SOME FEMINIST LIES AND FALLACIES
By Feminist lies I understand false statements put forward by persons,
many of whom should be perfectly well aware that they are false,
apparently with the deliberate intention of misleading public opinion
as to the real position of woman before the law. By fallacies I
understand statements doubtless dictated by Feminist prepossessions or
Feminist bias, but not necessarily suggesting conscious or deliberate
_mala fides_.
Of the first order, the statements are made apparently with intentional
dishonesty in so far as many of the persons making them are concerned,
since we may reasonably suppose them to have intelligence and knowledge
enough to be aware that they are contrary to fact. The talk about the
wife being a chattel, for example, is so palpably absurd in the face of
the existing law that it is nowadays scarcely worth making (although
we do hear it occasionally even now). But it was not even true under
the old common law of England, which, for certain disabilities on the
one hand, conceded to the wife certain corresponding privileges on
the other. The law of husband and wife, as modified by statute in the
course of the nineteenth century, as I have often enough had occasion
to point out, is a monument of legalised tyranny over the husband in
the interests of the wife.
If in the face of the facts the word chattel, as applied to the wife,
has become a little too preposterous even for Feminist controversial
methods, there is another falsehood scarcely less brazen that we hear
from Feminist fanatics every day. The wife, we are told, is the only
_unpaid servant_! A more blatant lie could scarcely be imagined. As
every educated person possessing the slightest acquaintance with the
laws of England knows, the law requires the husband to maintain his
wife in a manner according with his own social position; has, in other
words, to feed, clothe and afford her all reasonable luxuries, which
the law, with a view to the economic standing of the husband, regards
as necessaries. This although the husband has no claim on the wife’s
property or income, however wealthy she may be. Furthermore, it need
scarcely be said, a servant who is inefficient, lazy, or otherwise
intolerable, can be dismissed or her wage can be lowered. Not so that
privileged person, the legally wedded wife. It matters not whether
she perform her duties well, badly, indifferently, or not at all,
the husband’s legal obligations remain just the same. It will be
seen, therefore, that the wife in any case receives from the husband
economic advantages compared with which the wages of the most highly
paid servant in existence are a mere pauper’s pittance. This talk we
hear _ad nauseam_, from the Feminist side, of the wife being an “unpaid
servant,” is typical of the whole Feminist agitation. We find the same
deliberate and unscrupulous dishonesty characterising it throughout.
Facts are not merely perverted or exaggerated, they are simply turned
upside down.
Another statement commonly made is that women’s lower wages as compared
with men’s is the result of not possessing the parliamentary franchise.
Now this statement, though not perhaps bearing on its face the wilful
deception characterising the one just mentioned, is not any the less a
perversion of economic fact, and we can hardly regard it otherwise than
as intentional. It is quite clear that up to date the wages of men have
not been raised by legislation, and yet sections of the working classes
have possessed the franchise at least since 1867. What legislation
has done for the men has been simply to remove obstacles in the way
of industrial organisation on the part of the workman in freeing the
trade unions from disabilities, and even this was begun, owing to
working-class pressure from outside, long before—as long ago as the
twenties of the last century under the auspices of Joseph Hume and
Francis Place. Now women’s unions enjoy precisely the same freedom as
men’s unions, and nothing stands in the way of working women organising
and agitating for higher wages. Those who talk of the franchise as
being necessary for working women in order to obtain equal industrial
and economic advantages with working men must realise perfectly well
that they are performing the oratorical operation colloquially known as
“talking through their hat.” The reasons why the wages of women workers
are lower than those of men, whatever else may be their grounds, and
these are, I think, pretty obvious, clearly are not traceable to
anything which the concession of the franchise would remove. If it be
suggested that a law could be enacted compulsorily enforcing equal
rates of payment for women as for men, what the result would be the
merest tyro in such matters can foresee—to wit, that it would mean the
wholesale displacement of female by male labour over large branches of
industry, and this, we imagine, is not precisely what the advocates of
female suffrage are desirous of effecting.
Male labour, owing to its greater efficiency and other causes, being
generally preferred by employers to female labour, it is not likely
that, even for the sake of female _beaux yeux_, they are going to
accept female labour in the place of male, on an equal wage basis.
