The Case of Woman.
II.
The mystic oracles of the women’s clubs do not give a straightforward answer to this question. Yet there are mutterings, mouthings, and signs from them which tend to arouse masculine suspicions. To use a colloquialism, woman fancies herself very much at present, and she spends considerable time in studying the set of her mind in the looking-glass. And her serenity is justified. In spite of ridicule, baiting, and delay for several generations, she has demonstrated her ability and fitness to do a number of things which we had adjudged her incapable of doing. She can almost take care of herself in the street after dark. She has become a most valuable member of committees to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the sick, and the insane. She has become the president and professors of colleges founded in her behalf. The noble and numerous army of teachers, typewriters, salesladies, nurses, and women doctors (including Christian Scientists), stands as ample proof of her intention and capacity to strike out for herself. No wonder, perhaps, that she is a little delirious and mounted in the head, and that she is tempted to exclaim, “Go to, I will do more than this. Why should I not practise law, and sell stocks, wheat, corn, and exchange, control the money markets of the world, administer trusts, manage corporations, sit in Congress, and be President of the United States?”
The only things now done by man which the modern woman has not yet begun to cast sheep’s eyes at are labor requiring much physical strength and endurance, and military service. She is prepared to admit that she can never expect to be so muscular and powerful in body as man. But this has become rather a solace than a source of perplexity to her. Indeed, the women’s clubs are beginning to whisper under their breath, “Man is fitted to build and hew and cut and lift, and to do everything which demands brute force. We are not. We should like to think, plan, and execute. Let him do the heavy work. If he wishes to fight he may. Wars are wicked, and we shall vote against them and refuse to take part in them.”
If woman is going in for this sort of thing, of course she needs the ballot. If she intends to manage corporations and do business generally, she ought to have a voice in the framing of the laws which manifest the policy of the state. But to earn one’s living as a college professor, nurse, typewriter, saleslady, or clerk, or to sit on boards of charity, education, or hygiene, is a far remove from becoming bank presidents, merchants, judges, bankers, or members of Congress. The one affords the means by which single women can earn a decent and independent livelihood, or devote their energies to work useful to society; the other would necessitate an absolute revolution in the habits, tastes, interests, proclivities, and nature of woman. The noble army of teachers, typewriters, nurses, and salesladies are in the heels of their boots hoping to be married some day or other. They have merely thrown an anchor to windward and taken up a calling which will enable them to live reasonably happy if the right man does not appear, or passes by on the other side. Those who sit on boards, and who are more apt to be middle-aged, are but interpreting and fulfilling the true mission of the modern woman, which is to supplement and modify the point of view of man, and to extend the kind of influence which she exercises at home to the conduct of public interests of a certain class.
Now, some one must keep house. Some one must cook, wash, dust, sweep, darn, look after the children, and in general grease the wheels of domestic activity. If women are to become merchants, and manage corporations, who will bring up our families and manage the home? The majority of the noble army referred to are not able to escape from making their own beds and cooking their own breakfasts. If they occupied other than comparatively subordinate positions they would have to call Chinatown to the rescue; for the men would decline with thanks, relying on their brute force to protect them, and the other women would toss their heads and say “Make your own beds, you nasty things. We prefer to go to town too.” In fact the emancipation of women, so far as it relates to usurpation of the work of man, does not mean much in actual practice yet, in spite of the brave show and bustle of the noble army. The salesladies get their meals somehow, and the domestic hearth is still presided over by the mistress of the house and her daughters. But this cannot continue to be the case if women are going to do everything which men do except lift weights and fight. For we all know that our mothers, wives, and sisters, according to their own affidavits, have all they can do already to fulfil the requirements of modern life as mothers, wives, and sisters in the conventional yet modern sense. Many of them tell us that they would not have time to vote, to say nothing of qualifying themselves to vote. Indisputably they cannot become men and yet remain women in the matter of their daily occupations, unless they discover some new panacea against nervous prostration. The professions are open; the laws will allow them to establish banks and control corporate interests; but what is to become of the eternal feminine in the pow-wow, bustle, and materializing rush and competition of active business life? Whatever a few individuals may do, there seems to be no immediate or probably eventual prospect of a throwing off by woman of domestic ties and duties. Her physical and moral nature alike are formidable barriers in the way.