The Tyranny of Shams

by Joseph McCabe

At present the controversy about woman’s position turns largely on the question of her “nature,” and the literature of the subject is prodigious. Woman has different organs and functions than those of man, and it is natural to suppose that they will give her a different character. Here is the opportunity of the male: he has a solid scientific fact to build upon.

He sagely examines the intellectual life of woman and pronounces it inferior to that of man: he measures her brain and finds it smaller than that of man, and thus discovers the scientific basis of her inferiority; and he never reflects that, since he, on the whole, forbade her to develop her brain and intelligence during the fifteen centuries of Christian domination, it may be that her brain is not working with all the energy of which it is capable. He lays down for this dependent creature a certain code of deportment and behaviour, and, when it has enfeebled her, he discourses on her inferior muscular development: if any girls or women defiantly exercise their muscles and become strong, he calls them “unwomanly” and happily exceptional. He observes that woman is more emotional than man; and, of course, he does not ask physiologists whether this may be merely, or mainly, the effect (as it is) of the muscular and intellectual restrictions he has placed on her. He bids her develop pretty curves on her body for his entertainment, and never thinks about the physiological and psychological effect of the dead mass of fat and the flabby muscles. He kindly undertakes (for a consideration) the care of this weaker companion, and, when she begins to prove that she can fend for herself, he severely censures her for intruding on his labour-market. He learns from novelists that she has a peculiar power of “intuition” (in fiction), and a greater fineness of perception than man (which exact experiment in America has shown to be untrue), and is altogether a deep and unfathomable being. And he then, in virtue of his superior understanding of her “mysterious” nature, proceeds to dictate to her about her sphere and her capacities.

The absurdities and contradictions of male writers on women, supported by some women writers, during the last two hundred years, would fill a volume. They were more or less intelligible, and certainly entertaining, in the earlier part of the modern period, but at a time when we have scientific and historical information to guide us they are neither intelligent nor amusing. We now know that there is no such thing as an unchangeable nature of a living organism. Structure and function vary with use and environment, whatever theory of heredity one follows. Forbid the brain and muscles to function for some centuries, and they will become feebler: restore their activity and they will return to strength. Shut a woman out of politics or business or war, and she will lose her capacity for it: reintroduce her to it, and her faculties are sharpened. When the kings of Dahomi formed a regiment of women in their army, the women were found to be more deadly fighters than the men, and they drank as heavily.

As far as the political phase of the modern Feminist struggle is concerned, the application of these principles is clear enough. When statesmen can find no better argument against the enfranchisement of women than the fact that (like the politicians themselves) they do no military service, and when scientific men plead only their periodical perturbations and their “change of life,” it is time to cease arguing. Even in countries which have a system of conscription it has never been proposed that those who are exempt from service should not have a vote. In a country like England the objection is supremely foolish: it reminds one of Plato’s ironical argument, in this connection, that men who are bald should not be allowed to make shoes. As to the comparative disturbance of judgment which a certain proportion of women suffer at certain periods, it is preposterous to suppose that this does not unfit them for more important work, but does unfit them for casting a vote once in seven years. Is it suggested that the Conservative matron will, if an election fall in her period of nervous instability, march in a frenzy to the poll and vote for Keir Hardie? Even the more or less intoxicated male voter does not overrule a settled conviction so easily. But it is waste of time to discuss such matters. A simple investigation of years of experience in America and Australasia is more valuable than the pedantic declarations of one or two scientific men. Even Conservative Australians smiled when I asked them if the consequences of female enfranchisement, as they are darkly foreboded by serious people in England, had been observed in their Commonwealth.

The anti-suffrage campaign has been the death-blow of the prejudice against the enfranchisement of women. It has shown the complete futility of the Conservative position. Women would probably have the vote in England to-day if a section of those who demand it had not taken a false path. The end, however sacred, does not justify criminal means; nor can any serious statesman yield to violence and intimidation. Yet there is nothing in this temporary aberration to strengthen the anti-Feminist position. It was an error of judgment and a misreading of history. I am well acquainted with many of the ladies who did these regrettable things, and I know that the suggestion of “hysteria” is an insult. It is, however, useless to discuss this question further. Women will be enfranchised in England within a few years, and in all civilised nations within a quarter of a century.

