Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
The
Disadvantages of Being
a Woman
BY
GRACE ELLISON
Author of “Abdul Hamid’s Daughter,” “An Englishwoman
in a Turkish Harem,” etc., etc.
[Illustration]
A. M. PHILPOT, Ltd.
69 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C. 1.
THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING A
WOMAN
The
Disadvantages of Being
a Woman
BY
GRACE ELLISON
Author of “Abdul Hamid’s Daughter,” “An Englishwoman
in a Turkish Harem,” etc., etc.
[Illustration]
A. M. PHILPOT, Ltd.
69 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C. 1.
[_Copyright_]
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY W. JOLLY AND SONS, LTD., ABERDEEN
CONTENTS
_Introduction._ Woman the Discovery of the Century.
CHAP. PAGE
I. Feminist Leaders—and their Mistakes
(i) Unwise Haste (ii) Legislation for the
élite, not for the masses (iii) Hostility to
Man, who should be the associate 9
II. The Drawback of Health 16
III. Barred from the Professions 24
IV. The French Business Woman 33
V. Laws for Women illogical and inconsistent 39
VI. Can Women succeed in Politics? 48
VII. Sex in Work 56
VIII. Is Femininity at a discount? 63
IX. Pin-money Women 71
X. What is wrong with Marriage? 77
XI. The Future 86
_PUBLISHER’S NOTE_
_These are not the reflections of a woman who has failed. On the
contrary, her literary record, her extensive travels, the work she did
amongst the women of Turkey, and later her war-work in France, give her
the right to speak with authority and to command a hearing._
INTRODUCTION
Since every age has its own great discovery, who will deny “Woman” her
laurels as the Discovery of this Century?
Opinions are still divided as to how and why Woman as a Force actually
made her first appearance. Some declare that she had been seeking
enfranchisement for over sixty years; others maintain that the Woman
Movement began with militancy.
The truth is that no one noticed her first coming. Apparently without
warning, she burst the fetters of domesticity and sprang from obscurity
into the blazing sun. Wakening the dullest and the most awkward of the
centuries, she stepped, one might say, bounded, into Freedom.
Like radium or electricity, Woman the Force was always there, and the
age that needed her discovered her. We believe that Nature intended
this Force to balance the Force of Man. The scales must be even; and
where one of the sexes has been either atrophied or over-developed, the
State falls.
But _the scales must be even_. We are too near our subject, and events
now happening are not sufficiently in perspective for it to be possible
to write even a résume of the Woman’s Movement, but it must be evident
to everyone that there is something fundamentally wrong with the
situation as it stands at present.
Nothing has happened to weaken our faith in the possibilities of the
great Discovery, but it cannot be denied that Woman as a Force has been
and is being mishandled by many a clumsy engineer.
It is our purpose, in these pages, to examine their mistakes.
I
FEMINIST LEADERS AND THEIR MISTAKES
_(i) Unwise haste (ii) legislation for the élite, not for the masses,
(iii) hostility to man, who should be the associate._
Resistless as the appointed tides, the Revolution of Woman has swept
over us. Who can be held responsible? To criticise or to blame the
women themselves would be as senseless as to attempt a judgment upon
the shore washed by the sea. It had to be and it was. The end had come
for Victorianism, with its soul-crushing hypocrisy. The new Force had
to be set free.
Most unfortunately the advanced feminists who took charge of the
movement had few of the god-given gifts of leadership. There is but
a step from revolution, with its healthy exaggerations, to complete
anarchy. They sowed the seeds, and only the Great War—with its issues
of life and death—has saved them and us from a terrible harvest.
(i.) The leaders’ first tactical mistake, no doubt, was to set up a
fighting corps before the average woman had learned how to march. To
realise with what unstable rapidity they forged ahead, we have only to
measure the distance between the women of this generation and of the
last.
History has always recorded the perils and suffering of any period
that follows a too rapid emancipation of slaves; and as all Suffrage
Societies alluded to women as slaves, we may adopt the comparison
without offence. Our speed in settling the women’s question was no less
than a crime. Women ought to have served a period as novitiates before
taking the full vows of freedom.
For our mothers the gates were locked. Their narrow horizon was
bounded—on the one side by the needle and on the other by children.
They had, in return, the safety and the protection of a home. For the
women of this generation most doors have been flung wide. But with the
full liberty to work, they have gained also full liberty to starve;
and they are finding themselves too often forced down paths they have
not the physical strength to tread. Rights demanded without tact, and
the unconsidered outcry for absolute equality, have largely killed
men’s protective instincts, and really amount to a “declaration of war
between those who should be allies or partners in humankind.”
Only a few women can go far, or last long, without a home, a pension,
or a private income, to fall back on. Our mothers were “looked
after” as a matter of course. So many women to-day are forced to
work for themselves, however unqualified they may be. They have been
given the Parliamentary vote, before even learning their municipal
responsibilities. They have entered upon business careers without
training or capacity. At the moment, indeed, one feels as if both the
professional and the business worlds were actually clogged up with
untried women.
