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THE FRAUD OF FEMINISM
by
E. BELFORT BAX
Author of
“Marat: the People’S Friend,” “Problems of
Man, Mind And Morals,” etc.
[Illustration]
London
Grant Richards Ltd.
MDCCCCXIII
Printed by the Riverside Press Limited
Edinburgh
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 1
INTRODUCTION 5
CHAPTER
I. HISTORICAL 11
II. THE MAIN DOGMA OF MODERN FEMINISM 20
III. THE ANTI-MAN CRUSADE 51
IV. ALWAYS THE “INJURED INNOCENT” 80
V. THE “CHIVALRY” FAKE 98
VI. SOME FEMINIST LIES AND FALLACIES 109
VII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MOVEMENT 140
VIII. THE INDICTMENT 161
_PREFACE_
_The present volume aims at furnishing a succinct exposure of the
pretensions of the Modern Feminist Movement. It aims at presenting
the case against it with an especial view to tracking down and
gibbetting the infamous falsehoods, the conventional statements, which
are not merely perversions of the truth, but which are directly and
categorically contrary to the truth, but which pass muster by sheer
force of uncontradicted repetition. It is by this kind of bluff that
the claims of Feminism are sustained. The following is a fair example
of the statements of Feminist writers:—“As for accusing the world at
large of fatuous indulgence for womanhood in general, the idea is too
preposterous for words. The true ‘legends of the Old Bailey’ tell, not
of women absurdly acquitted, but of miserable girls sent to the gallows
for murders committed in half delirious dread of the ruthlessness of
hypocritical Society.” Now it is this sort of legend that it is one
of the chief objects of the following pages to explode. Of course the
“fatuous indulgence” for “womanhood in general,” practised by the
“world at large,” is precisely one of the most conspicuous features
of our time, and the person who denies it, if he is not deliberately
prevaricating, must be a veritable Rip van Winkle awakening out of a
sleep lasting at least two generations. Similarly the story of the
“miserable girls sent to the gallows,” etc., is, as far as living
memory is concerned, a pure legend. It is well known that in the cases
referred to of the murder of their new-born children by girls, at the
very outside a year or two’s light imprisonment is the only penalty
actually inflicted. The acquittal of women on the most serious charges,
especially where the victims are men, in the teeth of the strongest
evidence, is, on the other hand, an everyday occurrence. Now it is
statements like the above on which, as already said, the Feminist
Movement thrives; its most powerful argumentative weapon with the man
in the street is the legend that woman is oppressed by man. It is
rarely that anyone takes the trouble to refute the legend in general,
or any specific case adduced as an illustration of it. When, however,
the bluff is exposed, when the real facts of the case are laid bare to
public notice, and woman is shown, not only as not oppressed but as
privileged, up to the top of her bent, then the apostles of Feminism,
male and female, being unable to make even a plausible case out in
reply, with one consent resort to the boycott, and, by ignoring what
they cannot answer, seek to stop the spread of the unpleasant truth so
dangerous to their cause. The pressure put upon publishers and editors
by the influential Feminist sisterhood is well known._
_For the rest, it must not be supposed that this little book makes any
claim to exhaust the subject or to be a scientific treatise. It is, and
is meant to be, a popular refutation of the current arguments in favour
of Feminism, and a brief statement of the case against Feminism. Sir
Almroth Wright’s short treatise, “The Unexpurgated Case against Woman’s
Suffrage,” which deals with the question from a somewhat different
standpoint, may be consulted with advantage by the reader._
_An acknowledgment should be made to the editor of _The New Age_ for
the plucky stand made by that journal in the attempt to dam the onrush
of sentimental slush set free by the self-constituted champions of
womanhood. I have also to thank two eminent medical authorities for
reading the proofs of my second chapter._
INTRODUCTION
In the following pages it is not intended to furnish a treatise on the
evolution of woman generally or of her place in society, but simply to
offer a criticism on the theory and practice of what is known as Modern
Feminism.
By Modern Feminism I understand a certain attitude of mind towards
the female sex. This attitude of mind is often self-contradictory and
illogical. While on the one hand it will claim, on the ground of the
intellectual and moral equality of women with men, the concession of
female suffrage, and commonly, in addition thereto, the admission of
women to all professions, offices and functions of public life; on the
other it will strenuously champion the preservation and intensification
of the privileges and immunities before the law, criminal and civil, in
favour of women, which have grown up in the course of the nineteenth
century.