All this, of course, is quite apart from the question referred
to on a previous page, as to the economic responsibilities in the
interests of women, which our Feminist law-makers have saddled on the
man—namely, the responsibility of the husband, and the husband alone,
for the maintenance of his wife and family, obligations from anything
corresponding to which the female sex is wholly free.
In a leaflet issued by the “Men’s Federation for Women’s Suffrage”
it is affirmed that “many laws are on the statute book which inflict
injustice on Women.” We challenge this statement as an unmitigated
falsehood. Its makers ought to know perfectly well that they cannot
justify it. There are no laws on the statute book inflicting injustice
on women as a Sex, but there are many laws inflicting injustice on
men in the supposed interests of women. The worn-out tag which has so
long done duty with Feminists in this connection—viz. the rule of the
Divorce Court, that in order to procure divorce a wife has to prove
cruelty as well as adultery on the part of a husband, whereas a husband
has to prove adultery alone on the part of a wife—has already been
dealt with and its rottenness as a specimen of a grievance sufficiently
exposed in this work and elsewhere by the present writer. Is what the
authors of the leaflet may possibly have in their mind (if they have
anything at all) when they talk about statutes inflicting injustice
on women, that the law does not carry sex vindictiveness against men
far enough to please them? With all its flogging, penal servitude,
hard labour and the rest, for offences against women, some of them of
a comparatively trivial kind, does the law as regards severity on men
not even yet satisfy the ferocious Feminist souls of the members of the
“Men’s Federation for Women’s Suffrage”? This is the only explanation
of the statement in question other than that it is sheer bald bluff
designed to mislead those ignorant of the law.
Another flagrant falsehood perpetually being dinned into our ears by
the suffragists is the statement that _women have to obey the same laws
as men_. The conclusion drawn from this false statement is, of course,
that since they have to obey these laws equally with men, they have
an equal claim with men to take part in the making or the modifying
of them. Now without pausing to consider the fallacy underlying the
conclusion, we would point out that it is sufficient for our present
purpose to call attention to the falsity of the initial assumption
itself. It needs only one who follows current events and reads his
newspaper with impartial mind to see that to allege that women _have
to_, in the true sense of the words (_i.e._ are compelled to), obey
the same laws as men is a glaringly mendacious statement. It is
unnecessary in this place to go over once more the mass of evidence
comprised in previous writings of my own—_e.g._ in the pamphlet, “The
Legal Subjection of Man” (Twentieth Century Press), in the article,
“A Creature of Privilege” (_Fortnightly Review_, November 1911), and
elsewhere in the present volume, illustrating the unquestionable fact
that though in theory women may have to obey the law as men have, yet
in practice they are absolved from all the more serious consequences
men have to suffer when they disobey it. The treatment recently
accorded to the suffragettes for crimes such as wilful damage and
arson, not to speak of their previous prison treatment when convicted
for obstruction, disturbance and minor police misdemeanours, is a
proof, writ large, of the mendacity of the statement that women no less
than men have to obey the laws of the country, so far, that is, as any
real meaning is attached to this phrase.
Another suffragist lie which is invariably allowed to pass muster by
default, save for an occasional protest by the present writer, is the
assumption that the English law draws a distinction as regards prison
treatment, etc., as between political and non-political offenders.
Everyone with even the most elementary legal knowledge is aware that
no such distinction has ever been recognised or suggested by the
English law—at least until the prison ordinance made quite recently,
expressly to please the suffragettes, by Mr Winston Churchill when
Home Secretary. However desirable many may consider such a distinction
to be, nothing is more indubitable than the fact that it has never
previously obtained in the letter or practice of the law of England.
And yet, without a word of contradiction from those who know better,
arguments and protests galore have been fabricated on the suffragist
side, based solely on this impudently false assumption.
