WOMAN'S POSITION AS A BREADWINNER; HER INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES; DARWINISM
AND THE CONDITION OF SOCIETY.
The endeavor of woman to secure economic self-support and personal
independence has, to a certain degree, been recognized as legitimate by
bourgeois society, the same as the endeavor of the workingman after
greater freedom of motion. The principal reason for such acquiescence
lies in the class interests of the bourgeoisie itself. The bourgeoisie,
or capitalist class, requires the free and unrestricted purveyance of
male and female labor-power for the fullest development of production.
In even tempo with the perfection of machinery, and technique; with the
subdivision of labor into single acts requiring ever less technical
experience and strength; with the sharpening of the competitive warfare
between industry and industry, and between whole regions--country
against country, continent against continent--the labor-power of woman
comes into ever greater demand.
The special causes, from which flows this ever increasing enlistment of
woman in ever increasing numbers, have been detailed above _in extenso_.
Woman is increasingly employed _along with man, or in his place, because
her material demands are less than those of man_. A circumstance
predicated upon her very nature as a sexual being, forces woman to
proffer herself cheaper. More frequently, on an average, than man, woman
is subject to physical derangements, that cause an interruption of work,
and that, in view of the combination and organization of labor, in force
to-day in large production, easily interfere with the steady course of
production. Pregnancy and lying-in prolong such pauses. The employer
turns the circumstance to advantage, and _recoups himself doubly for the
inconveniences_, that these disturbances put him to, _with the payment
of much lower wages_.
Moreover--as may be judged from the quotation on page 90, taken from
Marx's "Capital"--the work of married women has a particular fascination
for the employer. The married woman is, as working-woman, much more
"attentive and docile" than her unmarried sister. Thought of her
children drives her to the utmost exertion of her powers, in order to
earn the needed livelihood; accordingly, she submits to many an
imposition that the unmarried woman does not. In general, the
working-woman ventures only exceptionally to join her fellow-toilers in
securing better conditions of work. That raises her value in the eyes of
the employer; not infrequently she is even a trump card in his hands
against refractory workingmen. Moreover, she is endowed with great
patience, greater dexterity of fingers, a better developed artistic
sense, the latter of which renders her fitter than man for many branches
of work.
These female "virtues" are fully appreciated by the virtuous capitalist,
and thus, along with the development of industry, woman finds from year
to year an ever wider field for her application--but, and this is the
determining factor, _without tangible improvement to her social
condition_. If woman labor is employed, it generally sets male labor
free. The displaced male labor, however, wishes to live; it proffers
itself for lower wages; and the proffer, in turn, re-acts depressingly
upon the wages of the working-woman. The reduction of wages thus turns
into an endless screw, that, due to the constant revolutions in the
technique of the labor-process, is set rotating all the more swiftly,
seeing that the said technical revolutions, through the savings of
labor-power, set also female labor free,--all of which again increases
the supply of hands. New industries somewhat counteract the constant
supply of relatively superfluous labor-power, but are not strong enough
to establish lasting improvement. Every rise of wages above a certain
measure causes the employer to look to further improvements in his
plant, calculated to substitute will-less, automatic mechanical devices
for human hands and human brain. At the start of capitalist production,
hardly any but male labor confronted male labor in the labor-market; now
sex is played against sex, and, further along the line, age against age.
Woman displaces man, and, in her turn, woman is displaced by younger
folks and child-labor. Such is the "Moral Order" in modern industry.
The endeavor, on the part of employers, to extend the hours of work,
with the end in view of pumping more surplus values out of their
employes, is made easier to them, thanks to the slighter power of
resistance possessed by women. Hence the phenomenon that, in the textile
industries, for instance, in which women frequently constitute far more
than one-half of the total labor employed, the hours of work are
everywhere longest. Accustomed from home to the idea that her work is
"never done," woman allows the increased demands to be placed upon her
without resistance. In other branches, as in the millinery trade, the
manufacture of flowers, etc., wages and hours of work deteriorate
through the taking home of extra tasks, at which the women sit till
midnight, and even later, without realizing that they thereby only
compete against themselves, and, as a result, earn in a sixteen-hour
workday what they would have made in a regular ten-hour day.[124] In
what measure female labor has increased in the leading industrial
countries may appear from the below sets of tables. We shall start with
the leading industrial country of Europe,--England. The last census
furnishes this picture:
Total Persons
Year. Employed. Males. Females.
1871 11,593,466 8,270,186 3,323,280
1881 11,187,564 7,783,646 3,403,918
1891 12,898,484 8,883,254 4,016,230
Accordingly, within twenty years, the number of males employed increased
613,068, or 7.9 per cent.; the number of females, however, by 692,950,
or 20.9 per cent. It is especially to be observed in this table that, in
1881, a year of crisis, the number of males employed fell off by
486,540, and the number of females increased by 80,638. The increase of
female at the cost of male persons employed is thus emphatically brought
to light. But within the increasing number of female employes itself a
change is going on: _younger forces are displacing the older_. It
transpired that in England, during the years 1881-1891, female
labor-power of the age 10 to 45 had increased, while that above 45 had
decreased.
Industries in which female exceeded considerably the number of male
labor, were mainly the following:
Industries. Females. Males.
Manufacture of woman's clothing 415,961 4,470
Cotton industry 332,784 213,231
Manufacture of worsted goods 69,629 40,482
Manufacture of shirts 52,943 2,153
Manufacture of hosiery 30,887 18,200
Lace industry 21,716 13,030
Tobacco industry 15,880 13,090
Bookbinding 14,249 11,487
Manufacture of gloves 9,199 2,756
Teachers 144,393 50,628
Again the wages of women are, in almost all branches, considerably lower
than the wages of men _for the same hours_. In the year 1883, the wages
in England were for men and women as follows, per week:--
Industries. Males. Females.
Flax and jute factories 26 Marks 10-11 Marks
Manufacture of glass 38 " 12 "
Printing 32-36 " 10-12 "
Carpet factories 29 " 15 "
Weaving 26 " 16 "
Shoemaking 29 " 15 "
Dyeing 25-29 " 12-13 "
Similar differences in wages for men and women are found in the Post
Office service, in school teaching, etc. Only in the cotton industry in
Lancashire did both sexes earn equal wages for equal hours of work in
the tending of power looms.
In the United States, according to the census of 1890, there were
2,652,157 women, of the age of ten years and over engaged in productive
occupations:--594,510 in agriculture, 631,988 in manufacture, 59,364 in
trade and transportation, and 1,366,235 in personal service, of whom
938,910 were servants. Besides that, there were 46,800 female farmers
and planters, 5,135 Government employes, 155,000 school teachers, 13,182
teachers of music, 2,061 artists.[125] In the city of New York, 10,961
working-women participated in strikes during the year 1890, a sign that
working-women in the United States, like their European fellow-female
wage slaves, understand the class distinctions that exist between
Capital and Labor. In what measure women are displacing the men in a
number of industries in the United States also, is indicated by the
following item from the "Levest. Journ." in 1893:
"One of the _features_ of the factory towns of Maine is a class of men
that may be termed 'housekeepers.' In almost every town, where much
factory work is done, these men are to be found in large numbers.