How different the whole situation might have been if the leaders had
been content to move more slowly; feeling their way as they went
along; organising, experimenting, and helping—teaching the meaning of
responsibility, what it involves and how to use it?
Above all, they should never have lost touch with the anchor of the
home, until they were well able to navigate their own course in the
variable currents of the world outside and secure not only work for an
income, but some security for the future.
_Independence, so called, that does not include economic provision for
bad times and old age, is not independence at all._ What problem can be
more terrible or more grave for the great army of superfluous women,
than the absolute insecurity of their future?
(ii.) The feminist leaders also made a very serious mistake when they
based their demands for all women upon the needs of a very exceptional
minority. “Take care of the weak part of your army,” said Napoleon,
“the strong can look after themselves.” But in this movement it was the
reverse policy which the leaders preferred to adopt. If a few workers
had proved that despite obstacles, difficulties, and sex-prejudice,
they could yet take their place in open competition with men, _these
giant personalities were exceptions that proved the rule_. Why
legislate for exceptions?
It was maintained, from the first, that all professions should be open
to all women; that the sexes should be at once placed upon absolute
equality. “What one, the finest of women, can do, all should strive
to do,” was the theory. And we had dangerous legislation, suddenly
introduced, which was doomed in advance to disaster; carrying with it
deceptions, disappointments, the unclassing and unsexing of women. For
one woman who can succeed at the bar or in surgery there are hundreds
who had far better be sighing for the cradle. They will never reach the
bar, or prove fitted to wield the knife; and they will lose the cradle
into the bargain.
All the ages have brought forth exceptional women. At the time
when Mahomet raised his voice in the desert, and was leading his
dusky-skinned converts out of semi-barbarianism into the light of
civilisation, his own daughter, the Lady of Paradise, was speaking and
lecturing in many lands, so that her fame spread over the whole of the
East. Yet other women were not encouraged to follow her example; and
few made the attempt before the arrival of Zeyneb, the famous professor
of Damascus.
Yet in our own days, that woman might undertake man’s work, she was
given the vote. It was held up, and fought for, as the key to unlock
all professional doors—the instrument of the Millennium! It is true,
of course, that the vote can, and perhaps will eventually be of great
utility. But how can we judge? It is as yet scarcely out of its
swaddling clothes; and, certainly for women, the promised Millennium is
still far to seek.
(iii.) The final, and most disastrous mistake of the feminist leaders
was their entire _disregard of Nature herself_. It is by this means
that the whole movement has been developed on a false premiss; for any
overdrafts on the bank of Nature must be repaid with crushing interest.
“Only the vote can right all wrongs,” said the leaders, “and as men
used violence to obtain the vote, women must do the same. Men pillaged,
burnt, destroyed; did evil that good might come. We must follow their
example.” There is no real logic in such a claim. A woman simply cannot
apply man’s weapons. Men who riot use fair violence against other
men; whereas when women use violence against men, they gain an unfair
advantage. When two men fight, it is the stronger who prevails; against
women no man can strike the death-blow that is in his hands, lest he
violate the most sacred laws of his manhood.
The only “force” a woman may fairly use against men is to know what
she wants and sit tight until she obtains it. It is, we admit, a slow
process, but it is sure and certain—in fact the only way.
What has woman, in fact, gained by violence? Since man considered
she had not given him a square deal because he could not counter her
violence by his own, he used the only weapon available—_complete
indifference_. Instead of meeting man as an associate, woman became
his enemy and his commercial competitor. As we shall later attempt to
prove, woman is not so constituted, either physically or emotionally,
that she can compete with men. Wherefore the loss is hers.
The attitude of distrust, or at least indifference, thus created in man
necessarily reacts on him. It was responsibility towards his womenkind
that gave him a regular outlet for his chivalry and the moral backbone
he would otherwise have seldom maintained.
The lack of organisation in woman’s fight for independence has injured
not only herself but man.
II
THE DRAWBACK OF HEALTH
One sometimes wonders whether, if more time had been given in schools
to the study of physiology, women would have been tempted to enter upon
physically exhausting careers.
When we examine the complicated but delicately-made workmanship of the
female body, compared with the simple robustness of the male, we must
seriously consider whether Nature intended women for their present work.
People have argued and will always argue that we have women who are
stronger than men. This we do not deny; but the whole conformation of
a woman’s body goes to prove that she is not fitted for heavy physical
work, whatever her mental capacity may be.
Thus it is that all the controversy about the abolition of a Woman’s
Police Force, (which never existed), makes one wonder why a body of
_Welfare Workers_, as they really are, should want to be called
_Police_, when they are unable to protect themselves, far less to
arrest a man. Think what a blow in a woman’s chest may mean! Or a kick!
Or a chill at the wrong time!