Misdemeanours and crimes at common law, when wilfully committed,
have in all countries always remained misdemeanours and crimes,
whatever motive can be conveniently put forward to account for them. A
political offence has always meant the expression of opinions or the
advocacy of measures or acts (not of the nature of common law crimes)
which are in contravention of the existing law—_e.g._ a “libel” on
the constituted authorities of the State, or the forcible disregard
of a law or police regulation in hindrance of the right of public
speech or meeting. This is what is meant by political offence in any
country recognising such as a special class of offence entitling
those committing it to special treatment. This is so where the matter
refers to the internal legislation of the country. Where the question
of extradition comes in the definition of political offence is, of
course, wider. Take the extreme case, that of the assassination of a
ruler or functionary, especially in a despotic State, where free Press
and the free expression of opinion generally do not exist. This is
undoubtedly a political, not a common law offence, _in so far as other
countries are concerned_, and hence the perpetrator of such a deed has
the right to claim immunity, on this ground, from extradition. The
position assumable is, that under despotic conditions the progressive
man is at war with the despot and those exercising authority under
him; therefore, in killing the despot or the repositories of despotic
authority, he is striking directly at the enemy. It would, however,
be absurd for the agent in a deed of this sort to expect special
political treatment _within the jurisdiction of the State itself
immediately concerned_. As a matter of fact he never does so. Fancy
a Russian Nihilist, when brought to trial, whining that he is a
political offender and hence to be exempted from all harsh treatment!
No, the Nihilist has too much self-respect to make himself ridiculous
in this way. Hardly even the maddest Terrorist Anarchist would make
such a claim. For example, the French law recognises the distinction
between political and common law offences. But for all this the _bande
tragique_, Bonnot and his associates, did not receive any benefit from
the distinction or even claim to do so, though otherwise they were loud
enough in proclaiming the political motives inspiring them. Even as
regards extradition, running amuck at large, setting fire promiscuously
to private buildings or injuring the ordinary non-political citizen,
as a “protest,” would not legally come into the category of political
offences and hence protect their authors from being surrendered as
ordinary criminals.
The real fact, of course, is that all this talk on the part of
suffragettes and their backers about “political” offences and
“political” prison treatment is only a mean and underhand way of trying
to secure special sex privileges under false pretences. Those who talk
the loudest in the strain in question know this perfectly well.
These falsehoods are dangerous, in spite of what one would think ought
to be their obvious character as such, by reason of the psychological
fact that you only require to repeat a lie often enough, provided you
are uncontradicted, in order for the aforesaid lie to be received as
established truth by the mass of mankind (“mostly fools,” as Carlyle
had it).
It is a preposterous claim, I contend, that any misdemeanour and _a
fortiori_ any felony has, law apart, and even from a merely ethical
point of view, any claim to special consideration and leniency on
the bare declaration of the felon or misdemeanant that it had been
dictated by political motive. In no country, at any time, has the mere
assertion of political motive been held to bring an ordinary crime
within the sphere of treatment of political offences. According to the
legal and ethical logic of the suffragettes, it is perfectly open for
them to set on fire theatres, churches and houses, and even to shoot
down the harmless passer-by in the street, and claim the treatment
of first-class misdemeanants on the ground that the act was done as
a protest against some political grievance under which they imagined
themselves to be labouring. The absurdity of the suggestion is evident
on its mere statement. And yet the above preposterous assumption
has been suffered equally with the one last noted to pass virtually
without protest, and what is more serious, it has been acted upon by
the authorities as though it were indubitably sound law as well as
sound ethics! It may be pointed out that what has cost many an Irish
Fenian in the old days, and many a Terrorist Anarchist at a later date,
a sentence of penal servitude for life, can be indulged in by modern
suffragettes at the expense of a few weeks’ imprisonment in the first
or second division. Of course, this whole talk of “political offences,”
when they are, on the face of them, mere common crimes, is purely and
simply a trick designed to shield the cowardly and contemptible female
creatures who perpetrate these senseless and dastardly outrages from
the punishment they deserve and would receive if they had not the good
fortune to be of the privileged sex. In the case of men this impudent
nonsense would, of course, never have been put forward, and, if it
had, would have been summarily laughed out of court. That it should
be necessary to point out these things in so many words is a striking
illustration of the moral and intellectual atrophy produced by Feminism
in the public mind.
There is another falsehood we often hear by way of condoning the
infamous outrages of the suffragettes. The excuse is often offered when
the illogical pointlessness of the “militant” methods of the modern
suffragette are in question: “Oh! men have also done the same things:
men have used violence to attain political ends!” Now the fallacy
involved in this retort is plain enough.
