In Times Like These

by Nellie L. McClung

The word "honest" as applied to women means "virtuous." It has overshadowed all other virtues, and in a way appeared to make them of no account.

The physical disabilities of women which have been augmented and exaggerated by our insane way of dressing has had much to do with shaping women's thought. The absurdly tight skirts which prevented the wearer from walking like a human being, made a pitiful cry to the world. They were no doubt worn as a protest against the new movement among women, which has for its object the larger liberty, the larger humanity of women. The hideous mincing gait of the tightly-skirted women seems to speak. It said: "I am not a useful human being—see! I cannot walk—I dare not run, but I am a woman—I still have my sex to commend me. I am not of use, I am made to be supported. My sex is my only appeal."

Rather an indelicate and unpleasant thought, too, for an "honest" woman to advertise so brazenly. The tight skirts and diaphanous garments were plainly a return to "sex." The ultra feminine felt they were going to lose something in this agitation for equality. They do not want rights—they want privileges—like the servants who prefer tips to wages. This is not surprising. Keepers of wild animals tell us that when an animal has been a long time in captivity it prefers captivity to freedom, and even when the door of the cage is opened it will not come out—but that is no argument against freedom.

The anti-suffrage attitude of mind is not so much a belief as a disease. I read a series of anti-suffrage articles not long ago in the New York Times. They all were written in the same strain: "We are gentle ladies. Protect us. We are weak, very weak, but very loving." There was not one strong nourishing sentence that would inspire anyone to fight the good fight. It was all anemic and bloodless, and beseeching, and had the indefinable sick-headache, kimona, breakfast-in-bed quality in it, that repels the strong and healthy. They talked a great deal of the care and burden of motherhood. They had no gleam of humor—not one. The anti-suffragists dwell much on what a care children are. Their picture of a mother is a tired, faded, bedraggled woman, with a babe in her arms, two other small children holding to her skirts, all crying. According to them, children never grow up, and no person can ever attend to them but the mother. Of course, the anti-suffragists are not this kind themselves. Not at all. They talk of potential motherhood—but that is usually about as far as they go. Potential motherhood sounds well and hurts nobody.

The Gentle Lady still believes in the masculine terror of tears, and the judicious use of fainting. The Jane Austin heroine always did it and it worked well. She burst into tears on one page and fainted dead away on the next. That just showed what a gentle lady she was, and what a tender heart she had, and it usually did the trick. Lord Algernon was there to catch her in his arms. She would not faint if he wasn't.

The Gentle Lady does not like to hear distressing things. Said a very gentle lady not long ago: "Now, please do not tell me about how these ready-to-wear garments are made, because I do not wish to know. The last time I heard a woman talk about the temptation of factory girls, my head ached all evening and I could not sleep." (When the Gentle Lady has a headache it is no small affair—everyone knows it!) Then the Gentle Lady will tell you how ungrateful her washwoman was when she gave her a perfectly good, but, of course, a little bit soiled party dress, or a pair of skates for her lame boy, or some such suitable gift at Christmas. She did not act a bit nicely about it!

The Gentle Lady has a very personal and local point of view. She looks, at the whole world as related to herself—it all revolves around her, and therefore what she says, or what "husband" says, is final. She is particularly bitter against the militant suffragette, and excitedly declares they should all be deported.

"I cannot understand them!" she cries.

Therein the Gentle Lady speaks truly. She cannot understand them, for she has nothing to understand them with. It takes nobility of heart to understand nobility of heart. It takes an unselfishness of purpose to understand unselfishness of purpose.

"What do they want?" cries the Gentle Lady. "Why some of them are rich women—some of them are titled women. Why don't they mind their own business and attend to their own children?"