The choice and contour of existence: The historical struggle for female autonomy

“ That women calling themselves Socialist ought to put their own question before all others, working for the freeing of women of all classes. That centuries of sexual and domestic enslavement have caused to be evolved the idea that woman's sphere ought to be limited to the bearing of children and the keeping of the house. ”

“ In the treadmill of their household labor, breakfast, dinner, and supper revolve in ceaseless course, and they must step forward to meet them. And, when more of her vitality is expended daily than is daily renewed by food and rest, woman does, actually and without any figure of speech, use herself up. Yes, she burns herself for fuel, and goes down a wreck,—not always to death; often it is to a condition made wretched by suffering, sometimes to insanity. ”

“ Women and young girls who face the necessity of self support, or who wish to lead a life of independence, no longer choose housework as a means of earning a livelihood. It is evident that there is a reason, and a very potent one, that decides them to accept any kind of employment in preference to the work offered them in a private home. ”

“ Unless based upon this central knowledge of and power over her own body and her own instincts, education for woman is valueless. As long as she remains the plaything of strong, uncontrolled natural forces, as long as she must docilely and humbly submit to the decisions of others, how can woman ever lay the foundations of self-respect, self-reliance and independence? How can she make her own choice, exercise her own discrimination, her own foresight? ”

“ They who cannot say no, are never their own keepers; they are always, more or less, in the power and at the command of others. They may form a thousand resolutions a day, to withstand in the hour of temptation; and yet, if the temptation comes, and they have not acquired decision of character, it is ten to one but they will yield to it.
Is it too much to say, that half the world are miserable on this account,—miserable themselves, and a source of misery to others? Is it too much to say, that decision of character is more important to young women than to any other class of persons whatever? ”

“ Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind, with reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence [201] worth accepting, even to the happiest among them? As concerned her own individual existence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to speculation, though it may keep woman quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad. She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her. As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down, and built up anew. ”

“ Then it will be realised that women, no less than men, have the right to a healthy, happy, human existence; that they have duties, not only to others, but duties to themselves; that anything that tends to dwarf and cripple them in body, mind, and spirit is wrong; that they have the right to choose in what way they will serve humanity ”

“ Grandmother Tilghman said, "the moment that man comes back you go to him and kiss him, and say, 'James, you have been the only father to my son. Do you want me to be your wife?' This world is made for marrying, Norah. Women have no other career. Nature does not value the brain of Shakespeare, but keeps the seed of every vagrant plant warm, and marries everything."
"Well," said Vesta, "Norah loves James Phœbus ”

“ To have a voice in choosing those by whom one is to be governed, is a means of self-protection due to every one, though he were to remain for ever excluded from the function of governing: and that women are considered fit to have such a choice, may be presumed from the fact, that the law already gives it to women in the most important of all cases to themselves: for the choice of the man who is to govern a woman to the end of life, is always supposed to be voluntarily made by herself. ”

“ I recognize most thoroughly the right of woman to choose her own sphere of activity and usefulness, and to evoke its proper limitations. If she sees fit to navigate vessels, print newspapers, frame laws, select rulers—any or all of these—I know no principle that justifies man in interposing any impediment to her doing so. The only argument entitled to any weight against the fullest concession of the rights you demand, rests in the assumption that woman does not claim any such rights, but chooses to be ruled, guided, impelled, and have her sphere prescribed for her by man. ”

“ To-day a woman, who possibly for ten years has been leading her own life of independent work, earning her own living, choosing her own conditions in accordance with her own needs, and selecting her own periods of recreation in accordance with her own tastes, whether or not this may have included the society of a man-friend—such a woman suddenly finds on marriage, and without any assertion of authority on her husband’s part, that all the outward circumstances of her life are reversed and all her inner spontaneous movements arrested. ”

“ Why there is so little self-dependence in the world. Why orphans sometimes make out well in the world. Error corrected. What young women once were. What they are now. The best character formed under difficulties. Cause of the present helpless condition of females. Three or four to get breakfast. Modes of breaking up these habits. Anecdote of an independent young woman. Appeal to the reader.
Here, again, our fashionable modes of education are wrong; and here, too, almost every young woman who is determined on improvement, has a great work to perform. ”

“ How could Rousseau dare to assert, after giving this advice, that in the grand end of existence the object of both sexes should be the same, when he well knew that the mind, formed by its pursuits, is expanded by great views swallowing up little ones, or that it becomes itself little?
Men have superiour strength of body; but were it not for mistaken notions of beauty, women would acquire sufficient to enable them to earn their own subsistence, the true definition of independence ”

“ And yet, with all necessary abatements, I hold that all healthy females ought to be able to support themselves, should necessity require it, and to aid in supporting others.
Whether, however, their labor supports themselves, or more than does it, is not so much the question, as whether they are truly industrious.
An aged woman, who at ninety was often found at her spinning wheel, and always at active employment—though by no means indigent—was accustomed to say, that every person ought to strain every nerve to get property as long as life lasts, as a matter of duty. ”

