The Woman Movement

by Ellen Key

(d) Does the modern woman perform in more perfect manner than the woman of that time, the physical and psychic functions of motherhood?

If the question be put thus then the objective investigator must answer to all—“Yes and No.”

But if this investigator is an evolutionist, then he knows that the progress of every social evolution is like that which womankind is now experiencing. We see first, how, in any given sphere of society, where those engaged therein have attained a pure, instinctive certainty in their actions through laws and customs, the individuals oppressed by these laws and customs must rebel against the limits, drawn from without, for the development and exercise of their powers. This revolt occasions at first a stage of anarchy in which everything seems to collapse—while in the previous conserving epoch “crystallisation” furnished the vital danger! But after such an anarchistic stage there comes infallibly the constructive stage, where a part of the old is organised, incorporated, into the new. But this acts no longer as instinctive impulse. No, mankind has become conscious anew of these values of law and custom; they have been recognised by the thought, encompassed by feeling, sanctioned by the will as still always indispensable, in another and higher form it is true than that against which the individuals rebelled. But just as the leaves which once grew green above in the summer light, gradually become one with the earth, so the motives of the new customs sink gradually down into the unknown; man acts again with instinctive certainty and uniformity—until the new period of stagnation evokes a new rebellion and achievement of individualism.

The woman movement finds itself now at a point where it is about to pass from the dynamic stage to a static stage. Exactly at this point a survey begins to be possible; and it is also necessary for every one who believes that the ideal, as well as the practical direction of the woman movement, in future, must be influenced by the knowledge gained about the effect of the movement, thus far, upon the uplifting of the life of mankind.

Every great achievement of individualism is as inconsiderate as the spring tide and must be, in order to have strength for its task. The woman movement was so also. But it encountered two other great ideas of the time, Socialism and Evolutionism, and in consequence the woman movement was obliged to modify gradually its conception of the feminine individual and of her position in existence.

On the one hand, as has been already shown, man has had to understand that “open competition” and “individual initiative” are not absolute political-economic truths. On the other hand, the defender of women’s rights has been forced to understand more and more that woman’s soul is no unchangeable value which must remain the same however much the spheres have changed toward which this spiritual life directed itself and from which it received its impression. While feminists fifty years ago scorned the objection that “womanliness” would be lost in business life or in politics, now the evolutionist mind in thinking women understands that all human soul life is subject to the law of change; that just as indisputably as the soul life of man is changed by different vocations and surroundings, so that of woman also must be changed. The feminists founded their dogma that the woman movement can only benefit woman, man, the child, the family, society, mankind upon the conviction of the stability of “true womanliness.”

And if the woman movement had not had this religious certainty of belief, how could it have withstood the mass of prejudice and stupidity which it encountered in its own, as well as in the other sex? The woman movement has conquered because it was self-intoxicated.

And quite naturally! After a stability of centuries, during which the position of woman was altered only in and with the general progress of culture, women finally recognised that they could accelerate their own progress and with it also the somewhat snail-like course of universal human culture. And so woman asserted herself and increased her motion. The faster this movement became, the more was she seized by the intoxication which always accompanies every vigorous physical or psychic movement. And when has a movement of the time advanced more rapidly?

Folk-migrations, crusades, slave rebellions, revolutions have led a race, a class, a group, beyond certain geographical or social boundaries. The emancipation of women has shifted and extended the limits of the freedom of movement of half mankind. No wonder that the extent of the movement in and for itself was advanced as proof of the infallibility of its direction. All points of departure, the natural right of man, individual freedom, social necessity—all led out into the sun, which, in society as in nature, should radiate over woman as well as over man; they led up onto the summit where man and woman both should breathe the air of the heights. All obstacles which were raised with the help of arguments such as, “the nature of woman,” “the welfare of the family,” “the idea of society,” “the purpose of God”—all proved temporary. And of necessity—for the innermost law of life, the law of development, of life enhancement, carried the movement forward. When it began, the Biblical expression about the wind was quoted, “Man knows not whence it comes nor whither it goes.” Now all know it. Now the spirit of the time speaks with “feminist” voice. The ideas of emancipation “are in the air,” like bacilli, by which only savages are thus far wholly untouched.

There are now no great movements of the time whose path does not run parallel with or cut across the woman movement. Every new generation is involuntarily and unconsciously drawn along with it. The ends already attained seem to the present age obvious; the ends, for which man is still struggling to-day, will appear equally obvious to the future. The woman movement is now a power with which even its most bitter adversaries must reckon. And this force has so quickly attained prominence exactly as a result of fanaticism. Just as the White and the Blue Nile mingle their waters in the main stream, so in every great current of time enthusiasm is mingled with fanaticism. And it is the latter which bears the most fruit, for it gives power of growth to the passions of the majority, good as well as bad.