Those who open this book expecting to find in it a romantic sketch, rather in the style of Erewhon, of what the civilisation of the twentieth century is likely to be after women have won their freedom, will be doomed to disappointment. It does not deal with what a humorist in the Cambridge Historical Society used to call “that department of history which treats of the future.” Those who look for a plentiful supply of prophecy will not find it; but they will find a masterly sketch of the sources and aims of the women’s movement; and, in the author’s own words, a brief survey of the directions in which it appears to be travelling. They will find also wisdom, and knowledge, and understanding. Mrs. Swanwick avoids cheap and easy generalisation. She writes from a wide and deep knowledge, which has been gained from years of active work, especially in the women’s suffrage movement as it exists here and now; and she writes with the temperance and restraint which come of the philosophic mind.
Her book will be read and digested by her fellow-workers. They are quite certain to make it their own, for it is an armoury of facts and arguments bearing on their work. It ought also to be studied by every intelligent man and woman who perceives that the women’s movement is one of the biggest things that has ever taken place in the history of the world. Other movements towards freedom have aimed at raising the status of a comparatively small group or class. But the women’s movement aims at nothing less than raising the status of an entire sex—half the human race—to lift it up to the freedom and valour of womanhood. It affects more people than any former reform movement, for it spreads over the whole world. It is more deep-seated, for it enters into the home and modifies the personal character. No greater praise can be given to Mrs. Swanwick’s book than to say that she treats of this great subject in a manner worthy of it.
Her pages on militancy will be carefully studied. She is known to be deeply antagonistic to violence in all its forms, and she gives the reasons for the faith that is in her. It is also well known that she is a leading member of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, the chief of the non-militant suffrage organisations. But though she criticises severely the Women’s Social and Political Union, she is not among those who can see nothing but harm in their activities. Militant suffragism is essentially revolutionary, and, like other revolutionary agitations, has arisen from a want of harmony between economic and educational status and political status. Educationally, socially, and industrially women have made enormous advances during the last sixty years. But the laws controlling their political status have stood still. Similar conditions have invariably led to revolutionary outbursts except where lawmakers have had the sense to recognise the situation in time and adjust the political status of the group concerned to the changes which had already taken place in its general condition. It is by making these timely changes, and by grafting the bud of new ideas on the stem of old institutions, that our countrymen have shown their practical political instinct, and have, on the whole, saved the nation from the ruinous waste of revolution. They have not yet shown this good sense about women. But the signs of the times are full of hope that they may revert to type and be wise in time.
Dr. Arnold, writing from France within a generation of the Terror, said in reference to the destruction of the feudal power of the nobles over the French peasantry: “The work has been done … and in my opinion the blessing is enough to compensate the evils of the French Revolution; for the good endures, while the effects of the massacres and devastation are fast passing away.” If that could be said of the Terror cannot it be even more positively said of the comparatively innocuous “militancy” of recent years? The good endures, while the evil is temporary and passes away, is as true to-day as it was a hundred years ago.
MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| PREFACE | |
| Homo—Human principles of government—Unscientific scientific men—Our masters | [vii] |
| Introduction. By Mrs. Fawcett | [xi] |
| CHAPTER I Causes of the Women’s Movement | |
| Woman becomes articulate—Why the movement has become political in England—Women’s handicap—The need for concentration—Two kinds of change: education, industrialisation—Adaptation essential—Solidarity of women | [1] |
| CHAPTER II What is the Women’s Movement? | |
| Is it chaotic?—Knowledge and scope—What the world is losing—The spirit of the time a scientific one; women must share it—Action will follow knowledge—Is it to be thwarted action? | [14] |
| CHAPTER III The Subjection of Women | |
