The Sexes in Science and History / An inquiry into the dogma of woman's inferiority to man

by Eliza Burt Gamble

The history of industrial and economic conditions since the beginning of the eighteenth century is largely the history of the common people. The change from the Feudal system to that of the wage-earning régime may not, as far as the working class is concerned, be regarded as an unmixed blessing. Under Feudalism the “lord of the soil” was responsible for the maintenance and well-being of his vassals, while under the wage system the “captains of industry” assume no such responsibility. If the labourer chooses to accept the terms offered well and good, if he refuses he may starve; it is a matter of no concern to the employer, for, are there not plenty of labourers who stand ready to take his place?

That the labourer was no less a slave under the wage-earning system than he had been under Feudalism is shown in the fact that under the first named as well as under the latter he had not the right of free contract. He must take what was offered him or starve.

As is well known the repression of the mental activities and the low physical condition which for more than thirteen centuries had prevailed, prevented the seed sown in the sixteenth century from taking root among the masses of the people. Their instincts were those of the slave and two centuries were required to waken them from their lethargy. Finally, however, even among the class mentioned the constructive forces began to assert themselves. Free thought and to a certain extent free speech were established. With the further development of liberal ideas a belief in the Divine Right of Kings and in the principles underlying monarchial institutions became somewhat weakened. A few attempts were even made to establish republics. Because of the glimmering light of scientific truth put forth in the sixteenth century, ecclesiastical authority was no longer supreme.

Although many important steps had been taken to free men from the thraldom of the past, so firmly had the idea of woman’s inferiority been established that no thought of including her in the new régime was ever entertained.

Justice, equality, and liberty are subjects upon which man descants loudly and long. He talks glibly of his free institutions and even designates a number of his one-sided governments as republics, and this too notwithstanding the fact that women are still denied representation in the governments to which they owe allegiance, and that a large proportion of men are still within the grasp of economic slavery; all of which shows the extent to which the moral sense and the judgment have been dwarfed by prejudice and selfishness. Democracy is still a meaningless term—an ideal yet to be realized.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century such were the conditions surrounding women that an attempt on their part to extricate themselves from their legal and social bondage would have proved utterly futile. At that time women had practically no legal rights; even the right to control their own bodies was denied them. As woman was dependent upon man for support her sex-functions were controlled by him and the children which she bore belonged exclusively to him. He constituted the family—wife and children did not count. To a considerable extent these conditions still prevail.

Masculine law, masculine religion, and masculine ideas concerning the duties and uses of the female sex had made of woman a nondescript—a creature neither male nor female. Her mental constitution had become atrophied, the diluted reflections of men’s opinions having been substituted for the natural feminine instincts and ideas. Among the great mass of women the original feminine type had disappeared.

In process of time, however, women began slowly to awaken from the hideous nightmare which threatened to destroy the last remaining vestige of the instincts and ideas peculiar to the female constitution. In the beginning of the nineteenth century some of the educational advantages enjoyed by men began to be appropriated by women. Thus began the unrest which now extends over the entire earth.

About seventy years ago a movement was started by women to secure for themselves the right to self-government. Immediately all the prejudice which characterizes a sex-aristocracy was aroused. Ridicule, calumny, and even personal abuse were directed against all those who were intelligent enough or fearless enough to stem the tide of popular indignation.

For forty years, little or no progress was made toward securing the right of self-government for women. As late as 1870 a woman who openly avowed herself a suffragist was regarded not only as “bold and unwomanly” but as a dangerous person. The most strenuous opposition to the movement came from the clergy and the flocks over which they presided. Whenever church women were asked to consider the question of the equality of the sexes their unvarying reply was: “My bible forbids it.” Now that the history of Pauline Christianity is better understood its attitude toward the freedom of women needs no further explanation.