The slight title of men to their “scientific method” when they venture upon the terra incognita which the soul of woman still is for them, explains why they extol, as “scientific,” works of women about women which are quite as superficial as those of men themselves. With a few exceptions, it is not the physiological-psychological books written by women about women which have really taught the present something new about womankind in general and the new woman in particular. No, in the form of romances, of lyrics or in voluntary confessions, woman has contributed the most valuable documents about her sex: on the one hand those which indicate the transformations which the woman movement has occasioned in woman’s nature, on the other hand those which demonstrate the extent to which her fundamental nature has remained unchanged, even though this elementary material exhibits many more facets in the modern woman than in the woman of any previous time; facets resulting from the manifold contacts and frictions with life to which woman now exposes herself or is exposed.
From a literary point of view, these books of confession have seldom a value which could be compared with that of the, in outer sense, objective, classic works which talented women writers of the present have produced. Often, however, one of these confessions, in which the writer has candidly given her own history, has been of real literary value. But even when the works contain mendacities and self-extenuations, crass injustice toward men or toward other women, as revelations of the modern woman soul they are more valuable for the future than the clarified, artistically perfect works of women, mentioned above. For the truth about woman in the century of the woman is found only in the impassioned books in which the hard struggles for freedom, work, right, or fame are recited; or in those works impassioned in another way, in which the soul or the blood or both cry out their yearning, ever unappeased, in spite of freedom and work, right and fame. What we may to-day rightly protest against in these books is their recklessness which may in the future be regarded as their greatest value.
Because, up to the present time, the most exquisite as well as the most horrifying women characters in literature have been created by men, many men think that they understand women better than women do themselves. And to this extent men are right—that women attain their most sublime heights and reach their deepest degradation in and through love. But aside from that, women have a much clearer insight and, for that reason, a much more intelligent idea of one another than man has of woman. When accordingly a woman speaks not only of herself but also of another woman—sometimes also of children—we feel already that “the eternal feminine” (das Ewig-Weibliche) in literature can create a feminine art, in the best meaning of the word. For the present we hope, and with good reason, that art as well as science will not appear as either masculine or feminine but reveal a complete human personality. But this does not mean that this personality has fused the masculine and feminine qualities into a common humanity and thus enervated it. No, it means that, in such a being, masculine and feminine traits exist side by side and assert themselves alternately or harmoniously in all their strength. In the rank of talent, one may find feminine men and masculine women; in that of genius, never. There each one guards fully and completely the character of his own sex in addition to the finest attributes of the other sex. The distinctively masculine or distinctively feminine attributes characterising an earlier culture epoch are on the contrary often lacking in these greatest men and women of their time. In other words they lack exactly those attributes, hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine, by which men and women, not abreast of the times in their development, please each other and the masses, in literature as well as in life.
In the woman-literature, directly evoked by the woman movement, we can read the whole gamut of the feminine nature, from the feminine in the highest sense to the feminine in the worst sense. This literature shows how unthinkingly and defenceless certain women have plunged into the struggle, how rationally and well equipped other women have fought it out. The impartiality of this judgment can be proven by the admission that in the first-named class I have not infrequently found adherents; in the latter class, opponents.
The woman movement itself, partly in lectures and in literary activity, partly by means of office-routine and work of organisation, has become a new field of labour for women. Even in this field it is found that many are called but few are chosen. But when—except after defeat—was an army ever seen without baggage?
In the field of family right, the woman movement has achieved, directly and indirectly, great improvements in the legal position of the unmarried woman. The nearest proof is my own country. This has, within a period of from seventy to eighty years, granted to the sister the same right of inheritance as to the brother; declared the unmarried woman at her majority at the same age as man, a majority which was also expanded later through the suspension of the right of guardianship on the part of the husband, existing for married women. The marriageable age of woman was postponed to 17 years. Gradually woman has been placed on an equality with man to carry on trade and industry; she has acquired the right to hold certain public offices, although many still remain closed to her. The married woman on the contrary is still always a minor; if no marriage settlement is made the husband has the right to dispose of the wife’s property; he has control of their common possessions; he can restrict her freedom of work; he has authority over the children. A few small progressive steps may nevertheless be pointed out: certain reinforcements of the effectiveness of the marriage contract; the right to her wages accorded to the wife; certain reforms in regard to the division of property and divorce; some improvements in the position of children born out of wedlock. In other countries also like reforms have been accomplished, directly, through masculine initiative; indirectly, through the influence of the woman movement. But everywhere family right is still founded upon the principles of paternal right, supremacy of the husband over the wife, indissolubility of marriage or solubility under greater or less difficulties.
In regard to citizenship I draw my examples also from the land I know best. In Sweden, women have long since participated in the choice of pastor; for about fifty years they have possessed municipal franchise; later in certain cases they have attained also municipal eligibility, for example, to the school board, board of charities, and now finally to the town council. Still others could be cited. In other countries women have sometimes more sometimes less civic right; only in a few countries have they won political franchise; in a single one, Finland, also political eligibility.
In the sphere of family right, as well as civic right, the woman movement has then much more remaining to conquer than it has thus far won. But I am convinced that the little girls I see down below in the garden playing “mother and child” will possess all the rights due the wife, the mother, and the citizen.
The woman movement, in its present form, has accomplished its task if it has procured for every woman the legal right to develop and practise her individual characteristics unhindered because of her sex. But after this emancipation of the woman as a human being and a citizen, there remains her emancipation as a woman. And here no transformation of forms of thought and feeling, of manners and customs, attainable by any legal provisions or paragraphs, avail. The present woman movement has created and still continues to create the social conditions for this last emancipation. But it will not approve such far extending results of its own work. It desires the same rights but also the same duties for all women. If a single woman uses the freedom, which the woman movement has procured for her as a member of society, to fashion her individual life according to the deepest demands of her being, then the old guard trembles before the outcome of the battle for freedom in which it fought so valiantly.