Are you aware of the fact that you are living in the most important
period of human history? Not for the reason that a World’s War has been
fought and a “League of Nations” formed, but because all civilized
nations are beginning to acknowledge that women, who form the greater
part of the human race, are entitled to the same rights and recognition
as have heretofore been enjoyed by men only. The entry of woman into
industry, the professions, literature, science and art in modern times,
her participation in social and political life, mark the beginning of an
era of a significance, equal, if not greater, than when by the discovery
of America a New World was added to the old.
Although it is a fact that man owes innumerable benefits to woman’s
care, devotion, and mental initiative, it is also true that through
egoism and self-conceit he has never appreciated woman’s work and
achievements at their full value. On the contrary: while she was giving
all and asking little, while she shared with man all hardships and
perils, she was for thousands of years without any rights, not even as
regards her own person and property. From ancient times up to the
present day she has been an object of rape and barter, and quite often,
for sexual purposes, held in the most horrible slavery. During the
Middle Ages innumerable women were persecuted for witchcraft, subjected
to the most cruel tortures, dragged to the scaffold to be beheaded, or
burnt alive at the stake.
Woman’s status to-day is the result of her own energy, efforts and
ability. She overcame the prejudice and stubborn opposition of bigoted
priests, pedantic scholars and reactionary statesmen, who were unable to
see that the advance and emancipation of woman is synonymous with the
progress and liberation of the greater part of the entire human race. To
short sighted people such as these Tennyson directed his lines:
“The Woman’s Cause is Man’s! They rise or sink together,
dwarf’d or godlike, bond or free; if she be small,
slight-natured, miserable, how shall men grow!”
The book submitted here gives an account of woman’s evolution, of her
enduring and trying struggles for liberty, education, and recognition.
While this account will make every woman proud of the achievements of
her sex, man, by reading it, will become aware that it is his solemn
duty not only to protect woman from injustice, brutality and
exploitation, but to give her all possible assistance in her endeavors
to attain that position in which she will be man’s ideal consort and
friend.