Whoever calls shortly before noon will find them, with aprons tied in
front, washing dishes. At other hours of the day they can be seen
scrubbing, making the beds, washing the children, tidying up the place,
or cooking. Whether any of them attend to the sewing and mending of the
family we are not quite sure. These men attend to the household for the
simple reason that _their wives can earn more in the factory than they_,
and it means a saving of money if the wife goes to work."[126]
The closing sentence should read: "Because the women work for wages that
the men can no longer work for, and the employer therefore prefers
women,"--which happens in Germany also. The towns here described are the
so-called "she-towns," already more fully referred to.
In France, there were, in 1893, not less than 15,958 women engaged in
the railroad service (in the offices and as ticket agents); in the
provincial Post Office there were 5,383 women employed; as telegraphers
and telephonists, 9,805; and in the State Savings Banks 425. Altogether
the number of women in France engaged in gainful occupations, inclusive
of agriculture and personal service, was, in 1893, in round figures
4,415,000. Of 3,858 decisions, rendered by the trades courts of Paris,
not less than 1,674 concerned women.
To what extent female labor was applied in the industries of Switzerland
as early as 1886, is told by the following figures of the "Bund":
Industries. Males. Females.
Silk industry 11,771 51,352
Cotton industry 18,320 23,846
Linen and half-linen industry 5,553 5,232
Embroidery 15,724 21,000
Altogether, there were then in the textile industries, 103,452 women
engaged, besides 52,838 men; and the "Bund" expressly declares that
there is hardly an occupation in Switzerland in which women are not
found.
In Germany, according to the census of occupations of 1882, of the
7,340,789 persons engaged in gainful occupations, 1,506,743 were women;
or 20.6 per cent. The proportions were, among others, these:--
Per
Industries. Males. Females. Cent.
Commercial occupations 536,221 181,286 25.2
Service and restaurants 172,841 141,407 45.0
Messengers and day laborers 9,212 3,265 26.2
Spinning 69,272 100,459 60.0
Weaving 336,400 155,396 32.0
Embroidery 42,819 31,010 42.0
Lace and crochet work 5,676 30,204 84.0
Lace manufacture 13,526 17,478 56.4
Bookbinding and paste-board
box-making 31,312 10,409 25.0
Paper manufacture 37,685 20,847 35.6
Tobacco working 64,477 48,919 43.1
Clothes-making, etc. 279,978 440,870 61.2
To these must be added 2,248,909 women engaged in agriculture, 1,282,400
female servants, also school teachers, artists, Government
office-holders, etc.
According to the census of occupations for 1875-1882, the following was
the result. There were employed in industrial occupations in the German
Empire:--
Total Total Persons Employed.
Persons Employed. In the Small Trades. In the Large Trades.
Year. Males. Females. Males. Females. Males. Females.
1875 5,463,856 1,116,095 3,453,357 705,874 2,010,499 410,221
1882 5,815,039 1,506,743 3,487,073 989,422 2,327,966 514,321
--------- --------- --------- ------- --------- -------
Increase
in 1882 351,183 390,648 33,716 283,548 317,966 107,100
or 6.4 or 35 or 1 or 40.2 or 15.8 or 26.1
per cent. per cent. per cent. per cent. per cent. per cent.
According to these figures, not only did female labor increase by 35 per
cent. during the period of 1875-1882, while male labor increased only
by 6.4 per cent., but the great increase of female labor, especially in
small industries, tells the tale that _only by dint of a strong
application of female labor, with its correspondingly low wages, can
small production keep itself afloat, for a while_.
In 1882, there were to every 1,000 persons engaged in industry 176
women; in commerce and transportation, 190; in agriculture, 312.
In 1892, the number of women, employed in the factories of Germany, were
of the following ages:
Number
Age. Employed.
12-14 3,897
14-16 68,735
16-21 223,538
Over 21 337,499
Besides (for Reuss younger line
without designation of ages) 6,197
-------
639,866
In the Kingdom of Saxony, notedly the most industrial portion of
Germany, the number of working-women employed in the factories was:--
Year. 16 Years and Over. 12 to 16.
1883 72,716 8,477
1892 110,555 13,333
------- -------
Increase 37,839 4,856
52 per cent. 57 per cent.
As a result of the new factory regulations, which limited the hours of
female labor, between the ages of 14 to 16, to 10 a day, and wholly
forbade factory work to children of school age, the number of
working-women between the ages of 14 to 16 sank to 6,763, and of girls
between the ages of 12 to 14, sank by 6,334. The strongest increase in
the number of working-women, as far as we are informed, took place in
the tobacco industry of Baden. According to the reports of the Baden
Factory Inspector, Dr. Woerishoffer, the number of persons engaged in
the said industry and their subdivisions by sexes; was as follows:
Total Number
Year. Employed. Males. Females.
1882 12,192 5,193 6,999
1892 24,056 7,932 16,124
------ ----- ------
Increase 11,864 2,739 9,125
or 52.8 or 130
per cent. per cent.
This increase in the number of female tobacco workers, denotes the
sharpening competitive struggle, that has developed during the last ten
years in the German tobacco as well as many other industries, and which
compels the ever intenser engagement of the cheaper labor of woman.
And, as in the rest of Germany, so likewise in Baden the industrial
development in general shows a larger increase of female than of male
workers. Within a year, it recorded the following changes:--
Year. Males. Females.
1892 79,218 35,598
1893 84,470 38,557
------ ------
Increase 5,252 2,959
or 6.6 or 8.3
per cent. per cent.
Of the working-women over 16 years of age, 28.27 were married. In the
large ammunition factory at Spandau, there were, in 1893, 3,000 women
out of a total of 3,700 employes.
As in England, in Germany also, female labor is paid worse than male.
According to the report of the Leipsic Chamber of Commerce for the year
1888, the weekly wage for equal hours were:--
Males. Females.
Industries. Marks. Marks.
Lace manufacture 20 --35 7 --15
Cloth glove manufacture 12 --30 6 --25
Linen and jute weaving 12 --27 5 --10
Wool-carding 15 --27 7.20--10.20
Sugar refinery 10.50--31 7.50--10
Leather and leather goods 12 --28 7 --18
Chemicals 8.50--25 7.50--10
Rubber fabrics 9 --28 6 --17
One factory of paper
lanterns 16 --22 7.50--10
In an investigation of the wages earned by the factory hands of Mannheim
in 1893, Dr. Woerishoffer divided the weekly earnings into three
classes: one, the lowest, in which the wages reached 15 marks; one from
15 to 24; and the last and highest in which wages exceeded 24 marks.
According to this subdivision, wages in Mannheim presented the following
picture:--
Low. Medium. High.
Both sexes 29.8 per cent. 49.8 per cent. 20.4 per cent.