The above attitude, with all its inconsistencies, has at its back a
strong sex-conscious party, or sex union, as we may term it, among
women, and a floating mass of inconsequent, slushy sentiment among
men. There is more than one popular prejudice which obscures the
meaning and significance of Modern Feminism with many people. There
is a common theory, for instance, based upon what really obtained to
some extent before the prevalence of Modern Feminism, that in any case
of antagonism between the two sexes, women always take the man’s side
against the woman. Now this theory, if it ever represented the true
state of the case, has long ceased to do so.
The powerful female sex union spoken of, in the present day, exercises
such a strong pressure in the formation of public opinion among
women, that it is rapidly becoming next to impossible, even in the
most flagrant cases, where man is the victim, to get any woman to
acknowledge that another woman has committed a wrong. On the other
hand it may be noted, that the entire absence of any consciousness of
sex antagonism in the attitude of men towards women, combined with
an intensification of the old-world chivalry prescribed by tradition
towards the so-called weaker sex, exercises, if anything, an increasing
sway over male public opinion. Hence the terrific force Feminism has
obtained in the world of the early twentieth century.
It is again often supposed, and this is also a mistake, that in
individual cases of dispute between the sexes, the verdict, let
us say of a jury of men, in favour of the female prisoner or the
female litigant is solely or even mainly determined by the fact of
the latter’s good looks. This may indeed play a part; but it is easy
to show from records of cases that it is a subordinate one—that,
whatever her looks or her age may be, the verdict is given her not so
much because she is a _pretty_ woman as because she is a _woman_. Here
again the question of attractiveness may have played a more potent part
in determining male verdicts in the days before Feminist sentiment
and Feminist views had reached their present dominance. But now the
question of sex alone, of being a woman, is sufficient to determine
judgment in her favour.
There is a trick with which votaries of Feminism seek to prejudice the
public mind against its critics, and that is the “fake” that any man
who ventures to criticise the pretensions of Feminism, is actuated by
motives of personal rancour against the female sex, owing to real or
imaginary wrongs suffered by him at the hands of some member or members
of the sex. I suppose it may be possible that there are persons, not
precisely microcephalous idiots, who could be made to believe such
stuff as this in disparagement of him who ventures an independent
judgment on these questions; otherwise the conduct of Feminists in
adopting this line of argument would be incomprehensible. But we
would fain believe that the number of these feeble-minded persons,
who believe there is any connection between a man having independent
judgment enough to refuse to bend the knee to Modern Feminist dogma,
and his having quarrelled with any or all of his female friends or
relations, cannot be very numerous. As a matter of fact there is not
one single prominent exponent of views hostile to the pretensions of
what is called the “Woman’s Movement” of the present day, respecting
whom there is a tittle of evidence of his not having lived all his life
on the best of terms with his womankind. There is only one case known
of indirectly by the present writer, and that not of a prominent writer
or speaker on the subject, that would afford any plausible excuse
whatever for alleging anti-Feminist views to have been influenced by
personal motives of this kind. I am aware, of course, that Feminists,
with their usual mendacity, have made lying statements to this effect
respecting well-nigh every prominent writer on the anti-Feminist side,
in the hope of influencing the aforesaid feeble-minded members of
the public against their opponents. But a very little investigation
suffices to show in every case the impudent baselessness of their
allegations. The contemptible silliness of this method of controversy
should render it unworthy of serious remark, and my only excuse
for alluding to it is the significant sidelight it casts upon the
intellectual calibre of those who resort to it, and of the confidence
or want of confidence they have in the inherent justice of their cause
and the logical strength of their case.
CHAPTER I
HISTORICAL
The position of women in social life was for a long time a matter
of course. It did not arise as a question, because it was taken for
granted. The dominance of men seemed to derive so obviously from
natural causes, from the possession of faculties physical, moral and
intellectual, in men, which were wanting in women, that no one thought
of questioning the situation. At the same time, the inferiority of
woman was never conceived as so great as to diminish seriously, much
less to eliminate altogether, her responsibility for crimes she might
commit. There were cases, of course, such as that of offences committed
by women under coverture, in which a diminution of responsibility was
recognised and was given effect to in condonation of the offence and
in mitigation of the punishment. But there was no sentiment in general
in favour of a female more than of a male criminal. It entered into
the head of no one to weep tears of pity over the murderess of a lover
or husband rather than over the murderer of a sweetheart or wife.