It may be perfectly true that men have used violence to attain their
ends on occasion. But to assert this fact in the connection in
question is purely irrelevant. There is violence _and_ violence. It
is absolutely false to say that men have ever adopted purposeless and
inane violence _as a policy_. The violence of men has always had an
intelligible relation to the ends they had in view, either proximate
or ultimate. They pulled down Hyde Park railings in 1866. Good! But
why was this? Because they wanted to hold a meeting, and found the
park closed against them, the destruction of the railings being the
only means of gaining access to the park. Again, the Reform Bill riots
of 1831 were at least all directed against Government property and
governmental persons—that is, the enemy with whom they were at war.
In most cases, as at Bristol and Nottingham, there was (as in that of
the Hyde Park railings) a very definite and immediate object in the
violence and destruction committed—namely, the release of persons
imprisoned for the part they had taken in the Reform movement, by the
destruction of the gaols where they were confined. What conceivable
analogy have these things with a policy of destroying private property,
setting fire to tea pavilions, burning boat-builders’ stock-in-trade,
destroying private houses, poisoning pet dogs, upsetting jockeys,
defacing people’s correspondence, including the postal orders of the
poor, mutilating books in a college library, pictures in a public
gallery, etc., etc.? And all these, _bien entendu_, not openly and
in course of a riot, but furtively, in the pursuit of a deliberately
premeditated policy! Have, I ask, men ever, in the course of the
world’s history, committed mean, futile and dastardly crimes such as
these in pursuit of any political or public end? There can be but
one answer to this question. Every reader must know that there is no
analogy whatever between suffragettes’ “militancy” and the violence and
crimes of which men may have been guilty. Even the Terrorist Anarchist,
however wrong-headed he may be, and however much his deeds may be
deemed morally reprehensible, is at least logical in his actions,
in so far as the latter have always had some definite bearing on his
political ends and were not mere senseless “running amuck.” The utterly
disconnected, meaningless and wanton character signalising the policy
of the “militant” suffragettes would of itself suffice to furnish a
conclusive argument for the incapacity of the female intellect to think
logically or politically, and hence against the concession to women of
public powers, political, judicial or otherwise.
Another fallacy analogous to the preceding, inasmuch as it seeks to
counterbalance female defects and weaknesses by the false allegation
of corresponding deficiencies in men, is the Feminist retort sometimes
heard when the question of hysteria in women is raised: “Oh! men can
also suffer from hysteria!” This has been already dealt with in an
earlier chapter, but for the sake of completing the list of prominent
Feminist fallacies I restate it concisely here. Now as we have seen it
is exceedingly doubtful whether this statement is true in any sense
whatever. There are eminent authorities who would deny that men ever
have true hysteria. There are others, of course, again, who would
extend the term hysteria so as to include every form of neurasthenic
disturbance. The question is largely, with many persons who discuss the
subject, one of terminology. It suffices here to cut short quibbling on
this score. For the nonce, let us drop the word hysteria and formulate
the matter as follows:—Women are frequently subject to a pathological
mental condition, differing in different cases but offering certain
well-marked features in common, a condition which seldom, if ever,
occurs in men. This I take to be an incontrovertible proposition based
upon experience which will be admitted by every impartial person.
Now the existence of the so-called hysterical man I have hitherto
found to be attested on personal experience solely by certain Feminist
medical practitioners who allege that they have met with him in their
consulting-rooms. His existence is thus vouchsafed for just as the
reality of the sea-serpent is vouchsafed for by certain sea captains
or other ancient mariners. Far be it from me to impugn the ability,
still less the integrity, of these worthy persons. But in either
case I may have my doubts as to the accuracy of their observation
or of their diagnosis. It may be that the sea-serpent exists and it
may be that hysteria is at times discoverable in male persons. But
while a conclusive proof of the discovery of a single sea-serpent of
the orthodox pattern would go far to justify the yarn of the ancient
mariner, the proof of the occurrence, in an occasional case, of
hysteria in men, would not by far justify the implied contention that
hysteria is not essentially a female malady. If hysterical men are as
common a phenomenon as certain hard-pressed Feminists would make out,
what I want to know is: Where are they? While we come upon symptoms
which would be commonly attributed to hysteria in well-nigh every
second or third woman of whose life we have any intimate knowledge,
how often do we find in men symptoms in any way resembling these?