Males 20.9 per cent. 56.2 per cent. 22.9 per cent.
Females 99.2 per cent. 0.7 per cent. 0.1 per cent.
The working-women earned mostly veritable starvation wages. They
received per week:--
Percentage
Marks. of Females.
Under 5 4.62
5--6 5.47
6--8 43.96
8--10 27.45
10--12 12.38
12--15 5.38
Over 15 0.74
In the Thueringer Wald district, in 1891, the workingmen engaged in the
slate works received 2.10 marks a day; the women 0.70. In the spinning
establishments, the men received 2 marks, the women from 0.90 to 1 mark.
Worst of all are the earnings in the tenement industry, for men as well
as for women, but for the women it is still more miserable than for the
men. In this branch, hours of work are unlimited; when the season is on,
they transcend imagination. Furthermore, it is here that the sweating
system is generally in vogue, _i. e._, work given out by middlemen
(contractors) who, in recompense for their irksome labor of
superintendence, keep to themselves a large part of the wages paid by
the principal. Under this system, women are also expected to submit to
indignities of other nature.
How miserably female labor is paid in the tenement industries, the
following figures on Berlin conditions may indicate. Men's colored
shirts, paid for in 1889 with from 2 marks to 2.50, the employer got in
1893 for 1 mark 50 pfennig. A seamstress of average skill must work from
early till late if she means to make from 6 to 8 of these shirts. Her
earnings for the week are 4 or 5 marks. An apron-maker earns from 2
marks 50 pfennig to 5 marks a week; a necktie-maker, 5 to 6 marks; a
skilled blouse-maker, 6 marks; a very skilled female operator on boys'
clothing, 8 to 9 marks; an expert jacket-maker, 5 to 6 marks. A very
swift seamstress on men's shirts may, in the good season, and working
from 5 in the morning to 10 at night, make as much as 12 marks.
Millinery workers, who can copy patterns independently, make 30 marks a
month. Quick trimmers, with years of experience, earn from 50 to 60
marks a month during the season. The season usually lasts five months.
An umbrella-maker, working twelve hours a day, makes 6 to 7 marks. Such
starvation wages force the working-women into prostitution: even with
the very plainest wants, no working-women can live in Berlin on less
than 8 or 9 marks a week.
According to a statistical report on wages, ordered by the Chamber of
Commerce of Reichenberg for its own district, 91 per cent. of all the
working-women came under the wage category of from 2 to 5 guilders a
week. Upon the enforcement in Austria of the law on sick insurance, the
authorities discovered that in 116 districts (21.6 per cent. of all) the
working-women earned at most 30 kreuzer a day, 90 guilders a year; and
in 428 districts (78.4 per cent. of the total) from 30 to 50 kreuzer, or
from 90 to 150 guilders a year. The young working-women, under 16 years
of age, earned in 173 districts (30.9 per cent.) 20 kreuzer a day at the
most, or at the most 60 guilders a year; and in 387 districts (69.1 per
cent.) from 20 to 30 kreuzer, or from 60 to 90 guilders a year.
Similar differences between the wages of male and female labor exist in
all countries on earth. According to the report on Russian industry at
the Chicago Exposition in 1893, a workingman made in cotton weaving 66
marks a month, a working-woman 18; a male cotton spinner 66 marks, a
female 14. In the lace industry men earned up to 130 marks, women 26; in
cloth manufacture, with the power loom, a working man made 90 marks, a
working-woman 26 a month.
These facts show that woman is increasingly torn from family life by
modern developments. Marriage and the family, in the bourgeois sense,
are undermined by this development, and dissolved. From the view point
afforded by this fact also, it is an absurdity to direct women to a
domestic life. That can be done only by such people, who thoughtlessly
walk the path of life; who fail to see the facts that shape themselves
all around, or do not wish to see them, because they have an interest in
plying the trade of optimism. Facts furnish a very different picture
from that presented by such gentlemen.
In a large number of industries women are employed exclusively; in a
larger number they constitute the majority; and in most of the others
women are more or less numerously found. Their number steadily
increases, and they crowd into ever newer occupations, that they had not
previously engaged in. Finally, the working-woman is not merely paid
worse than the working man; where she does as much as a man, her hours
are, on an average, longer.
The German factory ordinances of the year 1891 fixed a maximum of eleven
hours for adult working-women. The same is, however, broken through by a
mass of exceptions that the authorities are allowed to make. Nightwork
also is forbidden for working-women in factories, but here also the
Government can make exceptions in favor of factories where work is
continuous, or for special seasons; in sugar refineries, for instance.
German legislation has not yet been able to rise to the height of
really effective measures for the protection of working-women;
consequently, these are exploited by inhumanly long hours, and
physically wrecked in the small factories, especially in the tenement
house industry. Their exploitation is made all the easier to the
employer through the circumstance that, until now, a small minority
excepted, the women have not realized that, the same as the men, they
must organize in their trades, and, there where also men are employed,
they must organize jointly with them, in order to conquer for themselves
better conditions of work. The ever stronger influx of women in
industrial pursuits affects, however, not those occupations only that
their correspondingly weaker physique especially fits them for, but it
affects also all occupations in which the modern system of exploitation
believes it can, with their aid, knock off larger profits. Under this
latter head belong both the physically exhausting and the most
disagreeable and dangerous occupations. Thus the fantastic pretence of
seeing in woman only a tender, finely-strung being, such as poets and
writers of fiction love to depict for the delectation of men, a being,
that, if it exists at all exists only as an exception, is again reduced
to its true value.
Facts are obstinate things, and it is only they that concern us. They
alone preserve us from false conclusions, and sentimental twaddle. These
facts teach us that to-day we find women engaged in the following
occupations, among others:--in cotton, linen and woolen weaving; in
cloth and flannel making; in mechanical spinning, calico printing and
dyeing; in steel pen and pin making; in the preparation of sugar,
chocolate and cocoa; in manufacturing paper and bronzes; in making glass
and porcelain and in glass painting; in the manufacture of faience,
majolica and earthen ware; in making ink and preparing paints; making
twine and paper bags; in preparing hops and manure and chemical
disinfectants; in spinning and weaving silk and ribbons; in making soap,
candles and rubber goods; in wadding and mat making; in carpet weaving;
portfolio and cardboard making; in making lace and trimmings, and
embroidering; making wall-paper, shoes and leather goods; in refining
oil and lard and preparing chemicals of all sorts; in making jewelry and
galvanoplastic goods; in the preparation of rags and refuse and bast; in
wood carving, xylography and stone coloring; in straw hat making and
cleaning; in making crockery, cigars and tobacco products; in making
lime and gelatine fabrics; in making shoes; in furriery; in hat making;
in making toys; in the flax, shoddy and hair industries; in watchmaking
and housepainting; in the making of spring beds, pencils and wafers; in
making looking-glasses, matches and gunpowder preparations; in dipping
phosphorus match-sticks and preparing arsenic; in the tinning of iron;
in the delicacy trade; in book printing and composition; in the
preparation of precious stones; in lithography, photography,
chromo-lithography and metachromotype, and also in the founding of
types; in tile making, iron founding and in the preparation of metals
generally; in the construction of houses and railroads; in electrical
works; in book-binding, wood-carving and joining; in the making of
footwear and clothing; file making; the making of knives and brass
goods; in manufacturing combs, buttons, gold thread and gas implements;
in the making of tanned goods and trunks; in making starch and chicory
preparations; in metallurgy, wood-planing, umbrella making and fish
manufacturing; the preservation of fruit, vegetables and meat; in the
making of china buttons and fur goods; in mining above ground--in
Belgium also underground after the women are 21 years old; in the
natural oil and wax production; in slate making and stone breaking; in
marble and granite polishing; in making cement; the transportation of
barges and canal boats. Also in the wide field of horticulture,
agriculture and cattle-breeding, and all that is therewith connected.