“ Partly by economical necessity, however, partly by the spirit of the age, the choice is more and more often determined in favour of work, when the two alternatives are evenly balanced in a woman’s own feelings; for the emancipation of women has laid the stress of feeling upon independence, social work, creation. ”

“ Till the right is conceded to her to determine for herself when, how often, and under what conditions she shall be a mother, or be subject to the relation that leads to maternity, woman can never become the true and proud mother of a healthy, beautiful and noble offspring. While she is a mother from necessity rather than from choice, she must feel herself an abject, degraded being, and her children must partake of her degradation. My husband and myself bid you God-speed! ”

“ Is it not perfectly true everywhere that a woman who respects herself will be respected by others; that where 64 the life is directed by a strong, pure motive to a noble object, in a quiet, dignified, but determined manner, the better feelings of mankind are enlisted, and the woman excites esteem and respectful sympathy? To my mind this is perfectly clear, and I trust that your more experienced judgment will confirm my opinion. ”

“ My work is one of conscience. If I enlighten some, if I make others reflect; if I awaken in the heart of men the sentiment of justice, in that of women the sentiment of their dignity; if I am clear to all, fully comprehended by all, useful to all, even to my adversaries, it will satisfy me and will console me for displeasing those who love ideas only as they love women: in full dress. ”

“ She has no longer either the time or the strength to be a woman. Competition in the labour-market [Pg 19] monopolizes all her time and all her strength, she begins of her own accord to despise her womanhood, and to look upon it as a burden, while she persuades herself that a state of childless liberty is everything, and that work is the only satisfaction. This is because she has become an incongruous being, who no longer believes in herself as woman! ”

“ Even if such a woman chooses this partial life and gives herself entirely to work, she will nevertheless be still disturbed, in the domain of personal self-assertion, by the woman’s nature she has in the main suppressed; for she will often be confronted by the choice of not succeeding at all or of succeeding by the means of man, the means she abhorred in him before she herself discovered that it is the struggle for existence which gives the bird of prey its beak and claws. ”

“ It lies in the individual choice of the woman, as well as of the man, to isolate herself from what may be regarded as an obstacle to her individual development, or to her freedom of movement. She can do without love or motherhood, if the one or both of these are regarded from this point of view. Woman [Pg 70] has the full right to allow herself to be turned into a third sex, the sex of the working bees, or the sexless ant, provided she finds in this her highest happiness.
A good while ago I was ingenuous enough to maintain that motherhood was the central factor of existence for most women. ”

“ All I ask is that every woman, married or single, should be allowed to choose the work in which she finds the most pleasure."
"To choose the work in which she finds the most pleasure"—there is the real individualistic note, sounded so often by the radical suffragists. It is struck still more clearly when to the reporter's question: "What about the argument that the wife with a business career is apt to deprive her husband of the joys of fatherhood?" Mrs. Dorr replies: "No one but the individual woman herself has any right to decide whether or not she shall have children. ”

“ You affirm that by nature, and by destination, woman is neither associate, nor citizen, nor functionary. Tell 41 us, in the first place, what nature it is necessary to have to be all these.
Reveal to us the nature of woman, since you claim to know it better than she does herself. ”

“ It is said woman's mental and moral organization is peculiar, differing widely from that of man. Perhaps so. She must then have a peculiar fitness of qualification to judge what will be wise and just government for her. Let her be free to choose for herself, in the light of her peculiar organization, to what she is best adapted. She is better qualified to judge of her proper sphere than man can be. She knows her own wants and capabilities. ”

“ You understand the great destiny of our species; you understand your rights and duties; I need not therefore repeat to you that woman is no more made for man than man for woman; that consequently woman cannot, without failing in her duty, become lost and absorbed in man; for with him, she should love her children, her country, humanity; she owes more to her children than she does to him; and if forced to choose between family interests and generous sentiments of a higher order woman should no more hesitate than should man to sacrifice the former to justice. ”

“ But for all this, it is alone in daily useful work of mind or hands, work in which service and benefits to others are involved, that a woman (or a man) gains any true perfection of character. And this work must be her own, must lie within the sphere of her own relations to others, and she must engage in it from a sense of duty that takes its promptings from her own consciousness of right. No other woman can judge of her relation to this work, and she who dares to interfere or turn her aside should be considered an enemy--not a friend. ”

“ Resolved, That the most important and valuable part of the British Constitution, upon which its very existence depends, Is the fundamental principle of the people's being governed by no laws to which they have not given their consent by Representatives freely chosen by themselves, who are affected by the laws they enact equally with their constituents, to whom they are accountable, and whose burthens they share, in which consists the safety and happiness of the community ”