In my own experience I have come across but two cases of men giving
indications of a temperament in any way analogous to that of the
“hysterical woman.” After all, the experience of the average layman,
and in this I contend my own is more or less typical, is more important
in the case of a malady manifesting itself in symptoms obvious to
common observation, such as the one we are considering, than that of
the medical practitioner, who by reason of his profession would be
especially likely to see cases, if there were any at all, however few
they might be. The possibility, moreover, at least suggests itself,
that the latter may often mistake for hysteria (using the word in the
sense commonly applied to the symptoms presented by women) symptoms
resulting from general neurasthenia or even from purely extraneous
causes, such as alcohol, drugs, etc. That this is sometimes the case is
hardly open to question. That the pathological mental symptoms referred
to as prevalent in the female, whether we attribute them to hysteria
or not, are rarely if ever found in the male sex is an undoubted fact.
The rose, it is said, is as sweet by any other name, and whether
we term these affections symptoms of hysteria, or describe them as
hysteria itself, or deny that they have anything to go with “true
hysteria,” their existence and frequency in the female sex remains
nevertheless a fact. No! whether some of the symptoms of hysteria,
“true” or “so-called,” are occasionally to be found in men or not,
every impartial person must admit that they are extremely rare, whereas
as regards certain pathological mental symptoms, common in women and
popularly identified (rightly or wrongly) with hysteria, there is, I
contend, little evidence of their occurring in men at all. Wriggle and
prevaricate as they may, it is impossible for Suffragists and Feminists
to successfully evade the undoubted truth that the mentality of women
is characterised constitutionally by a general instability, manifesting
itself in pathological symptoms radically differing in nature and in
frequency from any that obtain in men.
Very conspicuous among the fallacies that have done yeoman service in
the Feminist Movement is the assumption that women are constitutionally
the “weaker sex.” This has also been discussed by us in Chapter II.,
but the latter may again be supplemented here by a few further remarks,
so deeply rooted is this fallacy in public opinion. The reason of the
unquestioned acceptance of the assumption is partly due to a confusion
of two things under one name. The terms, “bodily strength” and “bodily
weakness” cover two distinct facts. The attribution of greater bodily
weakness to the female sex than to the male undoubtedly expresses a
truth, but no less does the attribution of greater bodily strength
to the female than to the male sex equally express a truth. In size,
weight and muscular development, average man has an unquestionable,
and in most cases enormous, advantage over average woman. It is in
this sense that the bodily structure of the human female can with some
show of justice be described as frail. On the other hand, as regards
tenacity of life, recuperative power and what we may term toughness of
constitution, woman is without doubt considerably stronger than man.
Now this vigour of constitution may, of course, also be described as
bodily strength, and to this confusion the assumption of the general
frailty of the female bodily organism as compared with the male has
acquired general currency in the popular mind.
The most carefully controlled and reliable statistics of the
Registrar-General and other sources show the enormously greater
mortality of men than of women at all ages and under all conditions
of life. Under the age of five the evidence shows that 120 boys die
to every 100 girls. In adult life the Registrar-General shows that
diseases of the chest are the cause of nearly 40 per cent. more
deaths among men than among women. That violence and accident should
be the occasion of 150 per cent. more deaths amongst men than women
is accounted for, partly, at least, by the greater exposure of men,
although the enormous disparity would lead one to suspect that here
also the inferior resisting power in the male constitution plays a not
inconsiderable part in the result. The report of the medical officer to
the Local Government Board proves that between the ages of fifty-five
and sixty-five there is a startling difference in numbers between the
deaths of men and those of women. The details for the year 1910 are as
follows:—
Diseases Males Females
Nervous system 1614 1240
Heart 5762 5336
Blood vessels 3424 3298
Respiratory system 3110 2473
Digestive system 1769 1681
Kidneys, etc. 2241 1488
Acute infections 2259 1164
Violent deaths 1624 436
Various additional causes, connected with the more active and anxious
life of men, the greater strain to which they are subjected, their
greater exposure alike to infection and to accident, may explain a
certain percentage of the excessive death-rate of the male population
as opposed to the female, yet these explanations, even allowing the
utmost possible latitude to them, really only touch the fringe of the
difference, with the single exception of deaths from violence and
accident above alluded to, where liability and exposure may account
for a somewhat larger percentage. The great cause of the discrepancy
remains, without doubt, the enormously greater potentiality of
resistance, in other words of constitutional strength, in the female
bodily organism as compared with the male.