Lastly, in the various industries in which they have long been
considered to have the right of way: in the making of linen and woman's
clothing, in the several branches of fashion, also as saleswomen, and
more recently as clerks, teachers, kindergarten trainers, writers,
artists of all sorts. Thousands upon thousands of women of the middle
class are being utilized as slaves in the shops and in the markets, and
are thereby withdrawn from all domestic functions, the training of
children in particular. Finally, there is one occupation to be
mentioned, in which young, especially pretty, girls are ever more in
demand, to the great injury of their physical and moral development: it
is the occupation in public resorts of all sorts as bar-maids, singers,
dancers, etc., to attract men in quest of pleasure. This is a field in
which impropriety runs riot, and the holders of white slaves lead the
wildest orgies.
Among the occupations mentioned, not a few are most dangerous.
Dangerous, for instance, are the sulphuric and alkaline gases in the
manufacturing and cleaning of straw hats; so is the inhalation of
chlorine gases in the bleaching of vegetable materials; the danger of
poisoning is imminent in the manufacture of colored paper, colored
wafers and artificial flowers; in the preparation of metachromotype,
poisons and chemicals; in the painting of leaden soldiers and leaden
toys. The on-laying of looking-glasses with quicksilver is simply deadly
to the fruit of pregnant women. If, of the live-births in Prussia, 22
per cent. on an average die during the first year, there die, according
to Dr. Hirt, 65 per cent. of the live-births of female on-layers of
quicksilver, 55 per cent. of those of female glass-polishers, 40 per
cent. of those of female lead-makers. In 1890, out of 78 lying-in women,
who had been occupied in the type foundries of the district of
Wiesbaden, only 37 had a normal delivery. Furthermore, according to Dr.
Hirt, the manufacture of colored paper and artificial flowers, the
so-called powdering of Brussels lace with white lead, the preparation of
decalcomania pictures, the on-laying of mirrors, the manufacture of
rubber goods, in short, all occupations at which the working-women are
exposed to the inhalation of carbonic acid gases, are especially
dangerous from the second half of pregnancy onward. Highly dangerous is
also the manufacture of phosphorus matches and work in the shoddy mills.
According to the report of the Baden Trades Inspector for 1893, the
yearly average of premature births with women engaged in industry rose
from 1,039 in the years 1882-1886, to 1,244 in the years 1887-1891. The
number of births that had to be aided by an operation averaged for the
period of 1882-1886 the figures of 1,118 a year, and for the period of
1886-1891 it averaged 1,385. Facts much graver than any of these would
come to light if similar investigations were held also in the more
industrially developed countries and provinces of Germany. As a rule the
Inspectors are satisfied with stating in their reports: "No specially
injurious effects were discovered in the employment of women in the
factories." How could they discover any, with their short visits and
without drawing upon medical advice? That, moreover, there are great
dangers to life and limb, especially in the textile industry, in the
manufacture of explosives and in work with agricultural machinery, is an
established fact. Even a glance at the above and quite incomplete list
will tell every reader that a large number of these occupations are
among the hardest and most exhausting even to men. Let people say as
they please, this work or that is not suitable for woman; what boots the
objection if no other and more suitable occupation is furnished her?
Among the branches of industry, or special occupations in the same, that
Dr. Hirt[127] considers girls should not be at all employed in, by
reason of the danger to health, especially with an eye to their sexual
functions, are: The preparation of bronze colors, of velvet and glazed
paper, hat making, glass grinding, lithography, flax combing, horsehair
twisting, fustian pulling, iron tinning, and work in the flax and shoddy
mill.
In the following trades, young girls should be occupied only when the
necessary protective measures (ventilation, etc.) are properly provided
for: The manufacture of paper matting, china ware, lead pencils, shot
lead, etherial oils, alum, blood-lye, bromium, chinin, soda, paraffin
and ultramarine (poisonous) colored paper, wafers that contain poison,
metachromotypes, phosphorous matches, Schweinfurt green and artificial
flowers. Also in the cutting and sorting of rags, sorting and coloring
of tobacco leaf, cotton beating, wool and silk carding, cleaning of bed
feathers, sorting pencil hairs, washing (sulphur) straw hats,
vulcanizing and melting rubber, coloring and printing calico, painting
lead soldiers, packing snuff, wire netting, on-laying of mirrors,
grinding needles and steel pens.
Truly, it is no inspiring sight to see women, and even pregnant ones, at
the construction of railroads, pushing heavily laden wheelbarrows in
competition with men; or to watch them as helpers, mixing mortar and
cement or carrying heavy loads of stone at the construction of houses;
or in the coal pits and iron works. All that is womanly is thereby
rubbed off from woman, her womanliness is trodden under foot, the same
as, conversely, all manly attributes are stripped from the men in
hundreds of other occupations. Such are the sequels of social
exploitation and of social war. Our corrupt social conditions turn
things topsy-turvy.
It is, accordingly, easy to understand that, considering the extent to
which female labor now prevails, and threatens to make still further
inroads in all fields of productive activity, the men, highly interested
in the development, look on with eyes far from friendly, and that here
and there the demand is heard for the suppression of female labor and
its prohibition by law. Unquestionably, with the extension of female
labor, the family life of the working class goes ever more to pieces,
the dissolution of marriage and the family is a natural result, and
immorality, demoralization, degeneration, diseases of all natures and
child mortality increase at a shocking pace. According to the statistics
of population of the Kingdom of Saxony, child mortality has greatly
increased in all those cities that became genuine manufacturing places
during the last 25 or 30 years. During the period 1880-1885 there died
in the cities of Saxony, on an average, 28.5 per cent. of the
live-births during the first year of life. In the period of 1886-1890,
45.0 of the live-births died in Ernsthal during the first year of their
lives, 44.5 in Stolling, 40.4 in Zschopau, 38.9 in Lichtenstein, 38.3 in
Thum, 38.2 in Meerane, 37.7 in Crimmitschau, 37.2 in Burgstaedt, 37.1 in
Werdau, 36.5 in Ehrenfriedersdorf, 35.8 in Chemnitz, 35.5 in
Frankenberg, 35.2 in Buchholz, 35.1 in Schneeberg, 34.7 in Lunzenau,
34.6 in Hartha, 34.5 in Geithaim, etc.[128] Worse yet stood things in
the majority of the large factory villages, quite a number of whom
registered a mortality of 40 to 50 per cent. Yet, all this
notwithstanding, the social development, productive of such sad results,
is progress,--precisely such progress as the freedom to choose a trade,
freedom of emigration, freedom to marry, and the removal of all other
barriers, thus promoting the development of capitalism on a large scale,
but thereby also giving the death-blow to the middle class and preparing
its downfall.