But here again, we have the advanced feminists attempting to spoil
a very valuable “welfare” cause, by forcing women down a road which
they are not fitted by Nature to tread. More than this, they can only
succeed as “welfare” workers, when the police become interested in
their work and will protect them, if necessary, whereas now they annoy
the whole force by taking the title and uniform of a profession they
cannot safely adopt.
This is how a policeman summed them up. “God forbid that I should ever
want to prevent a woman from earning her living; but it gives a fellow
a kind of degraded feeling to be asked to take any woman into the
immorality of Hyde Park at night.” So ought every policeman to feel,
and the whole _raison d’être_ of his profession goes, when he has to
share it with women.
When the Great War came, woman had the unique experience of trying
her hand at all work, from the land to the railway station and the
omnibus, and from the counting-house to the Civil Service. She could
then judge men’s work first-hand. There were no men for the hard
fetching and carrying, so that she had to do it herself. The general
opinion has been that she proved a remarkably good stop-gap; _but only
a stop-gap_. The most intelligent women workers have recognised and
owned this.
During the War, too, there was always the patriotic ideal to help
one along. Could so many have toiled day and night had they not ever
ringing in their ears the eternal refrain, “I am helping to win the
War, I am doing my bit.” It is not just to criticise, then, women who
worked with a zeal and self-abnegation for which some of them will have
to pay, physically and morally, till the end of their lives. At the
same time, when women ask to be judged for their war-work according to
men’s standards, they are playing the game of the little frog in the
fable who tried to measure himself against the ox, and they will suffer
as he did.
And who amongst us has forgotten the physical strain for even the
strongest women? During the war, the bus women used up their strength
and their nerves. They were so over-wrought that a cross word would
produce a torrent of wrath, and one spoke to them as seldom as
possible. Yet the work is no more strain on a man than eating his
breakfast.
How can any one pretend that such war-work suited the women? I remember
a woman porter who took charge of a suit case for me that few men would
have found heavy, but which I myself could not carry. The pale-faced
porteress soon became too exhausted for such a load. So I gave her a
large tip and kind words in exchange for her insults; and under the
influence of this unexpected kindness, she burst into tears. Were not
most of our workers in a similar state of nervous prostration? Then
there seemed no option; but looking at the havoc that was thus wrought
upon women’s health, one wonders whether it would not have been better
to have imported coolies or blacks.
And where is the contractor who will pay for woman’s work at the same
figure as man’s? In the labour market women must always be a poor
speculation from the physical point of view, and so, when equal work
means equal pay, the man, for whom there is less physical risk, secures
the job. Woman must undercut man, which is economic suicide.
In office life too the routine work proves a great strain. Women start
off so full of zeal. They overwork, as they love and hate and take
exercise, _always to excess_. And the flame of youth quickly burns
itself out. German doctors have always advocated that to assure safety
in middle age every woman, whether she thinks she requires it or not,
ought to have two complete days’ rest a month. But how many can afford
this? and what would their employers have to say?
And who does not know how easily a woman’s health is wrecked by poor
or insufficient food? Argue and warn as one may, no woman who has
to choose between clothes and food would choose food. She cannot,
clothes being a business asset. In short, since we are summing up the
disadvantages of women’s work, it must be admitted that the question of
health is her chief handicap—a handicap which often puts her altogether
out of the race.
In the days of primitive men and women, they divided their work, as
it were, by instinct. He hunted the wild beasts; she cooked them and
looked after the little savages in the tent. Neither attempted the
other’s task, and yet to-day, with all her physical disqualifications,
woman is often forced to do the work of both.
Indeed, the whole situation seems to have been reversed. Very few
women are really qualified to succeed in men’s professions, yet often
they persist in trying until they break down, whereas it is doubtful
if there is one part of a woman’s work that men cannot do as well, if
not better than women—though they seldom care to try! That is to say,
though men may not be good, all-round house-keepers, they are better at
special jobs. As a tailor, a servant, a chef, a masseur, a hairdresser,
a dressmaker and sometimes even in the care of babies, they are better
specialists than a woman. In the United States, Chinamen are found to
make excellent nurse-maids.
When I was crossing the Atlantic during one of the worst storms of the
year, a British officer took charge of his baby in a fashion that won
universal admiration. Every woman on board, including his wife, was
ill; so the father powdered and bathed, combed and fed the little
thing; yet, when questioned, he owned he had never done anything of the
kind before, or even watched the operation.
How many outstanding women painters, musical composers or doctors, can
we name? In the theatre, where she can keep her sex and give full sway
to her emotions, woman reigns supreme; though even here sometimes, at
the expense of health.
Entirely without disloyalty, one must emphatically declare (for
the statistics of the war are on record to prove it) that, for
physical reasons alone, we cannot rely on women to replace men in
professions, in the business world, nor as land-workers. They can, very
successfully, supplement men and, temporarily, replace them, but their
physical strength quickly gives way and their reign must of necessity
be short.
Then why not give our first consideration to health? Why attempt work
for which we are not physically fit?
