Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer

by D. C. Bloomer

The ‘natural difference in the turn of mind in the sexes’ is not so great as is supposed. The seeming difference is more owing to education and custom, than to nature. It is a very common thing to hear a young girl wish she was a boy, or a man, that she might be free to do what she lists in this world of work—to make use of the powers which she feels burning within her. The girl envies the boy his freedom and his privileges. In ‘earliest childhood,’ if let alone, there is little difference between the boy and the girl. The girl likes to ride the horse and blow the trumpet, as well as the boy; and the boy loves a doll and a needle and thread, as well as the girl. It is not the child that selects, but the parent that selects for him. From the very first (the whip, the horse, the trumpet) the boy is taught that it is not right or manly for him to play with dolls, or girls; and the girl, that little girls must not play with boys, or with boys’ playthings, because it is not ladylike, and will make a tom-boy of her. And so education does what nature has not done, and was never intended to do.

‘Those who would curse our race have ever attempted, in imitation of the great progenitor, to poison all our fountains and wither and blast all our budding hopes by directing their artful attacks and deadly shafts against the breast of woman.’

Alas! this is but too true. Ever since Satan, who was a man, struck the first blow at her happiness, men have directed their deadly shafts against her, by first subjugating her to their will, and then using their power to ‘poison the fountain of her happiness and wither and blast her budding hopes.’ She has been made their sport and their victim, with no power to avert the evil, or protect herself, or those entrusted to her care, from their artful and brutal attacks.

But what have we here? After telling women that home is their sphere, and that God placed them in it, and they should not go beyond it, the reverend lecturer turns right about and supposes a case where a woman is called upon to devote her time, or her energies, to home duties and family cares, or of one who voluntarily chooses to do something else; and, strange as it may seem after all that has gone before, he says ‘she may follow a trade, teach, lecture, practise law and medicine, and fill a clerkship.’ This is good woman’s-rights doctrine! The bars are let down that separated the spheres, and woman is permitted to leave the ‘distinct and subordinate’ one allotted to her, and enter upon a sphere and work ‘identical with that of man.’ Here we can join hands with our divine, and be thankful that light has so far dawned upon him. And he farther ‘demands that all the sources of learning, all the avenues of business which they are competent to fill shall be thrown open to the whole sex, and that they shall be fairly and fully rewarded for all they do’! These good words go far to atone for all he has said before, and we will not ask why this change, or concession. Enough that he comes thus far upon our platform. But can he stop here? After giving her so wide a sphere, and educating her mind to the fullest extent, can he again put up the bar and say ‘thus far and no farther shalt thou go’? Indeed, no! God himself has in these latter days broken down the bounds that men had set to woman’s sphere, and they cannot, by opposition or Bible argument, remand her back into the state of silent subjection whence she came. The ministers of the church for years set themselves up against the anti-slavery cause, and proved conclusively, to themselves, from the Bible, that slavery was right and God-ordained; that the Africans were, and were to be, a subjugated race, and that to teach differently was in plain violation of the teachings of the Bible. They held themselves aloof from that cause, in the days of its weakness, at least, and cried out against those who were pleading for the emancipation of the slave. But God proved their mistake by setting that people free, and endowing them with all the rights of citizenship. So, too, the Bible is brought forward to prove the subordination of woman, and to show that because St. Paul told the ignorant women of his time that they must keep silent in the church the educated, intelligent women of these times must not only occupy the same position in the church and the family but must not aspire to the rights of citizenship. But the same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of woman, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was at the beginning.

The divine uses the column and a half that remains of the space allotted to him to show why, in his opinion, women should not vote—after telling us there is nothing against their voting in the Bible, and omitting to tell us what the passages quoted at the head of his discourse have to do with politics or political rights. One of these reasons is that women will want to hold office; and in proof of this he tells us that the office of deaconess, which existed in the church till the middle of the fifth century, was abolished because the women ‘became troublesome aspirants after the prerogatives of office.’ It is ever thus. Men are willing women should be subordinate—do the drudgery in the church and elsewhere; but let them aspire to something higher and then, if there is no other way to silence them, abolish the office. Men want all the offices, and it is a crying shame for a woman to think of taking one from them, thus setting them all aquake with fear!

Men argue as though, if women had the right to vote, they would all abandon their homes and their babies, and stand at the polls from year’s end to year’s end and do nothing but vote. When the fact is men do not vote but twice a year; are detained from their business but a few minutes to deposit their ballots; and then go their way, none the worse for the vote. I regret that Rev. Rice thinks so badly of the advocates of woman’s cause. So far as I know them, his charges are unfair and sometimes untrue. A better personal acquaintance would disarm him of much of his prejudice. The women are all good sisters, wives and mothers, living in love and harmony with their husbands, to whom they are true helpmeets, and whom they have no thought of deserting. Not half of them ever expect to hold office—certainly not, unless the offices are greatly multiplied—nor to have any part in turning the world upside down. On the contrary they will continue to care for the babies, cook the dinners, and sew on the buttons the same as ever.

Another reason why woman should not vote is that he thinks ‘God has not fitted her for government, that He never made her to manage the affairs of state, that very few women would make good stateswomen,’ etc. And yet God did at the Creation give her an equal share in the government of the earth, and our divine imposes upon her all the government of the family! God called Deborah to manage the affairs of state, and approved of her management, never once telling her she was out of her sphere, or neglecting her domestic duties. And the queens of the Bible are nowhere reproved for being in authority and ruling over men. Many women have shown a fitness for government in all ages of the world. There are few able statesmen among men, and the world is suffering sadly for want of woman’s help and woman’s counsel in the affairs of state.

But I cannot ask you to allow me space to follow the reverend gentleman through all that follows on the question of woman suffrage. His arguments are very stale, and many of them absurd. I doubt not he is honest in his convictions; but all do not see with his eyes, or judge with his judgment. As able minds as his own among men take a different view of the matter, and believe that at the polls, as elsewhere, woman will have a refining moral influence upon men, and that she will herself be benefited and ennobled by the enlarged sphere of action.

I cannot better close than with the words of Bronson Alcott, at a recent ‘conversation’ in Chicago: ‘There is no friend of woman who does not believe that, if the ballot were extended to her, not one would ever vote for an impure man. To give woman the ballot would purify legislation, plant liberty and purity in our families, our churches, our institutions, our State.’

Amelia Bloomer.