The working class is not inclined to help the small producer, should he
attempt the re-establishment of restrictions to the freedom to choose a
trade and of emigration, or the restoration of the guild and corporation
restrictions, contemplated with the end in view of artificially keeping
dwarf-production alive for a little while longer,--more than that is
beyond their power. As little is a return possible to the former state
of things with regard to female labor, but that does not exclude
stringent laws for the prevention of the excessive exploitation of
female and child labor, and of children of school age. In this the
interests of the working class coincides with the interests of the
State, of humanity, in general, and of civilization. When we see the
State compelled to lower the minimum requirements for military
service--as happened several times during the last decades, the last
time in 1893, when the army was to be further increased--and we see such
lowering of the minimum requirements resorted to for the reason that, as
a result of degenerating effects of our economic system, the number of
young men unfit for military service becomes ever larger,--when we see
that, then, forsooth, all are interested in protective measures. The
ultimate aim must be to remove the ills, that progress--such as
machinery, improved means of production and the whole modern system of
labor--has called forth, while at the same time causing the enormous
advantages, that such progress is instinct with for man, and the still
greater advantages it is capable of, to accrue in full measure to all
the members of society, by means of a corresponding organization of
human labor.[129]
It is an absurdity and a crying wrong that the improvements and
conquests of civilization--the collective product of all--accrue to the
benefit of those alone who, in virtue of their material power, are able
to appropriate them to themselves, while, on the other hand, thousands
of diligent workingmen are assailed with fear and worry when they learn
that human genius has made yet another invention able to multiply many
fold the product of manual labor, and thereby opening to them the
prospect of being thrown as useless and superfluous upon the sidewalks.
Thus, that which should be greeted with universal joy becomes an object
of hostility, that in former years occasioned the storming of many a
factory and the demolition of many a new machine. A similar hostile
feeling exists to-day between man and woman as workers. This feeling
also is unnatural. The point, consequently, is to seek to establish a
social condition in which the _full equality of all without distinction
of sex shall be the norm of conduct_.
_The feat is feasible--the moment all the means of production become
the property of society; when collective labor, by the application of
all technical and scientific advantages and aids in the process of
production, reaches the highest degree of fertility; and when the
obligation lies upon all, capable of work, to furnish a certain measure
of labor to society, necessary for the satisfaction of social wants, in
exchange whereof society guarantees to each and all the means requisite
for the development of his faculties and for the enjoyment of life._
Woman shall be like man, a productive and useful member of society,
equal-righted with him. Precisely like man, she shall be placed in
position to fully develop all her physical and mental faculties, to
fulfil her duties, and to exercise her rights. A free being and the peer
of man, she is safe against degradation.
We shall point out how modern developments in society run out into such
a state of things, and that it is these very crass and monstrous ills in
modern development that compel the establishment of the New Order.
Although the development of the position of woman, as above
characterized, is palpable, is tangible to the sight of all who have
eyes to see, the twaddle about the "natural calling" of woman is heard
daily, assigning her to domestic duties and the family. The phrase is
heard loudest there where woman endeavors to penetrate into the sphere
of the so-called higher professions, as for instance, the higher
departments of instruction and of the civil service, the medical or
legal careers, and the pursuit of the natural sciences. The most
laughable and absurd objections are fetched up, and are defended with
the air of "learning." Gentlemen, who pass for learned, appeal, in this
as in so many other things, to science in order to defend the most
absurd and untenable propositions. Their chief trump card is that woman
is inferior to man in mental powers and that it is folly to believe she
could achieve aught of importance in the intellectual field.
These objections, raised by the "learned," fit so well with the general
prejudices entertained by men on the calling and faculties of woman
that, whoever makes use of them can count upon the applause of the
majority.
New ideas will ever meet with stubborn opposition so long as general
culture and knowledge continue at so low an ebb as at present,
especially if it lies in the interest of the ruling classes to confine
culture and knowledge as much as possible to their own ranks. Hence new
ideas will at the start win over but a small minority, and this will be
scoffed at, maligned and persecuted. But if these new ideas are good and
sound, if they are born as the necessary consequence of existing
conditions, then will they spread, and the one-time minority finally
becomes a majority. So has it been with all new ideas in the course of
history: the idea of establishing the complete emancipation of woman
presents the same experience.
Were not one time the believers in Christianity a small minority? Did
not the Protestant Reformers and modern bourgeoisdom once face
overpowering adversaries? And yet they triumphed. Was the Social
Democracy crippled because gagged and pinioned by exclusion laws, so
that it could not budge? Never was its triumph more assured than when it
was thought to have been killed. The Social Democracy overcame the
exclusion laws; it will overcome quite other obstacles besides.
The claim regarding the "natural calling of woman," according whereto
she should be housekeeper and nurse, is as unfounded as the claim that
there will ever be kings because, since the start of history, there have
been such somewhere. We know not where the first king sprang up, as
little as we know where the first capitalist stepped upon the scene.
This, however, we do know: Kingship has undergone material changes in
the course of the centuries, and the tendency of development is to strip
it ever more of its powers, until a time comes, no longer far away, when
it will be found wholly superfluous. As with the kingship, so with all
other social and political institutions; they are all subject to
continuous changes and transformations, and to final and complete decay.
We have seen, in the course of the preceding historic sketch, that the
form of marriage, in force to-day, like the position of woman, was by no
means such "eternally"; that, on the contrary, both were the product of
a long process of development, which has by no means reached its acme,
and can reach it only in the future. If 2,400 or 2,300 years ago
Demosthenes could designate the "bringing forth of legitimate children
and officiating as a faithful warder of the house" as the only
occupation of woman, to-day we have traveled past that point. Who,
to-day, would dare uphold such a position of woman as "natural" without
exposing himself to the charge of belittling her? True enough, there are
even to-day such sots, who share in silence the views of the old
Athenian; but none dare proclaim publicly that which 2,300 years ago one
of the most eminent orators dared proclaim frankly and openly as
_natural_. Therein lies the great advance made.