In the administration of prisons, hospitals, and work-houses, as
poor-law guardians and, above all, in the home, women can render
invaluable service. It seems a thousand pities for them to neglect
these spheres for others where they are too often foredoomed to failure.
III
BARRED FROM THE PROFESSIONS
Taking professional careers as a speculation, i.e., carefully counting
the outlay and what it is likely to bring in, can we deny what a
University woman once said: “With training at one British and at two
foreign universities, and all our degrees, as well as dancing, singing,
music, painting, riding and other accomplishments, should we not have
been, so far as actual monetary gain is concerned, better off had we
learnt to stick labels on jam-pots?”
Look what a barrister’s education costs, and yet “briefless barristers”
amongst men are the rule, not the exception. Hear what young barristers
have to do and put up with until they can get their chance. Remember
that some have to leave the thorny road without securing even a chance.
For men, the Bar is a great career fraught with passionate interest,
but bristling with disappointments. The prizes are few and far between.
What then has taken woman along that most difficult of difficult ways?
Is it a real love of the profession? Or is it a vain desire to be
amongst the first interesting few? Has she any real chance of success
at the Bar?
Some people are inclined to think women ought to be able to plead
for their own sex better than men—but can they? Have they the sound
logic of the man barrister? Is not his fox-craftiness, cynicism, and
self-possession more necessary than the fund of emotion which is her
trump card? Perhaps the very qualities she is relying on to win her
case will lose it. It must be a long while before women can make a name
for themselves at the Bar, for only _super_ women will ever get briefs.
“We trust women doctors with our lives,” it is said. “Yes, but you
trust the woman lawyer with your purse!”
From the first, Mlle. Miropolsky, the brilliant Polish-French
barrister, herself a woman of unusual intelligence, very wisely placed
a rich barrister husband between herself and the financial side of
life. In any case, both have exceptional personalities, and are leaders
in their profession.
But would anyone in their senses consider the Bar as a suitable
_provision_ for the average woman?
In Medicine, though physically hard on women, and despite the cost
of the long years of training, there is more chance of success. To
begin with, the East can utilize a great many women doctors, and in
the medical mission field they have proved their unique worth. Yet in
spite of the war, sex-prejudice has not vanished, and only women of
exceptional personality can keep a practice together. And despite all
that has been said or written to the contrary, it will be long before
this prejudice disappears. Her sex is against women here as in so many
other fields of endeavour. When one recognises how much personality and
capacity public opinion demands from a woman doctor, and how all her
little slips are multiplied a thousandfold, one sees that medicine can
only be a stop-gap, and that the experiment is indeed costly.
In the early days, suffragettes quoted the father who said: “Had my
girl been a boy, I would have risked the money and put him in practice;
but, with my limited income, that would be too much to ask me for a
girl.”
As an investment, medicine for women is very risky. When the career is
completed, a practice has to be bought. How is her health to stand the
strain? Has she enough courage and personality to keep up her practice?
Surely most fathers would do better if they used the money to purchase
an annuity instead of spending it on training.
Another great drawback to the woman doctor is the refusal of other
women to trust her judgment. As a confessor, where above all one would
have prophesied her success,—and every doctor is to a certain extent a
confessor—she often fails. Is it lack of heart and of understanding,
or simply of _savoir-faire_? The fact remains, however, that a large
number of women, seeking the mental help that a doctor so often gives,
would unburden themselves more readily to a man.
When a man and a woman, both doctors, work together, the partnership is
generally a success, and not only among married couples. The friendship
of mutual interests, _where no love comes in_, often raises both to
great heights of purpose, and achieves much that is conspicuously
worth while. If one, or both, are married, so much the better.
The solitary, spinster-practitioner can have no secretary in her work.
In partnership the strain is diminished for both, and the patients feel
much greater confidence with a man in the background.
The two professions for which, at any rate in the past, no special
training was required, are journalism and the stage. In these
professions competition is fiercest. It is not always the best written
work which pays; it is not the most talented actress who wins public
applause. There are hundreds, however, who love the excitement of
trying to find even a tiny corner of their own in these streets of
adventure, and they are ready to go through fire to secure it.
The University of Columbia, U.S.A., has now a Chair for “Journalism,”
which shows the value of training in this profession. Paris has a
Conservatoire where all their artists are trained, free of charge,
after admission by open competition. The preliminary work thus
entailed, however, does not in the least diminish the keen competition
that we must expect in professions which hold the chance of such big
possibilities. Yet once more, for both, good health is absolutely
indispensable. The harassing strain of uncertainty plays havoc with the
finest constitution, and the public, out for amusement and interest,
has no time for waning or fallen stars.
The fact is that women are only fitted constitutionally for certain
kinds of journalism. The office night-work is too exhausting, and the
path of the War Correspondent is one no woman should seek to tread.
