Now I have only taken the test case of Female Suffrage because it is
topical and concrete; it is not of great moment for me as a political
proposal. I can quite imagine anyone substantially agreeing with my
view of woman as universalist and autocrat in a limited area; and still
thinking that she would be none the worse for a ballot paper. The real
question is whether this old ideal of woman as the great amateur is
admitted or not. There are many modern things which threaten it much
more than suffragism; notably the increase of self-supporting women,
even in the most severe or the most squalid employments. If there be
something against nature in the idea of a horde of wild women governing,
there is something truly intolerable in the idea of a herd of tame women
being governed. And there are elements in human psychology that make
this situation particularly poignant or ignominous. The ugly exactitudes
of business, the bells and clocks the fixed hours and rigid departments,
were all meant for the male: who, as a rule, can only do one thing and
can only with the greatest difficulty be induced to do that. If clerks
do not try to shirk their work, our whole great commercial system breaks
down. It is breaking down, under the inroad of women who are adopting
the unprecedented and impossible course of taking the system seriously
and doing it well. Their very efficiency is the definition of their
slavery. It is generally a very bad sign when one is trusted very much
by one’s employers. And if the evasive clerks have a look of being
blackguards, the earnest ladies are often something very like blacklegs.
But the more immediate point is that the modern working woman bears a
double burden, for she endures both the grinding officialism of the
new office and the distracting scrupulosity of the old home. Few men
understand what conscientiousness is. They understand duty, which
generally means one duty; but conscientiousness is the duty of the
universalist. It is limited by no work days or holidays; it is a
lawless, limitless, devouring decorum. If women are to be subjected to
the dull rule of commerce, we must find some way of emancipating them
from the wild rule of conscience. But I rather fancy you will find it
easier to leave the conscience and knock off the commerce. As it is, the
modern clerk or secretary exhausts herself to put one thing straight in
the ledger and then goes home to put everything straight in the house.
This condition (described by some as emancipated) is at least the
reverse of my ideal. I would give woman, not more rights, but more
privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously
prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in
which she can be free. And with that we come to the last point of all;
the point at which we can perceive the needs of women, like the rights
of men, stopped and falsified by something which it is the object of
this book to expose.
The Feminist (which means, I think, one who dislikes the chief feminine
characteristics) has heard my loose monologue, bursting all the time
with one pent-up protest. At this point he will break out and say, “But
what are we to do? There is modern commerce and its clerks; there is
the modern family with its unmarried daughters; specialism is expected
everywhere; female thrift and conscientiousness are demanded and
supplied. What does it matter whether we should in the abstract prefer
the old human and housekeeping woman; we might prefer the Garden of
Eden. But since women have trades they ought to have trades unions.
Since women work in factories, they ought to vote on factory-acts. If
they are unmarried they must be commercial; if they are commercial they
must be political. We must have new rules for a new world--even if it
be not a better one.” I said to a Feminist once: “The question is not
whether women are good enough for votes: it is whether votes are good
enough for women.” He only answered: “Ah, you go and say that to the
women chain-makers on Cradley Heath.”
Now this is the attitude which I attack. It is the huge heresy of
Precedent. It is the view that because we have got into a mess we must
grow messier to suit it; that because we have taken a wrong turn some
time ago we must go forward and not backwards; that because we have lost
our way we must lose our map also; and because we have missed our ideal,
we must forget it. “There are numbers of excellent people who do not
think votes unfeminine; and there may be enthusiasts for our beautiful
modern industry who do not think factories unfeminine.” But if these
things are unfeminine it is no answer to say that they fit into each
other. I am not satisfied with the statement that my daughter must have
unwomanly powers because she has unwomanly wrongs. Industrial soot and
political printer’s ink are two blacks which do not make a white. Most
of the Feminists would probably agree with me that womanhood is under
shameful tyranny in the shops and mills. But I want to destroy the
tyranny. They want to destroy womanhood. That is the only difference.
Whether we can recover the clear vision of woman as a tower with
many windows, the fixed eternal feminine from which her sons, the
specialists, go forth; whether we can preserve the tradition of a
central thing which is even more human than democracy and even
more practical than politics; whether, in word, it is possible to
re-establish the family, freed from the filthy cynicism and cruelty of
the commercial epoch, I shall discuss in the last section of this book.
But meanwhile do not talk to me about the poor chain-makers on Cradley
Heath. I know all about them and what they are doing. They are engaged
in a very wide-spread and flourishing industry of the present age. They
are making chains.