THE INNER RESULTS OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT
If I now start out to consider the woman soul as it has developed itself
under the influence of all the circumstances mentioned above, perhaps
many will expect a theory about the character of the feminine soul life.
But, at present, when the greatest problems of psychology are in
revolution and undecided, such a theory would be as scientifically
impossible as aphorisms are unanswerable. Likewise, conclusions, based
upon experience, concerning the psychic peculiarity of woman would be in
this chaotic transition period, superficial, if they attempted to be
absolute. Only _one_ decided opinion about the spiritual life of woman I
cannot—in consequence of my monistic-evolutionary conception of the
spiritual and physical life—refrain from expressing. This opinion is
that, in the one hundred thousand years at least in which woman has
practised the physical maternal functions, the spiritual attributes
_essential_ for motherhood must have been so strongly developed by her
that this development has had, and still has always, as a result a
pronounced difference between the feminine and masculine soul—that is to
say, everywhere where the soul, as well as the body of a woman, is
adapted and desirous of motherhood—a fitness and readiness which can
still be called the _normal_ condition. The spiritual qualities which
maternity required have become the attributes of “womanliness,” the
qualities which paternity required, have become the attributes of
“manliness.” This difference has become quite as significant for the
functional fitness of both sexes for the perpetuation and development of
the race, as for the wealth of life of each new generation. The
obliteration or retention of this difference is therefore a vital
question for mankind.
Figuratively expressed, this seems to me the process: from a common root
of universal human spiritual life issue two stems which can again unite
in their blossoming. The ramification has necessarily involved a
division of labour in two equally important spheres. From this point of
view I give, in the following, my opinion of the value of the influence
of the woman movement upon the spiritual life of woman.
We all know that life expresses itself as movement, that movement brings
with it change, transformation; that this can mean quite as well
disintegration as higher organisation.
The woman movement is the most significant of all movements for freedom
in the world’s history. The question whether this movement leads mankind
in a higher or lower direction is the most serious question of the time.
Those who assert unconditionally the former or the latter have uttered a
premature judgment. The question must be formulated thus:
(_a_) Has the woman movement brought to mankind a higher degree of vital
force, a greater faculty for self-preservation, a more complete
organisation, by which the more simple forms have become more finely
complex, the more uniform have become richer, more diverse; the
incoherent have attained a more perfect unity? Or has the woman movement
called forth an activity which represses life? degrades, scatters, and
reduces the powers to uniformity, in society and in mankind?
(_b_) Is woman’s spiritual life now in general above the level at which
it was in the beginning of the woman movement? Have modern women finer
perceptions, deeper feelings, clearer ideas, a firmer will, richer
association of ideas? Do their spiritual faculties so work together that
they mutually enhance instead of hinder one another? In a word is the
modern woman more soulful than the woman of any other time?
(_c_) Is the body of the modern woman, at all stages of life, stronger,
more healthy, and more beautiful than that of the woman of the previous
century, when the woman movement began in real earnest in Europe?
(_d_) Does the modern woman perform in more perfect manner than the
woman of that time, the physical and psychic functions of motherhood?
If the question be put thus then the _objective_ investigator must
answer to all—“_Yes and No_.”
But if this investigator is an evolutionist, then he knows that the
progress of every social evolution is like that which womankind is now
experiencing. We see first, how, in any given sphere of society, where
those engaged therein have attained a pure, instinctive certainty in
their actions through laws and customs, the individuals oppressed by
these laws and customs must rebel against the limits, drawn from
without, for the development and exercise of their powers. This revolt
occasions at first a stage of anarchy in which everything seems to
collapse—while in the previous conserving epoch “crystallisation”
furnished the vital danger! But after such an anarchistic stage there
comes infallibly the constructive stage, where _a part of the old is
organised, incorporated, into the new_. But this acts no longer as
instinctive impulse. No, mankind has become conscious anew of these
values of law and custom; they have been recognised by the thought,
encompassed by feeling, sanctioned by the will as still always
indispensable, in another and higher form it is true than that against
which the individuals rebelled. But just as the leaves which once grew
green above in the summer light, gradually become one with the earth, so
the motives of the new customs sink gradually down into the unknown; man
acts again with instinctive certainty and uniformity—until the new
period of stagnation evokes a new rebellion and achievement of
individualism.
The woman movement finds itself now at a point where it is about to pass
from the dynamic stage to a static stage. Exactly at this point a survey
begins to be possible; and it is also necessary for every one who
believes that the ideal, as well as the practical direction of the woman
movement, in future, must be influenced by the knowledge gained about
the effect of the movement, thus far, upon the uplifting of the life of
mankind.