Similarly, minor offenders, a female blackmailer, a female thief, a
female perpetrator of an assault, was not deemed less guilty or worthy
of more lenient treatment than a male offender in like cases. The law,
it was assumed, and the assumption was acted upon, was the same for
both sexes. The sexes were equal before the law. The laws were harsher
in some respects than now, although not perhaps in all. But there was
no special line of demarcation as regards the punishment of offences
as between men and women. The penalty ordained by the law for crime or
misdemeanour was the same for both and in general applied equally to
both. Likewise in civil suits, proceedings were not specially weighted
against the man and in favour of the woman. There was, as a general
rule, no very noticeable sex partiality in the administration of the
law.
This state of affairs continued in England till well into the
nineteenth century. Thenceforward a change began to take place. Modern
Feminism rose slowly above the horizon. Modern Feminism has two
distinct sides to it: (1) an articulate political and economic side
embracing demands for so-called rights; and (2) a sentimental side
which insists in an accentuation of the privileges and immunities which
have grown up, not articulately or as the result of definite demands,
but as the consequence of sentimental pleading in particular cases.
In this way, however, a public opinion became established, finding
expression in a sex favouritism in the law and even still more in its
administration, in favour of women as against men.
These two sides of Modern Feminism are not necessarily combined in the
same person. One may, for example, find opponents of female suffrage
who are strong advocates of sentimental favouritism towards women
in matters of law and its administration. On the other hand you may
find, though this is more rare, strong advocates of political and
other rights for the female sex, who sincerely deprecate the present
inequality of the law in favour of women. As a rule, however, the
two sides go together, the vast bulk of the advocates of “Women’s
Rights” being equally keen on the retention and extension of women’s
privileges. Indeed, it would seem as though the main object of the bulk
of the advocates of the “Woman’s Movement” was to convert the female
sex into the position of a dominant _sexe noblesse_. The two sides
of Feminism have advanced hand in hand for the last two generations,
though it was the purely sentimental side that first appeared as a
factor in public opinion.
The attempt to paint women in a different light to the traditional
one of physical, intellectual and moral inferiority to men, probably
received its first literary expression in a treatise published in
1532 by Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim entitled _De Nobilitate et
Praecellentia Feminei Sexus_ and dedicated to Margaret, Regent of
the Netherlands, whose favour Agrippa was at that time desirous of
courting. The ancient world has nothing to offer in the shape of
literary forerunners of Modern Feminism, although that industrious
collector of historical odds and ends, Valerius Maximus, relates
the story of one Afrania who, with some of her friends, created
disturbances in the Law Courts of ancient Rome in her attempt to make
women’s voices heard before the tribunals. As regards more recent
ages, after Agrippa, we have to wait till the early years of the
eighteenth century for another instance of Feminism before its time,
in an essay on the subject of woman by Daniel Defoe. But it was not
till the closing years of the eighteenth century that any considerable
expression of opinion in favour of changing the relative positions of
the sexes, by upsetting the view of their respective values, founded on
the general experience of mankind, made itself noticeable.
The names of Mary Wollstonecraft in English literature and of Condorcet
in French, will hardly fail to occur to the reader in this connection.
During the French Revolution the crazy Olympe de Gouges achieved
ephemeral notoriety by her claim for the intellectual equality of women
with men.
Up to this time (the close of the eighteenth century) no advance
whatever had been made by legislation in recognising the modern theory
of sex equality. The claims of women and their apologists for entering
upon the functions of men, political, social or otherwise, although
put forward from time to time by isolated individuals, received little
countenance from public opinion, and still less from the law. What
I have called, however, the sentimental aspect of Modern Feminism
undoubtedly did make some headway in public opinion by the end of
the eighteenth century, and grew in volume during the early years
of the nineteenth century. It effectuated in the Act passed in 1820
by the English Parliament abolishing the punishment of flogging for
female criminals. This was the first beginning of the differentiation
of the sexes in the matter of the criminal law. The parliamentary
debate on the Bill in question shows clearly enough the power that
Sentimental[15:1] Feminism had acquired in public opinion in the
course of a generation, for no proposal was made at the same time
to abolish the punishment of flogging so far as men were concerned.
