easily be diverted. The clothes-peg woman is familiar to all: she gratifies any whim, well knowing that it is her male protector who will have to pay, not she. She will, on occasions, use her children for such base ends. She knows the game is in her hand. Even if the man resists her for a time, she understands how easily she can break down his objections by a seductive display of silk stockings! The character of woman as the inherent coquette is very deeply rooted. It is only a little more baneful to the freedom of the sexes than that opposite pernicious side of woman as a sort of angel-child, which we all know to be such a preposterous pretence.

Nor do I think that the change from these conditions can, or will, be easy. Women may, and do, protest against the triviality of their lives, but emotional interests are more immediate than intellectual ones. Human nature does not drift into intellectual pursuits voluntarily, rather it is forced into them in connection with urgency and practical activities. It is much easier to be kept, dressed, and petted, than to work. Women have not participated in the mental activities of men because it has not been necessary for them; to do this has been, indeed, a hindrance to their success. The contrast between the sexes in this respect has been well compared by Thomas[323] to the relation of the amateur and the professional in games. "Women may be desperately interested and work to the limit of endurance at times; but, like the amateur, they enter into the work late, and have not had a lifetime of practice.... No one will contend that the amateur has a nervous organisation less fitted to the game than the professional; it is admitted that the difference lies in the constant practice." It is only in the case of woman that the obvious conclusion is passed over for assumptions that cannot be proved.

The revolt against repression has taken amongst many women another form of abandonment to lives of sexual preoccupation and intrigue. Scan the history of woman as she is presented in our literature and drama, and you will find one expression of her character, one idea alone of her sphere. It is a point of such interest that I would like to linger upon it. Wherever woman enters she is a disturbing influence; she is the centre of emotional action, it is true, but with no recognised position in life outside of her sex; around her rage seas of stormy passions, which sometimes she calms, sometimes lashes into angrier foam. In a sense it may be said that she has scarcely an individual existence; it is solely in her relation to man that her nature is considered. If she works, or practises one of the arts, she does this only until marriage. It does not seem to be conceived as possible that she can follow work, as the artist must, for herself. It is curious how far we have been misled by that giving-power of woman, which, in part, is right and natural to her, but also, in much greater part, has been harmfully forced upon her. The creator's need to find expression is, I am certain, at least as strongly rooted in woman as in man, but no plant can attain to growth unless fitting nourishment is given to it. To ignore this leads very directly to deception. Thus we find Mr. Wells, usually so true in his insight, keeps up an old pretence and affirms in his latest novel, Marriage—

"They don't care for art or philosophy, or literature or anything except the things that touch them directly. And the work——? It's nothing to them. No woman ever painted for the love of painting, sang for the sounds she made, or philosophised for the sake of wisdom as men do."

So it is always. Without question it has been taken for granted by those who have depicted woman that her sole occupation is an emotional one; here alone is she justified in literature, as in life.

The fully complete woman of the future is still to be created; assuredly she is not to be found among the women who have been portrayed so widely for us by recent writers. These are portraits arising out of the present confusion; as such they are interesting, but they are quite unreal in their relation to life. They show us women, and men too, in revolt. Often these women are really nothing more than feminist stump-orators preaching the doctrine of an unconsidered individualism: "Free Motherhood," "Free Love"—free anything, in fact. These portraits are far removed, indeed, from the perfected woman that is to be. We want something much more than this—woman with all sides of her nature adequately worked upon and fully developed.

Now, to look for a moment at the other side of the question. Woman has been the cause of emotion in men, the fine instrument by which the poet has sung and the musician played his exquisite music; the sculptor, the painter, the writer, all have drawn their inspiration from her. Have men, then, any right to pride themselves to such a degree on their achievement in the arts? Could they without woman have advanced anything like so far? And this becomes abundantly evident if we look a little deeper and back to the beginning of the arts. "Not," writes Karl Bücher,[324] "upon the steep summits of society did poetry originate, it sprang rather from the depths of the pure, strong soul of the people. Women have striven to produce it, and as civilised man owes to woman's work much the best of his possessions, so also are her thoughts interwoven in the spiritual treasure handed down from generation to generation."

A glance back at the beginnings of human civilisation show that women were equal, if not superior, to men in productive poetic activity. To a large extent men first learned from women the elements of the various handicrafts. I have already referred to this fact in the historical section, where we see the reasons whereby women lost their early control over the industrial arts. I wish to refer to a point of special importance now, which I find is brought forward, in this connection, by Iwan Bloch.[325] In the start of the industrial occupations, in sowing and thrashing and grinding the grain, in baking bread, in the preparation of food and drinks, of wine and beer, in the making of pots and baskets, and in spinning, the women worked together; and, as is common still among primitive peoples, these occupations were largely carried on in a rhythmical manner. From this co-operation of the women it resulted that they were the first creators of poetry and music. The men, on the other hand, hunted singly in the forests. The birth of their poetic activity followed only after they had monopolised the labours of material production. Even to-day among many races the influence of woman's poetry can be followed for a long way into the literary period. I have myself witnessed something similar to this among the peasants in the rural districts of Spain. I have heard women in the evenings relate to one another and to their children the rich legends of their land, carrying on the old traditions that have come down from generation to generation, and thus creating among themselves a communion of heroes. Then, again, these Spanish women seem never to cease from singing as they carry on their many and heavy labours. The women sing far more frequently than the men. Music is to them an instinctive means of expression; they do not learn it, it belongs to them, like dancing belongs to the natural child. And these folk songs, where the words are often improvised by the singer, seem to give utterance to natural out-door things—a symbol of the people's life, of its action, its work, very strong in its appeal, which blends so strangely joy with sadness. A special quality that often surprised me in these songs was the way in which the people translate and use the music of other countries. I have heard popular English tunes sung by the women as they work, which have ceased to be common in their sentiment and become full of a tenderness into which passion has fallen; even slangy music-hall tunes take a new character, a lively brilliance that no longer is vulgar. This music is the true singing of the people, and if you would feel all the beauty of its appeal you must be in touch with the spirit that cries in it, with work, and passion, and life.

It may seem that all this has taken us rather far away from our inquiry into the strength of the artistic impulse in women. The way, however, is largely cleared. We have proved that there is, at least, a possible mistake in the opinion that those experiments in creative expression, which we call variations, are necessarily inherent in the male, rather than in the female. Speaking biologically, we may regard woman, in common with man, as a potentially creative agent with a striving will, and thus able to change under the stimulus of appropriate opportunity.

Now, to look at the question for a moment in a different light—in relation to the special qualities that are facts of actual experience in woman's character as it is to-day. It is proved—if scientific determination of such qualities were necessary—that women are more sensitive to suggestion and receptive of outward influences; that they have keener affectability, and thus tend to be more emotional and, within certain limits, more imaginative than men. They react to both physical and psychical stimuli more readily, and it would seem that their brain action is more rapid. Experimental tests have shown that in respect of quickness of comprehension and intellectual mobility women are distinctly superior to men.