Every great achievement of individualism is as inconsiderate as the
spring tide and must be, in order to have strength for its task. The
woman movement was so also. But it encountered two other great ideas of
the time, Socialism and Evolutionism, and in consequence the woman
movement was obliged to modify gradually its conception of the feminine
individual and of her position in existence.
On the one hand, as has been already shown, man has had to understand
that “open competition” and “individual initiative” are not absolute
political-economic truths. On the other hand, the defender of women’s
rights has been forced to understand more and more that woman’s soul is
no unchangeable value which must remain the same however much the
spheres have changed toward which this spiritual life directed itself
and from which it received its impression. While feminists fifty years
ago scorned the objection that “womanliness” would be lost in business
life or in politics, now the evolutionist mind in thinking women
understands that all human soul life is subject to the law of change;
that just as indisputably as the soul life of man is changed by
different vocations and surroundings, so that of woman also must be
changed. The feminists founded their dogma that the woman movement can
_only benefit_ woman, man, the child, the family, society, mankind upon
the conviction of the _stability_ of “true womanliness.”
And if the woman movement had not had this religious certainty of
belief, how could it have withstood the mass of prejudice and stupidity
which it encountered in its own, as well as in the other sex? The woman
movement has conquered because it was self-intoxicated.
And quite naturally! After a stability of centuries, during which the
position of woman was altered only in and with the general progress of
culture, women finally recognised that they could accelerate their own
progress and with it also the somewhat snail-like course of universal
human culture. And so woman asserted herself and increased her motion.
The faster this movement became, the more was she seized by the
intoxication which always accompanies every vigorous physical or psychic
movement. And when has a movement of the time advanced more rapidly?
Folk-migrations, crusades, slave rebellions, revolutions have led a
race, a class, a group, beyond certain geographical or social
boundaries. The emancipation of women has shifted and extended the
limits of the freedom of movement of _half mankind_. No wonder that the
extent of the movement _in and for itself_ was advanced as proof of the
infallibility of its direction. All points of departure, the natural
right of man, individual freedom, social necessity—all led out into the
sun, which, in society as in nature, should radiate over woman as well
as over man; they led up onto the summit where man and woman both should
breathe the air of the heights. All obstacles which were raised with the
help of arguments such as, “the nature of woman,” “the welfare of the
family,” “the idea of society,” “the purpose of God”—all proved
temporary. And of necessity—for the innermost law of life, the law of
development, of life enhancement, carried the movement forward. When it
began, the Biblical expression about the wind was quoted, “Man knows not
whence it comes nor whither it goes.” Now all know it. Now the spirit of
the time speaks with “feminist” voice. The ideas of emancipation “are in
the air,” like bacilli, by which only savages are thus far wholly
untouched.
There are now no great movements of the time whose path does not run
parallel with or cut across the woman movement. Every new generation is
involuntarily and unconsciously drawn along with it. The ends already
attained seem to the present age obvious; the ends, for which man is
still struggling to-day, will appear equally obvious to the future. The
woman movement is now a power with which even its most bitter
adversaries must reckon. And this force has so quickly attained
prominence exactly as a result of fanaticism. Just as the White and the
Blue Nile mingle their waters in the main stream, so in every great
current of time enthusiasm is mingled with fanaticism. And it is the
latter which bears the most fruit, for it gives power of growth to the
passions of the majority, good as well as bad.
Every great idea begins with great promulgators. The promulgator who has
the spirit does not hold to the letter. And the woman movement which was
spirit began also with women and men who did not follow the call of the
spirit of the time; no, who from lonely heights sent out their awakening
call _to_ the time. Men who give their age new ideals have always
religious natures. This means, according to a good definition, that they
are “individualists in their being, social in their action.”
Such natures burn, above all, with the passion to find themselves. Then
they burn with the passion to sacrifice themselves in order to help
others, whose suffering or wrongs they feel as deeply as if they were
their own. No one who passively endures an injustice against himself has
the material in him to struggle for the rights of others. The one who
patiently forbears becomes an accessory to the injustice done to others.
He who resists the injustice which he himself meets can open up the way
to a higher right for others. Such path-finders were the first apostles
of the emancipation of women. They consecrated to this task a faith
which required no proof, a faith which saw visions and heard melodies of
the glorious future that their victory would prepare for mankind. They
emanated neither from scientific investigations, nor from systems of
political economy, nor from philosophic evidence, nor theories of
political science. They flung themselves into the struggle with
inadequate weapons, without plan of campaign, just as do all impelled by
the spirit. But such a method always evokes later dissension among the
disciples. Sects are formed, gradually a church is crystallised, an
orthodoxy, a papacy, and an inquisition. This course is physically
necessary as long as mankind is still in greatest part a mass. A Paul
more “Christian” than Christ and a Luther more “Paulist” than Paul are
met also in the woman movement.