There are insurmountable difficulties all the way, and, speaking from
personal experience, I am convinced that she can only pull through at
all by throwing herself on the chivalry of men. In the French army,
officers were seriously punished for uselessly exposing men’s lives;
yet in order to furnish the sensational head-line of “A Woman in the
Trenches,” fathers of families had to risk their lives to protect
her, to my certain knowledge, over and over again. It ought not to be
allowed.
In the early Victorian era, teaching and nursing used to be the two
professions for women. They were both badly paid, and if the school
teacher had little or no prestige, the governess had none at all.
Nursing was and is still done in hospitals for a pittance; private
work is better paid, but the women who do it tell me they dislike the
profession.
Both teaching and nursing are, however, vocations, and girls who only
take them for want of something better, do not, of course, give their
best. Yet no work requires women of more solid character. They have at
their mercy, to make or to mar, the young and the sick, yet candidates
for these professions cannot be chosen. Neither nursing nor teaching,
taken seriously, is a sinecure, and again robust health is required for
both.
In the arts, _i.e._, music, painting and literature, training is
not enough, and since men have not only to be put on their feet but
“seen through,” women must also be “seen through.” Genius, generally
speaking, will find its public, but the arts too frequently mean that
lessons are given for bread and butter. From both the artistic and
financial aspect, however, one wonders whether such poor results are
really worth while. Things have naturally been much worse since the War.
The hand-to-mouth, Quartier Latin or Chelsea Studio existence is all
very well as a stop-gap, for a change or even a picnic; but what of the
future? When is the woman paid enough at this work to save for her old
age. It simply cannot be done. There is Florence Barclay, it is true,
who made more than enough for a life-time with one book—and there are
other exceptions. But these are rare enough to be called miraculous.
In the Middle Ages, teaching and nursing were done by nuns. They gave
their lives to the community; and the community cared for them—in
sickness, unto death. Nowadays, if women still give their lives to the
community, a lay community, the community (or the State) must see that
they never want.
Considering the strain of teaching, the terrible risks of nursing, and
the uncertainty of women being strong enough to pursue their work after
middle age, they ought not to be left dependent upon any profession
that does not carry with it the security of a pension; unless, indeed,
they are well insured, and, for greater safety, insured by the State.
A profession cannot be abandoned and then picked up again for rainy
days. A woman will come back, as men have, to find herself out of
date, out of the running. She is not wanted; her place is taken by
younger women.
In every profession—the Bar, Medicine, Teaching, Nursing, or
Journalism, woman is hindered by her physique. It is idle to contend
with the statistics which prove how many women between forty and fifty
break down seriously, and never get fit again. Even in partnership with
men, where all the risks are obviously diminished, they must be sure of
provision in case of sickness. Most professions are good ladders but
bad crutches. Under the present conditions of destructive competition,
they too often prove no more than an expensive hobby.
IV
THE FRENCH BUSINESS WOMAN
From long residence on the Continent I have been able to study at first
hand that admirable person the Frenchwoman in business. What a power is
hers! What would France be without her!
There is certainly no need nor any intention to undervalue Frenchmen;
but in France one sees woman in her right place, holding the balance
of power that follows most closely Nature’s obvious design. There, on
the one side, is man performing the hard physical labour which he alone
is wise to attempt; on the other, his partner, woman, with her clear
business judgment, advising, supervising, suggesting, persuading: never
allowing herself to be carried away by sentiment, but always looking
facts in the face. A very tiger over her own offspring, she would sell
her own soul—or anyone else’s—to save her children; and for that
reason must be met with extreme caution by the foreigner. Her personal
judgments nevertheless are always based on clear-headed common-sense.
Wherefore, despite her large army of mateless women, France will never
be faced with the “women’s question,” as we know it. Women in France
are, to a large extent, independent of public opinion: they do not fear
facts.
Any ideal of “single-blessedness” would not appeal to them. “It
is neither practical nor natural; why therefore should we pretend
otherwise?” We question indeed if English women are quite sincere in
this matter. “It is better,” they say, “to be alone than with the wrong
man.” “A strange ideal,” answers Madame, “how do you know that he _is_
wrong until you have tried?”
As the French believe, whatever work a woman may undertake, she must
be man’s associate and partner; neither his subordinate nor his
rival. Wherefore she gives her daughter a professional, or business
training; _and_ above all, money. A shopkeeper’s daughter generally
marries her father’s most promising assistant. The business becomes
a sort of double partnership, and most of these marriages prove quite
satisfactory. So if a girl’s father is in the army she generally
marries an officer; if a banker she will choose a man in a bank. It
is a practical family arrangement seldom leading women out of their
own class. The disastrous sort of “The Earl and the Girl” affair, so
familiar to us, could scarcely ever take place in France.
It is true that France has now a large army of mateless women, but the
greater number are widows. As widows they are either carrying on the
family business, working in government posts, or living with their
parents. Few, of their own choice, would set up alone for themselves.
