In conclusion I shall take several points from the lecture which Professor F. Laurie Poster held before the Political Equality League in Chicago, after the women of Chicago had waged a vigorous campaign for the right to vote in municipal affairs.
Why is the value of woman placed so low? Merely because she is more helpless than man. Children are valued even less than women because they surpass the women in helplessness. Only animals have less power of defense; therefore they have the lowest value placed on them. In the United States it has now been demonstrated that whoever possesses the right to vote is esteemed more highly than he who does not have that right. We see this in the woman’s suffrage states; here the women have made provisions not only for themselves, but for the children as well, for it is one of the fundamental instincts of woman to protect her little ones. In most of the states of the Union, however, women can help directly neither themselves nor their children. That women should be forced to struggle for these ends against the opposition of man is one of the most unfortunate phases of the whole movement.
When woman became property, a possession, the overestimation of her sexual value began. Her sex was her weapon, and her capabilities became stunted. This over emphasis of the sexual causes a great part of the most flagrant evils among civilized peoples. To-day we have reached a stage where we despise him who sells his vote. Unfortunately it is still permitted to sell one’s sex. In this roundabout way woman attains most of the good things in life. Her economic successes depend almost entirely on the resources of the man to whom she belongs. Both sexes suffer as a result of this attitude of society. Woman’s uncertain feeling, that she must concentrate her interests and responsibilities in the one who provides for the family, has created exceedingly peculiar customs and a wholly absurd code of honor for both man and woman. Thereby woman is directed to a roundabout way for everything she wishes to obtain. Whatever she wishes for herself must appear as a domestic virtue, if possible as a sacrifice for the family. Man thinks it very natural that he should do what he desires, that he should pursue his pleasures and gratify his passions, for he is indeed the one who possesses authority and does not need first to stamp his wishes as virtues. But it seems just as natural to him that the women of the family should be endowed with a double portion of piety, economy and willingness to make sacrifices,—virtues in which he is so lacking. Women are created especially for that. By nature they are better, and indeed they make great efforts to cover the faults of the offending one and forgivingly accept him again. In fact they do it gladly; it gives them pleasure, and man certainly does not wish to deprive them of the opportunity for such great joys. Therefore man is instantly at hand to warn woman when she shows any inclination toward adopting “masculine” habits. But he certainly would be more conscientious and more moral if woman no longer assumed these virtues vicariously for him. Woman must make her demands of man. For that she must be free.[25]
AUSTRALIA[26]
| Total population: | 4,555,662. |
| Women: | 2,166,318. |
| Men: | 2,389,344. |
| An association of women’s clubs in each of five colonies. The Australian Women’s Political Association, embracing six colonies. |
It is a rare thing for Europeans to have a definite conception of the Australian Commonwealth. This is the more to be regretted since this federation of republics is among the countries that have made the greatest progress in the woman’s rights movement. In no other part of the world has such a radical change in the status of woman been effected in so short a time and with such comparatively insignificant struggles.
Till 1840, Australia had been a penal colony. Since then,—after the discovery of the first gold fields,—a multitude of fortune-seekers, gold-miners, and adventurers joined the population of deported convicts. The good middle-class element for a long time remained in the minority. Certainly nobody would have believed that there existed at that time in Australia all the conditions necessary for the growth of a flourishing and highly civilized commonwealth. Nevertheless, such was the case. There were formed seven democratic states, whose people were not bound by any traditionalism or excessive fondness for time-honored, inherited customs; these people wished to have elbowroom and were determined to establish themselves on their own soil in their own way. This all took place the more easily since England gave the growing commonwealth in general an exceedingly free hand, and because the inhabitants were by nature independent. Australia was colonized by those who, having come into conflict with the laws of the old world, found their sphere of life narrow and restricted.
Because Australia to-day has only about five million inhabitants, the country is confronted only in a limited way with the problem of dealing with congested masses of people, a condition which is favorable to all social experimentation. Those in authority believe they can direct and eventually mold the development of the Commonwealth.
Sixty-five per cent of the population are Protestant; the Germanic element predominates. The women constitute not quite 50 per cent of the population. Thus in many respects the Australian colonies possess conditions similar to those prevailing in the western states of the American Union, and the results of the woman’s rights movement are in both regions approximately the same. Mrs. M. Donohue, one of the delegates from Australia, declared at the London Woman’s Suffrage Congress that her country had brought about “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”