Up to this time the criminal law of England, as of other countries,
made no distinction whatever between the sexes in the matter of crime
and punishment, or at least no distinction based on the principle or
sentiment of sex privilege. (A slight exception might be made, perhaps,
in the crime of “petty treason,” which distinguished the murder of a
husband by his wife from other cases of homicide.) But from this time
forward, legislation and administration have diverged farther and
farther from the principle of sex equality in this connection in favour
of female immunity, the result being that at the present day, assuming
the punishment meted out to the woman for a given crime to represent a
normal penalty, the man receives an additional increment over and above
that accorded to the crime, _for the offence of having been born a man
and not a woman_.
[15:1] I should explain that I attach a distinct meaning to
the word _sentimental_; as used by me it does not signify,
as it does with most people, an excess of sentiment over
and above what I feel myself, but a sentiment unequally
distributed. As used in this sense, the repulsion to the
flogging of women while no repulsion is felt to the flogging
of men is _sentimentalism_ pure and simple. On the other hand
the objection to flogging altogether as punishment for men
or women could not be described as sentimentalism, whatever
else it might be. In the same way the anti-vivisectionist’s
aversion to “physiological” experiments on animals, if confined
to household pets and not extended to other animals, might be
justly described as sentimentalism; but one who objected to
such experiments on all animals, no matter whether one agreed
with his point of view or not, could not be justly charged
with sentimentalism (or at least, not unless, while objecting
to vivisection, he or she were prepared to condone other acts
involving an equal amount of cruelty to animals).
The Original Divorce Law of 1857 in its provisions respecting costs
and alimony, constitutes another landmark in the matter of female
privilege before the law. Other measures of unilateral sex legislation
followed in the years ensuing until the present state of things, by
which the whole power of the State is practically at the disposal of
woman to coerce and oppress men. But this side of the question we
propose to deal with later on.
The present actual movement of Feminism in political and social life
may be deemed to have begun in the early sixties, in the agitation
which preceded the motion of John Stuart Mill in 1867, on the question
of conferring the parliamentary franchise upon women. This was
coincident with an agitation for the opening of various careers to
women, notably the medical faculty. We are speaking, of course, here
of Great Britain, which was first in the field in Europe, alike in the
theory and practice of Modern Feminism. But the publication by the
great protagonist of the movement, John Stuart Mill, of his book, “The
Subjection of Women,” in 1868, endowed the cause with a literary gospel
which was soon translated into the chief languages of the Continent,
and corresponding movements started in other countries. Strangely
enough, it made considerable headway in Russia, the awakening of Russia
to Western ideas having recently begun to make itself felt at the time
of which we are speaking. The movement henceforth took its place as
a permanent factor in the political and social life of this and other
countries. Bills for female suffrage were introduced every year into
the British House of Commons with, on the whole, yearly diminishing
majorities against these measures, till a few years back the scale
turned on the other side, and the Women’s Enfranchisement Bill passed
every year its second reading until 1912, when for the first time for
many years it was rejected by a small majority. Meanwhile both sides
of the Feminist movement, apart from the question of the franchise,
had been gaining in influence. Municipal franchise “on the same terms
as for men” had been conceded. Women have voted for and sat on School
Boards, Boards of Guardians, and other public bodies. Their claim to
exercise the medical profession has been not merely admitted in law but
recognised in public opinion for long past. All the advantages of an
academic career have been opened to them, with the solitary exception
of the actual conferment of degrees at Oxford and Cambridge. Such has
been the growth of the articulate and political side of the theory of
Modern Feminism.
The sentimental side of Feminism, with its practical result of the
overweighting of justice in the interests of women in the courts, civil
as well as criminal, and their practical immunity from the operation
of the criminal law when in the dock, has advanced correspondingly;
while at the same time the sword of that same criminal law is sharpened
to a razor edge against the man even accused, let alone convicted,
of any offence against the sacrosanct majesty of “Womanhood.” Such
is the present position of the Woman question in this country, which
we take as typical, in the sense that in Great Britain, to which we
may also add the United States of America and the British Colonies,
where—if possible, the movement is stronger than in the mother country
itself—we see the logical outcome of Feminist theory and sentiment.
It remains to consider the existing facts more in detail, and the
psychological bearings of that large number of persons who have been
in the recent past, and are being at the present time, influenced to
accept the dogmas of Modern Feminism and the statements of alleged
facts made by its votaries. Before doing so it behoves us to examine
the credibility of the dogmas themselves, and the nature of the
arguments used to support them and also the accuracy of the alleged
facts employed by the Feminists to stimulate the indignation of the
popular mind against the pretended wrongs of women.