In their eyes the English woman seems always struggling with “so much
work for such small results:” driven to occupations for which she
is not properly equipped. They would never expect or permit their
own daughters to face the material insecurity which few of our women
workers can avoid. Here they may swim, more often they sink. The
Frenchwoman says, “swim by all means if you can, but first make sure
that you never sink.” A profession or a business is not enough. The
girl must have a home _or_ money. Mothers who cannot provide all three
will at least insist on one.
Even a short residence on the Continent will suffice to show us what
sacrifices all Frenchwomen are prepared to make in order that the
“daughter” may never find herself in the humiliating position of having
no money behind her, whether she marries or not. I knew, for instance,
a doctor who was killed in the war before his daughter’s dowry had
been saved up. The widow at once let her furnished house, and took the
position as housekeeper in a school. She is living on her husband’s
pension; the rest is put by for the girl. This of course is only one
example out of a thousand. The woman thinks no work beneath her, or too
heavy to undertake for her daughter’s future. Public opinion accepts
her sacrifice as a mere matter of course. It is her duty.
As a matter of fact, however, our snobbish attitude towards
shop-keepers is unknown in France. The woman who sees that she can do
better at business than in a profession, goes into business. As a rule
she succeeds in both, because she will sink her personality and take up
the position in which she is needed most, whatever her qualifications
for better work. An expert at embroidery, bodice-making, or
hair-dressing will devote her life to keeping the books of the family
business for the good of the firm. The woman doctor may be sighing to
make her name as a surgeon or oculist; but for the good of the practice
she will readily give her mind to research work, or, if her husband is
also a doctor, to writing his lectures. Her whole career may have its
course changed, but she remains content.
Moreover, the Frenchwoman never forgets, or ignores, her real
object—_permanent security_. They are a race of cautious investors,
who will invest almost everything they possess to put a child on his
feet. They will not make him a clerk, always subject to dismissal; a
secretary, always looking for better posts. They put capital, however
small, into his business to _establish_ him there.
It is for this reason that, at the boot-makers, dress-makers,
milliners, and elsewhere, you so continually meet the familiar faces.
The assistants, whether married or not, keep their jobs until they can
face the world with a fixed income. A few English, and more Americans,
make larger fortunes, it is true; but how many of us would have the
patience to “heap up” franc by franc, the security which is the great
aim of every Frenchwoman.
Comparisons are odious, but we certainly have much to learn from the
French business woman.
V
THE LAWS FOR WOMEN—ILLOGICAL AND INCONSISTENT
How strange it is that Englishwomen, who enjoy a liberty of action
their sisters on the continent regard with envy, should yet be governed
by a code of laws as inconsistent as they are unjust. From this code
were taken the chief planks of the Suffrage platforms.
Though the feministic appeal was made first to unhappy, or dissatisfied
women, it was easy to rouse righteous wrath in all by dwelling upon the
cruel laws to which women in this land are subjected.
Tell a woman that “by the law you are not the legal parent of your
child,” and who could not secure a majority by such an appeal?
When the “master” is good and kind, the position of wife, mother, or
daughter may be quite satisfactory. When, however, a woman is thrown
into the grip of these cruel laws, then Heaven have mercy on her!
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, because they might otherwise
have been more quickly reformed, Englishwomen have, to protect them,
the Englishman’s own self-made code, really of more effect than any
law:—simply, “_It isn’t done._” Every British gentleman bows to the
great judge, Public Opinion. Alas, however, every Britisher is not a
gentleman, and again one asks: “What chance has a woman when left to
the mercy of the laws of the realm?” Even the Moslems, who are not
supposed to credit women with the possession of a soul at all, have
more consistent and just laws than ours, and, what is of the greatest
importance, children are always given a legal status.
It is astonishing that the British gentleman, the world-renowned
sportsman in the very highest sense, can stand not only for the wrongs
that are done to unmarried mothers, but worse still, for the wrongs
done to the poor defenceless beings who come into the world unasked,
and yet suffer all their lives for what has not been in any way their
own fault. Considering the real nature of that very fine being, the
British gentleman, and a finer than he does not exist on this earth,
in comparison with the men of every other land, one wonders whether,
after all, his attention has ever been properly drawn to this injustice.
The laws are so out of harmony with all the “fairplay” for which he
stands. First, taking woman as a wife. There are far too few obstacles
to prevent her marrying in haste, and far too many, since these hasty
marriages are allowed, to prevent her unmarrying. One cannot, perhaps,
altogether approve of the Continental arranged marriage, but there is
certainly something to be said for the wisdom of a system that demands
the parent’s or guardian’s consent up to the age of twenty-five. At
least it puts off the “evil day”; and gives the families on both sides
time to act. Both family histories, and both family banking accounts
are carefully examined; and, in most cases, the State ceremony and
service in church combined are calculated to impress upon young people
the solemnity of the partnership into which they are about to enter,
and the interests of the future generation it will be theirs to
safeguard.
Compare these carefully arranged marriages with some of our slipshod,
ill-considered unions, based on pure physical attraction which
naturally cannot last!