If, on the one hand, modern development, especially in industrial life,
has wrecked millions of marriages, it, on the other hand, promoted
favorably the development itself of marriage. Only a few decades ago,
and it was a matter of course in every citizen's or peasant's house not
only that woman sewed, knitted and washed--although even this has now
extensively gone out of fashion--but she also baked the bread, spun,
wove, bleached, brewed beer, boiled soap, made candles. To have a piece
of wearing apparel made out of the house was looked upon as unutterable
waste. Water-pipes, gaslight, gas and oil cooking ranges--to say nothing
of the respective electric improvements--together with numberless
others, were wholly unknown to the women of former times. Antiquated
conditions exist even to-day, but they are the exception. The majority
of women have discontinued many an occupation, formerly considered of
course, the same being attended to in factory and shop better, more
expeditiously and cheaper than the housewife could, whence, at least in
the cities, all domestic requirements for them are wanting. Thus, in the
period of a few decades, a great revolution for them has been
accomplished within our family life, and we pay so little attention to
the fact because we consider it a matter of course. Phenomena, that
develop, so to speak, under the very eyes of man, are not noticed by
him, unless they appear suddenly and disturb the even tenor of events.
He bristles up, however, against new ideas that threaten to lead him out
of the accustomed ruts.
The revolution thus accomplished in our domestic life, and that
progresses ever further, has altered the position of woman in the
family, in other directions besides. Woman has become freer, more
independent. Our grandmothers, if they were honest masters' wives, would
not have dared, and, indeed the thought never crossed their minds, to
keep their working people and apprentices from the table, and visiting,
instead, the theatres, concerts and pleasure resorts, by day at that.
Which of those good old women dared think of occupying her mind with
public affairs, as is now done by many women? To-day they start
societies for all manner of objects, establish papers, call conventions.
As working-women they assemble in trades unions, they attend the
meetings and join the organizations of men, and here and there--we are
speaking of Germany--they have had the right of electing boards of labor
arbitration, a right that the backward majority of the Reichstag took
away again from them in the year of grace one thousand eight hundred and
ninety.
What sot would seek to annul the changes just described, although the
fact is not to be gainsaid that, there are also dark sides to the bright
sides of the picture, consequent upon our seething and decaying
conditions? The bright sides, however, predominate. Women themselves,
however conservative they are as a body, have no inclination to return
to the old, narrow, patriarchal conditions of former times.
In the United States society still stands, true enough, on bourgeois
foundations; but it is forced to wrestle neither with old European
prejudices nor with institutions that have survived their day. As a
consequence American society is far readier to adopt new ideas and
institutions that promise advantage. For some time the position of
woman has been looked upon from a viewpoint different than ours. There,
for instance, the idea has long taken hold that it is not merely
troublesome and improper, but not even profitable to the purse, for the
wife to bake bread and brew beer, but that it is unnecessary for her to
cook in her own kitchen. The private kitchen is supplanted by
co-operative cooking, with a large central kitchen and machinery. The
women attend to the work by turns, and the meals generally come out
cheaper, taste better, offer a greater variety, and give much less
trouble. Our army officers, who are not decried as Socialists and
Communists, act on a similar plan. They establish in their casinos a
co-operative kitchen; appoint a steward, who attends to the supply of
victuals on a large scale; the bill of fare is arranged in common; and
the food is prepared in the steam kitchen of the barracks. They live
much cheaper than in a hotel, and fare at least as well. Furthermore,
thousands of the rich families live the whole year, or part of the year,
in boarding-houses or hotels, without in any way missing the private
kitchen. On the contrary, they consider it a great convenience to be rid
of it. The aversion of especially well-to-do women towards all matters
connected with the kitchen does not seem to indicate that this function
either belongs to the category of the "natural calling" of woman. On the
contrary, the circumstance that princely and other prominent families do
like the hotels, and all of them engage male cooks for the preparation
of their food, would rather indicate that cooking is a male
occupation.--All of which is stated for the benefit of those people who
are unable to picture to themselves a woman not brandishing a kitchen
ladle.
It is but a step to set up, beside the central kitchen, also the central
laundry and corresponding steaming arrangements for public use--as
already established in all large cities by rich private persons or
speculators, and found highly profitable. With the central kitchen may
also be connected central heating, warm water along with cold water
pipes, whereby a number of bothersome and time-consuming labors are done
away with. Large hotels, many private houses, hospitals, schools,
barracks, etc., have now these and many other such arrangements, such as
electric light and baths. The only fault to find is that only public
establishments and the well-to-do classes enjoy these advantages. Placed
within the reach of all, an enormous amount of time, trouble, labor and
material could be saved, and the standard of life and the well-being of
all raised considerably. In the summer of 1890, the papers published a
description of the progress made in the United States in the matter of
centralized heating and ventilation. It was there stated:
"The recent attempts, made especially in North America, to effect the
heating of whole blocks of houses or city wards from one place have to
record no slight success. From the constructive point of view, they have
been carried out so carefully and effectively that, in view of the
favorable results and the financial advantages which they offer, their
further extension may be confidently expected. More recently the attempt
is being made to furnish from central locations not heat alone, but also
fresh air, either warm or cool, to certain extensive but not too wide
areas of the city. These plans are found in execution in the so-called
Timby System, which, according to the central organ of the Department of
Buildings, gathered from a report of the technical attache in
Washington, Government Architect Petri, has recently been thoroughly
explained in Washington by the 'National Heating and Ventilating
Company.' The said company originally planned to supply 50,000 people
from one place. The difficulties presented by the requisite speed of
transit and the size of the pneumatic machines, have, however, caused a
limitation to 0.8 kilometers, and in instances of specially closely
built business quarters, the building of a special central power place."
What was then only projected, has since been in great part executed.
Philistine narrowness in Germany lives to shrug its shoulders at these
and such like schemes, although in Germany also we find ourselves just
now in the midst of one of those technical revolutions, that render the
private kitchen, together with a number of other occupations, hitherto
appertaining to the household, as superfluous as handicraft has been
rendered by machinery and modern technique. In the early days of the
nineteenth century, Napoleon pronounced insane the idea of constructing
a ship that could be set in motion by steam. The idea of building a
railroad was declared silly by many folks who passed for sensible:
nobody, it was argued, could remain alive on such a conveyance: the
rapidity of motion would deprive the passengers of breath. Identical
treatment is to-day accorded to a number of new ideas. He who sixty
years ago would have made to our women the proposition of replacing the
carrying of water with water-pipes, would have been exposed to the
charge of trying to lead women and servants into idleness.
Nevertheless the great revolution in technique is in full march on all
fields; nothing can any longer hold it back; and bourgeois society,
having conjured the same into life, has the historic mission of also
carrying the revolution to perfection, and to promote on all fields the
budding of the germs for radical transformations, _which a social order,
built on new foundations, would only have to generalize on a large
scale, and make common property_.