This has now, among most people of culture, passed beyond the stage of
the great apostles and martyrs and heralds. The movement has reached the
point where certain typical manifestations, certain conventional forms
testify that the masses—which stoned the prophets—have now, since the
ideas of the woman movement have become truisms, banalities, the
fashion, appropriated them to themselves and endeavour to transform them
to their image and adapt them to their needs.
Again and again the old tale repeats itself: the trolls steal the
weapons of the gods but they cannot use them. Again and again there is
occasion to deplore the fact that the autocrat of genius, whether he
rule over a people or a kingdom of ideas, has heirs, heirs who diminish
his work. Again and again it must be recognised that no spiritual
formation vanishes at one blow. The servile mind, intrigue, pettiness,
delusion—all that, from which the great spirits of the woman movement
hoped to “emancipate” woman—could not suddenly vanish out of the world.
And since all this must go somewhere it finally finds room in the woman
movement itself!
But on the other side—since after all everything has another side—it
must be admitted that the levelling and conserving tendency of the
average person is of real value at the stage _when an idea begins to be
transformed into law and custom_.
Those who can work only in crowds receive their significance _exactly
because of their collective work_. They push aside the “individual
emancipation” which they do not need for their own part, since they have
no individuality to emancipate. But by diligent and efficient work they
succeed in securing certain results, which are the common cause of all.
So the Philistines make for themselves a footstool of that which was a
stumbling-block for their congenial souls in the previous generation.
From this height they look down upon the new truth of _their_ time. And
those who perceive and uphold this new truth turn aside from the great
uniformed army which now advances safely where the little vanguard has
previously and laboriously opened up the way. Those who turn aside will
form the new vanguard when it comes to achieving, in the spirit of the
first apostle, the emancipation not only of _women in the mass_, but of
_each individual woman_. When the present work of the woman movement for
joint, common ends shall no longer be necessary, because one end after
another has been attained, then comes the task of the present “radical”
feminism: the accomplishment of “emancipation” by leading it up to those
free heights which already the path-finders are endeavouring to attain,
the heights where every feminine individuality can choose her own path
of life, perhaps at variance with all others; can choose it in freedom,
answerable only to her own conscience. Although this summary grouping
historically as well as psychologically corresponds approximately to the
past, present, and future of the woman movement, yet there are so many
ramifications of the three groups into one another, that the woman
movement now exhibits a tangled confusion in which every exact
demarcation is impossible.
Whoever lives to witness it will see the course of progress just
described—for which the modern labour movement offers quite as good
material for observation as the woman movement—repeat itself in the next
great emancipation movement. I mean the movement for the right and
freedom of the _child_, which will be the unconditional result of the
victory of the woman and labour movements. This idea is still in the
morning-clear hour of inspiration. But from the cry, “Away with the
child destroying home training,” we can hear that the troop of
Philistines will appear by afternoon upon the scene, to adopt the idea
into their midst!
By means of the comparison with socialism, I have endeavoured to
emphasise that the woman movement’s formation of dogmas and its
doctrinary fanaticism are not effects of the peculiarity of the
_feminine_ mind. These phenomena are typical of every movement of the
time thus far observed. They are essential above all because a new
belief without dogma and without ritual is for the masses a sword
without a hilt: it offers nothing tangible, nothing whereby the masses
can come into relation with the idea.
That certain feminists still believe that the woman movement has
advanced just as the exodus of the Children of Israel out of the land of
bondage, that is to say, under God’s special protection against
wandering astray; that they stigmatise as “treason” and “defection” the
assertion that this movement was determined by the same psychological
and sociological laws as every other movement for freedom—this shows to
how high a degree many leaders of the woman movement lack elementary
psychological and sociological conceptions. This deficiency is, however,
being continually remedied. And in the generation which now advances,
dogmatic fanaticism has well nigh vanished, but pure enthusiasm is
preserved.
We can thus expect from this generation a clearer understanding of the
necessary _social_ repressions which the woman movement has now
sufficient strength to impose upon itself without forfeiting thereby its
character of a _movement for freedom_. As such it cannot and dare not
cease until it has attained _all_ its ends. As long as the law treats
women as one race, men as another, _there is a woman question_. Not
until man and woman, equal and united, work together for mankind will
the woman movement belong to the past.