If neither the State, nor the parent, will—or can—do anything to
prevent hasty marriage, why should the laws for Divorce be so
consistently illogical. They are not only illogical, but disgracefully
unfair. In Italy there is no divorce—neither the Church nor the State
grants it—so the situation is quite clear; both sexes are treated alike.
In France, the State, not the Church, grants divorce for men and women
on equal terms; that, too, is fair.
In England, however, _the divorce laws do not help the right class of
men and women_, and release is not granted to women on equal terms with
men.
A frivolous-minded couple, who have rushed into matrimony without a
thought, and have very quickly had quite enough of one another, can go
through the usual “restitution of conjugal rights” comedy—disgraceful
legislation, unworthy of our traditions.
It is the wife of a criminal lunatic or a confirmed drunkard who has
our pity. For her, or the woman tied to a thoroughly immoral man
who tries to lead the sons astray, there should be permanent relief.
Judicial separation is not a sufficient protection for the children.
No thinking woman wants easier divorce or anything to loosen family
ties and lead to legitimatised “free love.” But even devout Roman
Catholics are now prepared to “use scissors” for the protection of
children. Handicapped by nature, often the victim of circumstances,
the unmarried mother is always to be pitied. Although she has the
advantage over the married woman in being the legal parent of her
child, yet for her public opinion is merciless. From the father of the
child, when she can prove who he is, she gets a mere pittance; and if,
driven to distraction and temporary insanity, she puts an end to the
little life that began with so much sorrow, she must stand alone in
the dock. Without defending the woman—God forbid, a little life is too
sacred!—one cannot help asking: “Where is the man?”
In summing up the disadvantages of being a woman, here is one of
the greatest. Public opinion and the law defy nature, and by their
cowardly unchristian attitude frequently drive poor erring humanity to
the crime of infanticide.
Perhaps the German treatment of this problem is the most Christlike.
Human nature being what it is, such things will happen; no legislation
can stop them. Therefore, these children must be brought up as honest
citizens, _not as children of sin_. The German “Mothers’ Home,” where
no difference is made between the married and unmarried, is well worth
a visit and might be imitated with advantage.
“For every sin there is pardon,” we repeat mechanically; and yet
the British Code puts the awful scarlet letter of illegitimacy on
defenceless children, and not even the marriage of the parents can wipe
it out.
One of the most unjust of laws in this realm is that which allows
parents to disinherit their children. On the Continent this cannot be
done. Children are entitled to one-third of the parents’ possessions.
However worthless, they are the parents’ “creations,” for whom the
responsibility cannot be evaded.
It is true that some parents give away all they possess in their
life-time in order to deprive the children of their inheritance. This
is illegal, however, and punishable by the law.
There is something very mean in the attitude of parents who cut off
their children with the proverbial shilling. They are often influenced
by mere caprice, a marriage they dislike, or a change of religion. Yet
whatever a child has done, is this justifiable? And surely a daughter
who acts in defiance of the wishes of her parents, needs them all the
more when the predicted day of sorrow arrives. To disinherit a son is
bad enough, but to disinherit an unmarried daughter is criminal.
The case of the daughter who does not marry in order to look after
her widowed father and suddenly finds herself penniless because the
new wife will not let him provide for her, could not happen on the
Continent. Over and over again one has met these poor victims. Well
over thirty-five, and yet just starting to work. How can parents be so
heartless?
On the Continent there is, at least an unwritten law which forces a
brother to look after his sister. No one likes to accept charity from
a brother, yet Continental public opinion deals harshly with the man
who deserts his mother and sisters in their time of need. It is more
lenient to those who neglect their wives; children and one’s own flesh
and blood, however, seem somehow to have a closer claim.
A good brother is the dearest possible pal. And what a difference his
mere existence makes sometimes in the attitude of his sister’s male
employer. Yet, as many Englishwomen must admit, their brothers are
scarcely aware of their existence. There has been no quarrel, but they
do not even correspond; he has married and has new interests. The
companion of his childhood is a memory that cannot even be kept alive
by a postcard.
Brothers know perfectly well, or if they do not know they ought to be
told, that woman’s value as she grows older decreases in the labour
market. They have become so used to sisters helping themselves when
they are not married, or badly married, that they lose interest:
influenced, in some cases, maybe, by a jealous wife. How bitter the
heart-ache of many a “Maggie Tulliver” at the indifference of “brother
Tom.”
None can deny the injustice of these English laws. It was said that
they would never be changed until women obtained the vote. As no
thinking worker could uphold such crushing, humiliating, and dangerous
laws, they worked whole-heartedly for the Vote, and obtained it. Yet
the laws have not yet been changed. It was then maintained that the
Vote was not enough, women must sit in the House of Commons.
What have they done in the House of Commons?
VI
CAN WOMEN SUCCEED IN POLITICS?
Can women succeed in politics? It is, perhaps, too early to say.
