Feminism, or, as it is sometimes called, the emancipation of woman, as we know it in the present day, may be justifiably indicted as a gigantic fraud—a fraud in its general aim and a fraud alike in its methods of controversy and in its practical tactics. It is through and through disingenuous and dishonest. Modern Feminism has always professed to be a movement for political and social equality between the sexes. The claim for this equalising of position and rights in modern society is logically based upon the assumption of an essential equality in natural ability between the sexes. As to this, we have indicated in the preceding pages on broad lines, the grounds for regarding the foregoing assumption as false. But quite apart from this question, I contend the fraudulent nature of the present movement can readily be seen by showing it to be not merely based on false grounds, but directly and consciously fraudulent in its pretensions.
It uniformly professes to aim at the placing of the sexes on a footing of social and political
equality. A very little inquiry into its concrete demands suffices to show that its aim, so far from being equality, is the very reverse—viz. to bring about, with the aid of men themselves, as embodied in the forces of the State, a female ascendancy and a consolidation and extension of already existing female privileges. That this is so may be seen in general by the constant conjunction of Political and Sentimental Feminism in the same persons. It may be seen more particularly in detail, in the specific demands of Feminists. These demands, as formulated by suffragists as a reason why the vote is essential to the interests of women, amount to little if anything else than proposals for laws to enslave and browbeat men and to admit women to virtual if not actual immunity for all offences committed against men. It is enough to consult any suggestions for a woman’s “charter” in order to confirm what is here said. Such proposals invariably suggest the sacrificing of man at every turn to woman.[162:1]
[162:1] This is arrived at by the clever trick of appealing to the modern theory of the equal mental capacity of the sexes when it is a question of political and economic rights and advantages for women, and of counterappealing to the traditional sentiment based on the belief in the inferiority of the female sex, when it is a question of legal and administrative privilege and consideration. The Feminist thus succeeds by his dexterity in the usually difficult feat of “getting it both ways” for his fair clients.
In the early eighties of the last century appeared a skit in the form of a novel from the pen of the late Sir Walter Besant, entitled “The Revolt of Man,” depicting the oppression of man under a Feminist régime, an oppression which ended in a revolt and the re-establishment of male supremacy. The ideas underlying this jeu d’esprit of the subjection of men would seem to be seriously entertained by the female leaders of the present woman’s movement. It is many years ago now since a minister holding one of the highest positions in the present Cabinet made the remark to me:—“The real object, you know, for which these women want the vote is simply to get rascally laws passed against men!” Subsequent Feminist agitation has abundantly proved the truth of this observation. An illustration of the practical results of the modern woman’s movement is to be seen in the infamous White Slave Traffic Act of 1912 rushed through Parliament as a piece of panic legislation by dint of a campaign of sheer hard lying. The atrocity of this act has been sufficiently dealt with in a previous chapter.[163:1]
[163:1] There is one fortunate thing as regards these savage laws aimed at the suppression of certain crimes, and that is, as it would seem, they are never effective in achieving their purpose. As Mr Tighe Hopkins remarks, apropos of the torture of the “cat” (“Wards of the State,” p. 203):—“The attempt to correct crime with crime has everywhere repaid us in the old properly disastrous way.” It would indeed be regrettable if it could be shown that penal laws of this kind were successful. Far better is it that the crimes of isolated individuals should continue than that crimes such as the cold-blooded infliction of torture and death committed at the behest of the State, as supposed to represent the whole of society, should attain their object, even though the object be the suppression of crimes of another kind perpetrated by the aforesaid individuals within society. The successful repression of crimes committed by individuals, by a crime committed by State authority, can only act as an encouragement to the State to continue its course of inflicting punishment which is itself a crime.
Other results of the inequality between the sexes so effectively urged by present-day Feminism, may be seen in the conduct of magistrates, judges and juries, in our courts civil and criminal. This has been already animadverted upon in the course of the present work, and illustrative cases given, as also in previous writings of the present author to which allusion has already been made. It is not too much to say that a man has practically no chance in the present day in a court of law, civil or criminal, of obtaining justice where a woman is in the case. The savage vindictiveness exhibited towards men, as displayed in the eagerness of judges to obtain, and the readiness of juries to return, convictions against men accused of crimes against women, on evidence which, in many cases, would not be good enough (to use the common phrase) to hang a dog on, with the inevitable ferocious sentence following conviction, may be witnessed on almost every occasion when such cases are up for trial. I have spoken of
the eagerness of judges to obtain convictions. As an illustration of this sort of thing, the following may be given:—In the trial of a man for the murder of a woman, before Mr Justice Bucknill, which took place some time ago, it came out in evidence that the woman had violently and obscenely abused and threatened the man immediately before, in the presence of other persons. The jury were so impressed with the evidence of unusually strong provocation that they hesitated whether it was not sufficient to reduce the crime to that of manslaughter, and, unable to agree offhand on a verdict of murder, asked the judge for further guidance. Their deliberations were, however, cut short by the judge, who remarked on the hesitation they had in arriving at their verdict, finally adding: “Only think, gentlemen, how you would view it had this been your own wife or sister who was cruelly done to death!” With the habitual obsequiousness of a British jury towards the occupant of the Bench, the gentlemen in question swallowed complacently the insult thrown at their wives and sisters in putting them in the same category with a foul strumpet, and promptly did what the judge obviously wanted of them—to wit, brought in a verdict of wilful murder. The cases on the obverse side, where the judge, by similar sentimental appeal, aims at procuring the acquittal of female prisoners notoriously guilty on the evidence, that palladium