We must now deal at some length with a fallacy of some importance,
owing to the apparatus of learning with which it has been set forth,
to be found in Mr Lester F. Ward’s book, entitled “Pure Sociology,”
notwithstanding that its fallacious nature is plain enough when
analysed. Mr Ward terms his speculation the “Gynœcocentric Theory,”
by which he understands apparently the Feminist dogma of the supreme
importance of the female in the scheme of humanity and nature
generally. His arguments are largely drawn from general biology,
especially that of inferior organisms. He traces the various
processes of reproduction in the lower departments of organic nature,
subdivision, germination, budding, etc., up to the earlier forms
of bi-sexuality, culminating in conjugation or true sexual union.
His standpoint he thus states in the terms of biological origins:
“Although reproduction and sex are two distinct things, and although a
creature that reproduces without sex cannot properly be called either
male or female, still so completely have these conceptions become
blended in the popular mind that a creature which actually brings forth
offspring out of its own body, is instinctively classed as female.
The female is the fertile sex, and whatever is fertile is looked upon
as female. Assuredly it would be absurd to look upon an organism
propagating sexually as male. Biologists have proceeded from this
popular standpoint and regularly speak of ‘mother cells,’ and ‘daughter
cells.’ It, therefore, does no violence to language or to science to
say that life begins with the female organism and is carried on a long
distance by means of females alone. In all the different forms of
a-sexual reproduction, from fission to parthenogenesis, the female may
in this sense be said to exist alone and perform all the functions of
life, including reproduction. In a word, life begins as female.”
In the above remarks it will be seen that Mr Ward, so to say, jumps the
claim of a-sexual organisms to be considered as female. This, in itself
a somewhat questionable proceeding, serves him as a starting-point
for his theory. The a-sexual female (?), he observes, is not only
primarily the original sex, but continues throughout, the main trunk,
though afterwards the male element is added “for the purposes of
fertilisation.” “Among millions of humble creatures,” says Mr Ward,
“the male is simply and solely a fertiliser.” The writer goes on in
his efforts to belittle the male sex in the sphere of biology. “The
gigantic female spider and the tiny male fertiliser, the Mantis insect
with its similarly large and ferocious female, bees, and mosquitoes,”
all are pressed into the service. Even the vegetable kingdom, in so far
as it shows signs of sex differentiation, is brought into the lists in
favour of his theory of female supremacy, or “gynœcocentricism,” as he
terms it.
This theory may be briefly stated as follows:—In the earliest
organisms displaying sex differentiation, it is the female which
represents the organism proper, the rudimentary male existing solely
for the purpose of the fertilisation of the female. This applies
to most of the lower forms of life in which the differentiation of
sex obtains, and in many insects, the Mantis being one of the cases
specially insisted upon by our author. The process of the development
of the male sex is by means of the sexual selection of the female.
From being a mere fertilising agent, gradually, as evolution proceeds,
it assumes the form and characteristics of an independent organism
like the original female trunk organism. But the latter continues to
maintain its supremacy in the life of the species, by means chiefly
of sexual selection, until the human period, _i.e._ more or less (!),
for Mr Ward is bound to admit signs of male superiority in the higher
vertebrates—viz. birds and mammals. This superiority manifests itself
in size, strength, ornamentation, alertness, etc. But it is with man,
with the advent of the reasoning faculty, and, as a consequence, of
human supremacy, that it becomes first unmistakably manifest. This
superiority, Mr Ward contends, has been developed under the ægis of
the sexual selection of the female, and enabled cruel and wicked man
to subject and enslave down-trodden and oppressed woman, who has thus
been crushed by a Frankenstein of her own creation. Although in various
earlier phases of human organisation woman still maintains her social
supremacy, this state of affairs soon changes. Androcracy establishes
itself, and woman is reduced to the rôle of breeding the race and of
being the servant of man. Thus she has remained throughout the periods
of the higher barbarism and of civilisation. Our author regards the
lowest point of what he terms the degradation of woman to have been
reached in the past, and the last two centuries as having witnessed a
movement in the opposite direction—namely, towards the emancipation of
woman and equality between the sexes. (_Cf._ “Pure Sociology,” chap.
xiv., and especially pp. 290-377.)