| Importance of motherhood—Vocational training of women for motherhood a mistake—Whole human beings—Full development under Men’s domination impossible—Sentimentalists and Brutalitarians—Subjection degrading—Are women mentally inferior to men?—An irrelevant question—Opportunity for development | [20] |
| CHAPTER IV Physical Force | |
| Man’s undoubted superiority—The handicap of motherhood—Woman’s battle a spiritual one—Domination by force is bad business—Foreign policy and war—Equality of service and equality of sacrifice—War not the only business | [31] |
| CHAPTER V Democracy and Representative Government | |
| Mr. Frederic Harrison and Prof. Dicey—Difficulties of governing others—Civil rights depend upon political rights—Illiberal arguments against women’s suffrage—Safety a delusion—Progress due to control of physical force by mind—Law of diminishing returns on compulsion—Opinions and interests of voter | [42] |
| CHAPTER VI Votes | |
| Effects of the denial of the vote—Legislation, administration, taxation—Status—The intolerable slur of disfranchisement—Direct effect of the vote—What women want—How Bills are made—Peaceful penetration—Indirect effect of the vote—Responsibility, independence, co-operation | [59] |
| CHAPTER VII The Economic Problem: (1) The Wage-Earner | |
| The domination of economic force—Woman’s natural handicap, motherhood—Woman’s artificial handicap, law and custom—Laissez-faire abandoned—Case of the pit-brow girls—Opening up of trades and professions—A living wage—Danger of sweated womanhood | [69] |
| CHAPTER VIII The Economic Problem: (2) The Mother | |
| Neglected motherhood—King Log and King Stork—The Englishman’s almost absolute power over his wife—Socialistic legislation—Endowment of motherhood—Payment of wives—Man’s outlook mainly personal, not racial—Woman’s outlook | [78] |
| CHAPTER IX The Economic Problem: (3) The Housewife | |
| The mother is generally the housewife—Convenient and economical—Bad conditions of housework—No reform without discontent—Motherhood and housewifery not inextricable—Co-operative housekeeping—Divorce of producer and consumer—Advertisement and speculation—Waste, adulteration, and ugliness—Specialisation needed in the consumer; also collective effort and political action | [89] |
| CHAPTER X The Economic Problem: (4) The Prostitute | |
| Prostitution the most commercially profitable of women’s trades—Definition—Extent—Is it an evil?—Is it (1) necessary for health, or (2) necessary consequence of evil nature and evil institutions?—Professions and performances—What is wrong with men, women, and marriage?—A complex evil requiring many remedies—Education—Self-respect—Wages—Brutality—Housing—Alcohol—Cruelty—Rescue | [99] |
| CHAPTER XI The Economic Problem: (5) Commercialised Vice | |
| Women’s crusade against prostitution, alcoholism, and war—Decay of Empires—Originally appetites, have become trades—Advertisement and finance—Vested interest in alcohol—Traffic in women—Chicago Vice Commission—More facts wanted—Enormous profits—Trade controlled by men—Ignorance and indifference—Traffic in war | [117] |
| CHAPTER XII The Man’s Woman: Womanly | |
| Two ideals—Motherly qualities do not attract men—Weakness and dependence are not motherly—Women distrust men’s judgment of women—Women’s wiles—Social value of women’s qualities—Florence Nightingale—Women must combine and organise—Inarticulate women | [126] |
| CHAPTER XIII The Woman’s Woman: A Person | |
| Ideal, Normal, and Average woman—Procrustes’ bed—Motherhood not everything—Genius and motherhood—Scientific men constantly overlook the mind—Breeding versus environment | [138] |
| CHAPTER XIV Sex-Antagonism: (1) Man’s Part | |
| No permanent opposition of sexes—Mr. Heape’s theory—Primitive man and woman are opposed—Men and women not the “same” nor “equal”—Effect of luxury—Mr. Heape’s nightmare: Men “brute beasts,” maidens “waste products”—Love the reconciling force—Adaptation of the Human to environment—Women not all sex—The literature of abuse—Are men fit for judicial powers? | [156] |
| CHAPTER XV Sex-Antagonism: (2) Woman’s Part | |
| Women’s war—Is men’s need greater?—War open and articulate—The Ladies’ Gallery—Sir Charles Grandison on the enemies of women—Militancy and the machine—The mob spirit—A revival due—Press, purse, and party—The good and the evil of militancy—Is it War or Martyrdom?—Men’s hypocrisy about women’s violence—The weapon of femininity—The responsibility of the Government—Exasperation is not statesmanship | [173] |
| CHAPTER XVI The Old Adam and the New | |
| Adaptation—A man’s world difficult for women to live in—Men’s needs—The double standard—The child’s needs—Health of girls—Co-education—Teaching of sex—Parasitic daughters—The birth-rate—Women the natural protectors of children; therefore they should be given power to protect—Men should help women—The experience of Finland—Comradeship—Faith | [193] |