Women and girls receive, for the same work, only half the compensation of men and boys.
The "woman's rights" movement seeks the mitigation, and final removal, of these outrageous wrongs.
My dear girls, think for yourselves this time. Don't simper and giggle when the fools sneer at "woman's rights." They don't know what they are talking about.
A few days ago I heard a sort of jackanapes ridiculing "woman's rights," and several very sweet girls were listening to his coarse scurrilities; and, must I say it, smiling their approval.
Wearing an unfashionable dress is not half so bad; going into the street with the bonnet of two years ago, even, will not unsex you like a smiling indifference to these desperate struggles of your sisters. To avoid starvation on one hand, and crime on the other, they plead with the world for justice.
In this city of Boston there are twenty thousand women starving on needle-work, and five thousand who live, or die, by crime. A few brave ones, driven to the wall, hope, by calling attention to their helplessness, to obtain sympathy and justice. This is essentially the "woman's rights" movement. Suppose you don't like the mode in which they agitate. When you hear criticisms, or ridicule, if you haven't the heart to say a word in defence, at least you can keep silence.
I wish I dared to tell you how we men almost despise you, sometimes, for this abandonment of each other.
THE "SOCIAL EVIL."
Men go prowling about, seeking to seduce and ruin girls, and will stand by each other, even in this infamous business. When a poor girl, overcome by the arts of an oily-tongued villain, perhaps by a promise of marriage, consents to sin, how you drop her, and shun her, and sneer at her. A hundred times I have heard chivalrous men declare that, "women have no honor; they never stand by each other. If one gets into trouble, the rest forsake her, and run away." Girls, if you care to commend yourselves to men, stand by these unfortunate ones, encourage them, help them. You needn't fear being soiled; the spirit in which you would engage in this angelic service, would serve as a perfect shield.
I know something of men. I have lived in many countries. I have been much in society, have been, to some extent, what is railed a man of the world, and have talked with men about women, hundreds of times.