The above is a brief, but, I think, not unfair skeleton statement
of the theory which Mr Lester Ward has elaborated in the work above
referred to, in great detail and with immense wealth of illustration.
But now I ask, granting the correctness of Mr Ward’s biological
premises and the accuracy of his exposition, and I am not specialist
enough to be capable of criticising these in detail: What does it all
amount to? The “business end” (as the Americans would say) of the whole
theory, it is quite evident, is to afford a plausible and scientific
basis for the Modern Feminist Movement, and thus to further its
practical pretensions. What Mr Ward terms the androcentric theory, at
least as regards man and the higher vertebrates, which is on the face
of it supported by the facts of human experience and has been accepted
well-nigh unanimously up to quite recent times, is, according to him,
all wrong. The male element in the universe of living things is not the
element of primary importance, and the female element the secondary,
but the converse is the case. For this contention Mr Ward, as already
pointed out, has, by dint of his biological learning, succeeded at
least in making out a case _in so far as lower forms of life are
concerned_. He has, however, to admit—a fatal admission surely—that
evolution has tended progressively to break down the superiority of
the female (by means, as he contends, of her own sexual selection)
and to transfer sex supremacy to the male, according to Mr Ward,
hitherto a secondary being, and that this tendency becomes very obvious
in most species of birds and mammals. With the rise of man, however,
out of the _pithecanthropos_, the _homosynosis_, or by whatever other
designation we may call the intermediate organism between the purely
animal and the purely human, and the consequent supersession of
instinct as the dominant form of intelligence by reason, the question
of superiority, as Mr Ward candidly admits, is no longer doubtful, and
upon the unquestionable superiority of the male, in due course of time,
follows the unquestioned supremacy. It is clear then that, granting
the biological premises of our author that the lowest sexual organisms
are virtually female and that in the hermaphrodites the female
element predominates; that in the earliest forms of bi-sexuality the
fertilising or male element was merely an offshoot of the female trunk
and that this offshoot develops, mainly by means of sexual selection on
the part of the female, into an organism similar to the latter; that
not until we reach the higher vertebrates, the birds and the mammals,
do we find any traces of male superiority; and that this superiority
only becomes definite and obvious, leading to male domination, in the
human species—granting all this, I say, what argument can be founded
upon it in support of the equal value physically, intellectually and
morally of the female sex in human society, or the desirability of
its possessing equal political power with men in such society? On the
contrary, Mr Ward’s whole exposition, with his biological facts of
illustration, would seem to point rather in the opposite direction. We
seem surely to have here, if Mr Ward’s premises be accepted as to the
primitive insignificance of the male element—at first overshadowed and
dominated by the female stem, but gradually evolving in importance,
character and fruition, till we arrive at man the highest product of
evolution up to date—a powerful argument for anti-Feminism. On Mr
Ward’s own showing, we find that incontestible superiority, both in
size and power of body and brain, has manifested itself in Androcracy,
when the female is relegated, in the natural course of things, to the
function of child-bearing. This, it can hardly be denied, is simply one
more instance of the general process of evolution, whereby the higher
being is evolved from the lower, at first weak and dependent upon its
parent, the latter remaining dominant until the new being reaches
maturity, when in its turn it becomes supreme, while that out of which
it developed, and of which it was first the mere offshoot, falls into
the background and becomes in its turn subordinate to its own product.
Let us turn now to another scientific fallacy, the result of a good
man struggling with adversity—_i.e._ a sound and honest scientific
investigator, but one who, at the same time, is either himself obsessed
with the principles of Feminism as with a religious dogma, or else is
nervously afraid of offending others who are. His attitude reminds one
of nothing so much as that of the orthodox geologist of the first half
of the nineteenth century, who wrote in mortal fear of incurring the
_odium theologicum_ by his exposition of the facts of geology, and who
was therefore nervously anxious to persuade his readers that the facts
in question did not clash with the Mosaic cosmogony as given in the
Book of Genesis. With Mr Havelock Ellis in his work, “Man and Woman,”
it is not the dogma of Biblical infallibility that he is concerned
to defend, but a more modern dogma, that of female equality, so dear
to the heart of the Modern Feminist. Mr Ellis’s efforts to evade the
consequences of the scientific truths he honestly proclaims are almost
pathetic. One cannot help noticing, after his exposition of some fact
that goes dead against the sex-equality theory as contended for by
Feminists, the eagerness with which he hastens to add some qualifying
statement tending to show that after all it is not so incompatible with
the Feminist dogma as it might appear at first sight.