Suddenly some giant personality may give the lie to all that could be
said against woman as a politician.
Meantime, who but Lady Astor could have been the first woman M.P.?
Who but a woman of her social position, wealth, and personality could
have secured the reception accorded her by the House of Commons? And
who but a woman—trained in America and as a Christian Scientist—would
have had the courage to take up a work for which she was not educated;
braving the criticism of the whole civilised world. But she has done
it, and in spite of serious blunders at the beginning, she has done it
remarkably well. When one remembers her demoralising wealth, that she
had no business training at all, that she has to rely on her quick wit
for speeches, one wonders what she might not have accomplished had she
been through the professional mill.
But will she really help women at Westminster? Has she really their
cause at heart? Can she understand them? Certainly she belongs to that
fine school of American idealists who want to make great reforms.
Only, to do these great things, you must understand them, and can she
understand women’s needs, who has not herself been in need? She has a
chance to help women, such as no one else has ever had, or may have
again. Will she take it?
The cause of the working woman will always be well championed.
Besides, the poor can beg; professional women cannot. On their way to
independence some women have found sorrow and humiliation and suffering
at every corner, but to whom will they ever confess?
Lady Astor was certainly not very successful in her attitude towards
divorce. Had she studied the question sufficiently? Possibly not, and
that was the reason. She supposed the thinking women of England were
trying for _easier divorce_, not _reformed divorce_, and who could
blame her for wishing to keep out of England the “easy divorce” laws
of the U.S.A.
As a professional working woman, Mrs. Wintringham ought to be able
to give the professional woman’s point of view with much more
understanding than Lady Astor. Her speeches are commendably brief and
to the point, but the public usually prefers personality and social
standing to the highest, technical qualifications. It is, indeed,
another very great point in Lady Astor’s favour that she has no axe
to grind. The constituents who elected her because she is Lady Astor,
will elect her again; whereas, with other woman candidates we have yet
to find out whether they will put their own personal interests before
their cause.
There was a time when one supposed women would clear up politics as
they cleared up a dirty house. But are they more to be trusted in
politics than men? A woman comes out of Labour ranks; as she gets on,
she becomes socially ambitious, then she throws her party aside. Men
have done it over and over again; they call it “evolution,” and women
no doubt will say the same.
The few women who are likely to sit in the House of Commons can make
_very little difference to the constitution_, and it might be wiser for
women to use their vote for forcing men on to their side, and so making
sure that their wishes are carried out with regard to Bills with which
they are particularly concerned. Women and children’s laws need reform
so badly; is it safe to rely on future women M.P.’s? It is true that
we have not yet had any bills framed by women for women; they may be
master-pieces of statesmanship. Let it be said meanwhile that at least
they could not be worse than the existing man-made laws.
The danger of trusting women in politics, comes from their lack of
_esprit de corps_, yet the very _raison d’être_ of their being in
Parliament is to protect and help other women; to uphold other women’s
interests. But see how they run their clubs! No men’s clubs are
conducted on such lines. The best of them cannot choke that Mothers’
Meeting spirit, which shows itself at the most unfortunate moments. And
the meetings are often conducted in the most unsportsmanlike manner.
Over and over again a woman in the Chair will close the meeting if
the feeling is going against her party, or her speaker cannot answer
questions.
Individual women are magnificent; but to trust them collectively is
futile as yet. Either from ignorance or from something in woman’s
nature, somehow or other she so often seems to let other women down.
We have said that Lady Astor, if she really cares to understand the
professional woman’s point of view, could be of the greatest service to
the women’s cause.
Outside the House of Commons, however, the women’s cause has suffered
a great deal from the rich and titled women who annex it as an
interesting hobby, draw up impossible charters for women, hold
drawing-room meetings, agitate and drive their hearers on much faster
than they ever ought to attempt to go. As one of the victims said: “I
wish she would talk less, and offer us instead a good meal.”
There is not this terrible gulf of misunderstanding between rich men
and professional men. Not even a workman would have his interests
meddled with by people who have neither the right nor the capacity to
interfere. They would very soon send Lord X. about his business, if he
addressed them as his wife once addressed a women’s meeting. Stretching
her pretty Paradise-plumed head out of her magnificent sable furs,
she said: “Twopence is quite enough to spend on a meal; one penny for
a packet of pea soup powder, and one penny for margarine. It makes
a most delicious soup. I give it to my guests.” The pearls she was
wearing would have fed a whole community for a long time on a much more
substantial menu than two penny-worth of pea soup.
Another lady of great wealth advised a typist, earning only one pound a
week, and forced to live on bread and cheese with a cup of tea, to “cut
out the tea; it is indigestible. One good meal of bread and cheese a
day is _excellent_; that is my régime.”
What is the use of answering such cruel folly by talk of sisterhood
and democracy? Are they not mere idle words? Have we advanced one step
since Marie Antoinette asked her historic question, “Why are the poor
crying because they have no bread; can they not eat cake?”