The trend, accordingly, of our social life is not to banish woman back
to the house and the hearth, as our "domestic life" fanatics prescribe,
and after which they lust, like the Jews in the Desert after the
fleshpots of Egypt. _On the contrary, the whole trend of society is to
lead woman out of the narrow sphere of strictly domestic life to a full
participation in the public life of the people_--a designation that will
not then cover the male sex only--and in the task of _human
civilization_. Laveleye fully recognized this when he wrote:[130] "In
the measure that what we are in the habit of designating as civilization
advances, the sentiments of piety and the family bonds weaken, and they
exercise a decreasing influence upon the actions of men. This fact is so
general that a law of social development may be recognized therein." Not
only has the position of woman changed, but also the relation of son and
daughter to the family, who have gradually attained a degree of
independence unknown in former days,--a fact noticeable especially in
the United States, where the self-dependent and independent education of
the individual is carried on much further than with us. The dark sides
that to-day accompany also this form of development, are not necessarily
connected with it; they lie in the social conditions of our times.
Capitalist society evokes no beneficent phenomenon unaccompanied with a
dark side: as Fourier long ago pointed out with great perspicacity,
capitalist society is in all its progressive steps double-faced and
ambiguous.
With Laveleye, Schaeffle also detects in the changed character of the
family of our days the effect of social development. He says:[131] "It
is true that the tendency described in Chapter II, to reduce and limit
the family to its specific functions is traceable throughout history.
The family relinquishes one provisional and temporary function after the
other. In so far as it officiated only in a surrogate and gap-filling
capacity it makes way to independent institutions for law, order,
authority, divine service, education, technique, etc., as soon as these
institutions take shape."
Women are pressing even further, though as yet only in a minority, and
only a fraction of these with clear aims. They aspire to measure their
power with men, not on the industrial field alone; they aspire not only
after a freer and more independent position in the family; they also
aspire at turning their mental faculties to the higher walks of life.
The favorite objection raised against them is that they are not fit for
such pursuits, not being intended therefor by Nature. The question of
engaging in the higher professional occupations concerns at present only
a small number of women in modern society; it is, however, important in
point of principle. The large majority of men believe in all seriousness
that, mentally as well, woman must ever remain subordinate to them, and,
hence, has no right to equality. They are, accordingly, the most
determined opponents of woman's aspirations.
The self-same men, who raise no objection whatever to the employment of
woman in occupations, many of which are very exhausting, often
dangerous, threaten the impairment of her feminine physique and
violently compel her to sin against her duties as a mother,--these
self-same men would exclude her from pursuits in which these obstacles
and dangers are much slighter, and which are much better suited to her
delicate frame.
Among the learned men, who in Germany want to hear nothing of the
admission of women to the higher studies, or who will yield only a
qualified assent, and express themselves publicly on the subject are
Prof. L. Bischoff, Dr. Ludwig Hirt, Prof. H. Sybel, L. von Buerenbach,
Dr. E. Reich, and many others. Notedly has the livelier agitation,
recently set on foot, for the admission of women to the Universities,
incited a strong opposition against the plan in Germany. The opposition
is mainly directed against woman's qualifications for the study of
medicine. Among the opponents are found Pochhammer, Fehling, S. Binder,
Waldeyer, Hegar, etc. Von Buerenbach is of the opinion that both the
admission to and the fitness of woman for science can be disposed of
with the argument that, until now, no genius has arisen among woman, and
hence woman is manifestly unfit for philosophic studies. It seems the
world has had quite enough of its male philosophers: it can, without
injury to itself, well afford to dispense with female. Neither does the
objection that the female sex has never yet produced a genius seem to us
either to hold water, or to have the weight of a demonstration. Geniuses
do not drop down from the skies; they must have opportunity to form and
mature. This opportunity woman has lacked until now, as amply shown by
our short historic sketch. For thousands of years she has been
oppressed, and she has been deprived or stunted in the opportunity and
possibility to unfold her mental faculties. It is as false to reason
that the female sex is bereft of genius, by denying all spark of genius
to the tolerably large number of great women, as it would be to maintain
that there were no geniuses among the male sex other than the few who
are considered such. Every village schoolmaster knows what a mass of
aptitudes among his pupils never reach full growth, because the
possibilities for their development are absent. Aye, there is not one,
who, in his walk through life, has not become acquainted, some with
more, others with fewer persons of whom it had to be said that, had they
been able to mature under more favorable circumstances, they would have
been ornaments to society, and men of genius. Unquestionably the number
of men of talent and of genius is by far larger among the male sex than
those that, until now, have been able to reveal themselves: social
conditions did not allow the others to develop. Precisely so with the
faculties of the female sex, a sex that for centuries has been held
under, hampered and crippled, far worse than any other subject beings.
We have absolutely no measure to-day by which to gauge the fullness of
mental powers and faculties that will develop among men and women so
soon as they shall be able to unfold amid natural conditions.
It is with mankind as in the vegetable kingdom. Millions of valuable
seeds never reach development because the ground on which they fall is
unfavorable, or is taken up by weeds that rob the young and better plant
of air, light and nourishment. The same laws of Nature hold good in
human life. If a gardener or planter sought to maintain with regard to a
given plant that it could not grow, although he made no trial, perhaps
even hindered its growth by wrong treatment, such a man would be
pronounced a fool by all his intelligent neighbors. Nor would he fare
any better if he declined to cross one of his female domestic animals
with, a male of higher breed, to the end of producing a better animal.
There is no peasant in Germany to-day so ignorant as not to understand
the advantage of such treatment of his trees or animals--provided always
his means allow him to introduce the better method. Only with regard to
human beings do even men of learning deny the force of that which with
regard to all other matters, they consider an established law. And yet
every one, even without being a naturalist, can make instructive
observations in life. Whence comes it that the children of peasants
differ from city children? It comes from the difference in their
conditions of life and education.
The one-sidedness, inherent in the education for one calling, stamps man
with a peculiar character. A clergyman or a schoolmaster is generally
and easily recognized by his carriage and mien; likewise an officer,
even when in civilian dress. A shoe maker is easily told from a tailor,
a joiner from a locksmith. Twin brothers, who closely resembled each
other in youth, show in later years marked differences if their
occupations are different, if one had hard manual work, for instance, as
a smith, the other the study of philosophy for his duty. Heredity, on
one side, adaptation on the other, play in the development of man, as
well as of animals, a decisive _role_. Indeed, man is the most bending
and pliable of all creatures. A few years of changed life and occupation
often suffice to make quite a different being out of the same man.
Nowhere does rapid external change show itself more strikingly than when
a person is transferred from poor and reduced, to materially improved
circumstances. It is in his mental make-up that such a person will be
least able to deny his antecedents, but that is due to the circumstance
that, with most of such people, after they have reached a certain age,
the desire for intellectual improvement is rarely felt; neither do they
need it. Such an upstart rarely suffers under this defect. In our days,
that look to money and material means, people are far readier to bow
_before the man with a large purse, than before a man of knowledge and
great intellectual gifts, especially if he has the misfortune of being
poor and rankless_. Instances of this sort are furnished every day. The
worship of the golden calf stood in no age higher than in this,--whence
it comes that we are living "in the best possible world."