The _pièce de résistance_, however, of Mr Havelock Ellis is contained
in his “conclusion.” The author has for his problem to get over
the obvious incompatibility of the truth he has himself abundantly
demonstrated in the course of his book, that the woman-type, in every
respect, physiological and psychological, approaches the child-type,
while the man-type, in its proper progress towards maturity,
increasingly diverges from it. The obvious implication of this fact is
surely plain, on the principle of the development of the individual
being a shorthand reproduction of the evolution of the species, or,
to express it in scientific phraseology, of _ontogeny_ being the
abbreviated recapitulation of the stages presented by _philogeny_. If
we proceed on this well-accredited and otherwise universally accepted
principle of biology, the inference is clear enough—to wit, that woman
is, as Herbert Spencer and others have pointed out, simply “undeveloped
man”—in other words, that Woman represents a lower stage of evolution
than Man. Now this would obviously not at all suit the book of Mr
Ellis’s Feminism. Explained away it has to be in some fashion or other.
So our author is driven to the daring expedient of throwing overboard
one of the best established generalisations of modern biology, and
boldly declaring that the principle contained therein is reversed
(we suppose “for this occasion only”) in the case of Man. In this
way he is enabled to postulate a theory consoling to the Feminist
soul, which affirms that adult man is nearer in point of development
to his pre-human ancestor than either the child or the woman! The
physiological and psychological analogies observable between the child
and the savage, and even, especially in early childhood, between the
child and the lower mammalian types—analogies which, notably in
the life of instinct and passion, are traceable readily also in the
human female—all these count for nothing; they are not dreamt of in
Mr Ellis’s Feminist philosophy. The Modern Feminist dogma requires
that woman should be recognised as equal in every respect (except in
muscular strength) with man, and if possible, as rather superior to
him. If Nature has not worked on Feminist lines, as common observation
and scientific research alike testify on the face of things, naughty
Nature must be “corrected,” in theory, at least, by the ingenuity of
Feminist savants of the degraded male persuasion. To this end we must
square our scientific hypotheses!
The startling theory of Mr Havelock Ellis, which must seem, one
would think, to all impartial persons, so out of accord with all the
acknowledged laws and facts of biological science, appears to the
present writer, it must be confessed, the very _reductio ad absurdum_
of Feminist controversial perversity.
I will conclude this chapter on Feminist Lies and Fallacies with a
fallacy of false analogy or false illustration, according as we
may choose to term it. This quasi-argument was recently put forward
in a defence speech by one of the prisoners in a suffragette trial
and was subsequently repeated by George Bernard Shaw in a letter
to _The Times_. Put briefly, the point attempted to be made is as
follows:—Apostrophising men, it is said: “How would you like it if
the historical relations of the sexes were reversed, if the making and
the administrating of the laws and the whole power of the State were
in the hands of women? Would not you revolt in such a condition of
affairs?” Now to this quasi-argument the reply is sufficiently clear.
The moral intended to be conveyed in the hypothetical question put, is
that women have just as much right to object to men’s domination, as
men would have to object to women’s domination. But it is plain that
the point of the whole question resides in a _petitio principie_—to
wit, in the assumption that those challenged admit equal intellectual
capacity and equal moral stability as between the average woman and the
average man. Failing this assumption the challenge becomes senseless
and futile. If we ignore mental and moral differences it is only a
question of degree as to when we are landed in obvious absurdity. In
“Gulliver’s Travels” we have a picture of society in which horses ruled
the roost, and lorded it over human beings. In this satire Swift in
effect put the question: “How would you humans like to be treated by
horses as inferiors, just as horses are treated by you to-day?” I am,
be it remembered, not instituting any comparison between the two cases,
beyond pointing out that the argument as an argument is intrinsically
the same in both.