Since Korea has belonged to Japan, changes have begun there also. The Korean women have neither a first name nor a family name. According to circumstances they are called daughter of A. B., wife of A., etc. It is a sign of the time and also of the awakening of woman’s self-reliance that the government of Korea has been presented with a petition, signed by many women, requesting that these conditions be abolished and that women be granted the right to have their own names.
We have completed our journey round the world,—from Japan to the United States is only a short distance, and the intellectual relations between the two countries are quite intimate. Few oriental people seem more susceptible to European culture than the Japanese. But whatever woman’s rights movement there is in non-European countries, it owes its origin almost without exception to the activity of educated occidentals,—to the men and women teachers, educators, doctors, and missionaries. Here is an excellent field for our activities; here is a duty that we dare not forget in the midst of our own struggles. For we cannot estimate the noble work and uplifting power that the world loses in those countries where women are merely playthings and beasts of burden.
CONCLUSION
In the greater part of the world woman is a slave and a beast of burden. In these countries she rules only in exceptional cases—and then through cunning. Equality of rights is not recognized; neither is the right of woman to act on her own responsibility. Even in most countries of European civilization woman is not free or of age. In these countries, too, she exists merely as a sexual being. Woman is free and is regarded as a human being only in a very small part of the civilized world. Even in these places we see daily tenacious survivals of the old barbarity and tyranny. Hence it is not true that woman is the “weaker,” the “protected,” the “loved,” and the “revered” sex. In most cases she is the overworked, exploited, and (even when living in luxury) the oppressed sex. These circumstances dwarf woman’s humanity, and limit the development of her individuality, her freedom, and her responsibility. These conditions are opposed by the woman’s rights movement. The movement hopes to secure the happiness of woman, of man, of the child, and of the world by establishing the equal rights of the sexes. These rights are based on the recognition of equality of merit; they provide for responsibility of action. Most men do not understand this ideal; they oppose it with unconscious egotism.
This book has given an accurate account of the means by which men oppose woman’s rights: scoffing, ridicule, insinuation; and finally, when prejudice, stubbornness, and selfishness can no longer resist the force of truth, the argument that they do not wish to grant us our rights. There is little encouragement in this; but it shall not perplex us. Man, by opposing woman, caused the struggle between the sexes. Only equality of rights can bring peace. Woman is already certain of her equality. Man will learn by experience that renunciation can be “manly,” that business can be “feminine,” and that all “privilege” is obnoxious. The emancipation of woman is synonymous with the education of man.
Educating is always a slow process; but it inspires limitless hope. When “ideas” have once seized the masses, these ideas become an irresistible force. This is irrefutably proved by the strong growth of our movement since 1904 in all countries of European civilization, and by the awakening of women even in the depths of oriental civilization. The events of the past five years justify us in entertaining great hopes.