Then will begin the campaign for the right to sit in Parliament, even in the Ministry. From sheer force of prejudice the great majority of the enfranchised women will resist this further claim, and the long story of education and agitation will be repeated. This is the outcome of our habit of persistently compromising with false traditions instead of frankly discarding them. The immortal jokes about women will be retailed in the House of Commons by our legislators; the same dark warnings will come from scientific Cassandras who have felt social influence; the same tragic whispers about “what every woman knows” will be heard in drawing-rooms. Then, about the year 1930, we will discover that woman is really capable of undertaking the not very exacting duties of the average Member of Parliament,—if we have not in the meantime abolished these aimless long debates on subjects which all approach with a fixed conviction,—and that it may not be impossible to find a woman with the capacity of Mr. Reginald M’Kenna or Lord Gladstone or Mr. Walter Long. Our Mrs. Humphry Wards will be the first to compete for the office.

I turn to the more serious question of the economic enfranchisement of women. On this side of the Feminist movement our views are hardly less hazy than in regard to politics. The middle-class, being the brain as well as the backbone of England, is chiefly responsible for the maxim that woman’s place is the home; but the middle-class is also the great employer of labour, and it has found that female labour is cheaper than male, and has therefore concluded that woman’s proper place is the office or the workshop. More than a fourth of the girls and women of England work outside the home. This material incentive to right views is, however, limited in its action. When the middle-class woman in turn seeks economic independence, she is received with coldness, if not derision. Women may be clerks, teachers, actresses, telegraphists, hosiery-makers, etc., but they ought not to aspire to be doctors, lawyers, or stockbrokers. If they ask the reason, they hear an inconsistent jumble of statements. In the first place, of course, they are not clever enough; in the second place, however, they are likely to be so far successful that they would lessen the available employment of men.

Certainly in such a haphazard industrial world as ours the accession of a fresh army of workers will cause, and is causing, confusion. On the laissez-faire principle this overcrowding of the market is good; it gives a greater play to selection and promotes efficiency. But we have, as I said, forced laissez-faire to compromise with decency. We prefer a little overcrowding, but not too much. The opening of the doors of all the professions to woman means a worse overcrowding than ever in the medical and legal worlds, and we naturally hesitate.

Naturally, but not justly or logically. Between logic and justice the modern man pleads that he is distracted, and he asks time for reconstruction; asks, in other words, that we should leave the trouble to another generation. This shrinking from trouble is of no avail. We have sanctioned the principle of female industry outside the home—millions of women are so employed in England to-day—and we have absolutely no ground to limit it except the natural disability of woman or the social need for her to undertake other functions. Of her natural disability little need be said here. We have had, in most countries, decades of experience of the employment of women in many industries—teaching, nursing, journalism, factory-work, art, theatre, post-office, type-writing, shop-work, and so on. What proportion of complaint to the number of workers is there that their periodical functions make them unfit for employment? We do not need learned experts on gynecology to tell us of the acute and exceptional cases which have come under their observation. The scientific and practical procedure is to make a general inquiry into the net result of our employment of millions of girls and women. Most of us would await such a report with confidence. As long as the wages of women are lower than those of men, we hear very little complaint; nor do we find the work of our schools or the play of our theatres very much interrupted by peculiarly feminine weaknesses. Of late years women have shown that they are equally qualified to be dentists, doctors, chartered accountants, etc. Common-sense would persuade us, if we would find the real limits of woman’s capacity, to open to her all the doors of the world of work and learn it by experience.

One must give more serious attention to the claim that this economic enfranchisement of women will tend to lessen maternity, and will therefore endanger our social interests. This question of the birth-rate is, in fact, very important from many points of view, and it is extremely advisable to have a clear and reasoned grasp of it. Many people are at once alarmed if it is shown that a practice will tend to lessen the birth-rate. They rarely examine with critical attention the reasons which would be alleged by those who maintain that a lowering of the birth-rate is a social menace.