The strongest evidence of the effect exercised upon man by radically
different conditions of life is furnished in our several industrial
centers. In these centers employer and employe present externally such a
contrast as if they belonged to different races. Although accustomed to
the contrast, it struck us almost with the shock of a surprise on the
occasion of a campaign mass meeting, that we addressed in the winter of
1877 in an industrial town of the Erzgebirge region. The meeting, at
which a debate was to be held between a liberal professor and ourselves,
was so arranged that both sides were equally represented. The front part
of the hall was taken by our opponents,--almost without exception,
healthy, strong, often large figures; in the rear of the hall and in the
galleries stood workingmen and small tradesmen, nine-tenths of the
former weavers,--mostly short, thin, shallow-chested, pale-faced
figures, with whom worry and want looked out at every pore. One set
represented the full-stomached virtue and solvent morality of bourgeois
society; the other set, the working bees and beasts of burden, on the
product of whose labor the gentlemen made so fine an appearance. _Let
both be placed for one generation under equally favorable conditions,
and the contrast will vanish with most; it certainly is blotted out in
their descendants._
It is also evident that, in general, it is harder to determine the
social standing of women than of men. Women adapt themselves more
readily to new conditions; they acquire higher manners more quickly.
Their power of accommodation is greater than that of more clumsy man.
What to a plant are good soil, light and air, are to man healthy social
conditions, that allow him to unfold his powers. The well known saying:
"Man is what he eats," expresses the same thought, although somewhat
one-sidedly: The question is not merely what man eats; it embraces his
whole social posture, the social atmosphere in which he moves, that
promotes or stunts his physical and mental development, that affects,
favorably or unfavorably, his sense of feeling, of thought, and of
action. Every day we see people, situated in favorable material
conditions, going physically and morally to wreck, simply because,
beyond the narrower sphere of their own domestic or personal
surroundings, unfavorable circumstances of a social nature operate upon
them, and gain such overpowering ascendency that they switch them on
wrong tracks. The general conditions under which a man lives are even
of far greater importance than those of the home and the family. If the
conditions for social development are equal to both sexes, if to neither
there stand any obstacles in the way, and if the social state of society
is a healthy one, _then woman also will rise to a point of perfection in
her being, such as we can have no full conception of, such conditions
having hitherto been absent in the history of the development of the
race_. That which some women are in the meantime achieving, leaves no
doubt upon this head: these rise as high above the mass of their own sex
as the male geniuses do above the mass of theirs. Measured with the
scale usually applied to Princes, women have, on an average, displayed
greater talent than men in the ruling of States. As illustrations, let
Isabella and Blanche of Castile be quoted; Elizabeth of Hungary;
Catharine Sforza, the Duchess of Milan and Imola; Elizabeth of England;
Catharine of Russia; Maria Theresa, etc. Resting upon the fact that, in
all races and all parts of the world, women have ruled with marked
ability, even over the wildest and most turbulent hordes, Burbach makes
the statement that, _in all probability, women are fitter for politics
than men_.[132] For the rest, many a great man in history would shrink
considerably, were it only known What he owes to himself, and what to
others. Count Mirabeau, for instance, is described by German historians,
von Sybel among them, as one of the greatest lights of the French
Revolution: and now research has revealed the fact that this light was
indebted for the concept of almost all of his speeches to the ready help
of certain scholars, who worked for him in secret, and whom he
understood to utilize. On the other hand, apparitions like those of a
Sappho, a Diotima of the days of Socrates, a Hypatia of Alexander, a
Madame Roland, Madame de Stael, George Sand, etc., deserve the greatest
respect, and eclipse many a male star. The effect of women as mothers of
great men is also known. Woman has achieved all that was possible to her
under the, to her, as a whole, most unfavorable circumstances; all of
which justifies the best hopes for the future. As a matter of fact, only
the second half of the nineteenth century began to smooth the way for
the admission of women in large numbers to the race with men on various
fields; and quite satisfactory are the results attained.
But suppose that, on an average, women are not as capable of higher
development as men, that they cannot grow into geniuses and great
philosophers, was this a criterion for men when, at least according to
the letter of the law, they were placed on a footing of equality with
"geniuses" and "philosophers?" The identical men of learning, who deny
higher aptitudes to woman, are quite inclined to do the same to artisans
and workingmen. When the nobility appeals to its "blue" blood and to
its genealogical tree, these men of learning laugh in derision and shrug
their shoulders; but as against the man of lower rank, they consider
themselves an aristocracy, that owes what it is, not to more favorable
conditions of life, but to its own talent alone. The same men who, on
one field, are among the freest from prejudice, and who hold him lightly
who does not think as liberally as themselves, are, on another
field,--the moment the interests of their rank and class, or their
vanity and self-esteem are concerned--found narrow to the point of
stupidity, and hostile to the point of fanaticism. The men of the upper
classes look down upon the lower; and so does almost the whole sex upon
woman. The majority of men see in woman only an article of profit and
pleasure; to acknowledge her an equal runs against the grain of their
prejudices:--woman must be humble and modest; she must confine herself
exclusively to the house and leave all else to the men, the "lords of
creation," as their domain: woman must, to the utmost, bridle her own
thoughts and inclinations, and quietly accept what her Providence on
earth--father or husband--decrees. The nearer she approaches this
standard, all the more is she praised as "sensible, modest and
virtuous," even though, as the result of such constraint, she break down
under the burden of physical and moral suffering. What absurdity is it
not to speak of the "equality of all" and yet seek to keep one-half of
the human race outside of the pale!
Woman has the same right as man to unfold her faculties and to the free
exercise of the same: she is human as well as he: like him, she should
be free to dispose of herself as her own master. The accident of being
born a woman, makes no difference. To exclude woman from equality on the
ground that she was born female and not male--an accident for which man
is as little responsible as she--is as inequitable, as would be to make
rights and privileges dependent upon the accident of religion or
political bias; and as senseless as that two human beings must look upon
each other as enemies on the ground that the accident of birth makes
them of different stock and nationality. Such views are unworthy of a
truly free being. The progress of humanity lies in removing everything
that holds one being, one class, one sex, in dependence and in
subjection to another. _No inequality is justified other than that which
Nature itself establishes in the differences between one individual and
another, and for the fulfillment of the purpose of Nature. The natural
boundaries no sex can overstep: it would thereby destroy its own natural
purpose._
The adversaries of full equality for woman play as their trump card the
claim that woman has a smaller brain than man, and that in other
qualities, besides, she is behind man, hence her permanent inferiority
(subordination) is demonstrated. It is certain that man and woman are
beings of different sexes; that they are furnished with different
organs, corresponding to the sex purpose of each; and that, owing to the
functions that each sex must fill to accomplish the purpose of Nature,
there are a series of other differences in their physiologic and psychic
conditions. These are facts that none can deny and none will deny;
nevertheless, they justify no distinction in the social and political
rights of man and woman. The human race, society, consists of both
sexes; both are indispensable to its existence and progress. Even the
greatest male genius was born of a mother, to whom frequently he is
indebted for the best part of himself. By what right can woman be
refused equality with man?