Gender bias

“ On the other hand it may be noted, that the entire absence of any consciousness of sex antagonism in the attitude of men towards women, combined with an intensification of the old-world chivalry prescribed by tradition towards the so-called weaker sex, exercises, if anything, an increasing sway over male public opinion. Hence the terrific force Feminism has obtained in the world of the early twentieth century. ”

“ The outcry is led by self-styled upholders of equality between the sexes, the apostles of the positive side of Feminism, who bien entendu claim the eradication of sex boundaries in political and social life on the ground of women being of equal capacity with men, but who, when moral responsibility is in question, conveniently fall back on a sentiment, the only conceivable ground for which is to be found in the time-honoured theory of the mental and moral weakness of the female sex. ”

“ We might suppose, therefore, that Political Feminism, with its theory of sex equality based on the assumption of equal sex capacity, would be in strong opposition in this matter with Sentimental Feminism, which seeks, as its name implies, to attenuate female responsibility on grounds which are not distinguishable from the old-fashioned assumption of inferiority. ”

“ We have already pointed out that Modern Feminism has two sides or aspects. The first formulates definite political, juridical and economic demands on the grounds of justice, equity, equality and so forth, as general principles; the second does not formulate in so many words definite demands as general principles, but seems to exploit the traditional notions of chivalry based on male sex sentiment, in favour of according women special privileges on the ground of their sex, in the law, and still more in the administration of the law. ”

“ On the contrary, nowadays we are in presence of a powerful female sex-solidarity indicating the beginnings of a strong sex-league of women against men. But with men, as already said, in all cases of conflict between the sexes, we are met with a callous indifference, alternating with positive hostility towards their fellow-men, which seems at times to kill in them all sense of justice. ”

“ The above attitude, with all its inconsistencies, has at its back a strong sex-conscious party, or sex union, as we may term it, among women, and a floating mass of inconsequent, slushy sentiment among men. There is more than one popular prejudice which obscures the meaning and significance of Modern Feminism with many people. There is a common theory, for instance, based upon what really obtained to some extent before the prevalence of Modern Feminism, that in any case of antagonism between the two sexes, women always take the man's side against the woman. ”

“ Now a complete investigation of the psychology of this curious phenomenon we have been considering—namely, the hatred so common with men for their fellow-men as a sex—is a task which has never yet been properly taken in hand. Its obverse side is to be seen on all hands in the conferring and confirming of sex prerogative on women. Not very long ago, as we have seen, one of its most striking manifestations came strongly under public notice—namely, the "rule of the sea," by which women, by virtue of their sex, can claim to be saved from a sinking ship before men. ”

“ But now the question of sex alone, of being a woman, is sufficient to determine judgment in her favour.
There is a trick with which votaries of Feminism seek to prejudice the public mind against its critics, and that is the “fake” that any man who ventures to criticise the pretensions of Feminism, is actuated by motives of personal rancour against the female sex, owing to real or imaginary wrongs suffered by him at the hands of some member or members of the sex. ”

“ Feminist ideals of education, then, had the defect that they did in a certain measure deny sex, or ignore it. The feminists had a pathetic hope that by so doing they would convince the dominant male that a woman might be learned and yet remain a lady. But I wish to emphasize the fact that this feature has belonged to all education of women, especially of ladies, from time immemorial, and it is, therefore, unbecoming in a male, whether young or old, to use this as a cause for reproach to our sex. We went as far as we dared with an eye to male hostility. ”

“ That the propertied classes should take arson and wilful destruction of property in general, with such comparative equanimity because the culprits are women, acting in the assumed interest of a cause that aims at increasing the influence of women in the State, is the most striking illustration we can have of the power of Feminism. We have here a double phenomenon, the unreasoning hatred of man as a sex, by men, [146] and their equally unreasoning indulgence towards the other sex. ”

“ Why should men so conspicuously prefer the interests of women before those of their own sex? That this is the case with modern man the history of the legislation of the last fifty years shows, and the undoubted fact may be found further illustrated in the newspaper reports of well-nigh every trial, whether at civil or criminal law, quite apart from the ordinary "chivalric" acts of men in the detail of social life. This question of sex, therefore, as before said, forms the solitary exception to the general law of the esprit de corps of those possessing common characteristics and interests. ”

“ These two sides of Modern Feminism are not necessarily combined in the same person. One may, for example, find opponents of female suffrage who are strong advocates of sentimental favouritism towards women in matters of law and its administration. On the other hand you may find, though this is more rare, strong advocates of political and other rights for the female sex, who sincerely deprecate the present inequality of the law in favour of women. ”

“ It is enough for the present to note that the pro-feminist prejudice exists and is transmuted into positive rules of law, and legal administration by the action of public opinion and the press, Parliament, judges and juries, and crystallised into statutory enactment by an active pro-feminist propaganda of sex-conscious women's righters. ”

“ By Modern Feminism I understand a certain attitude of mind towards the female sex. This attitude of mind is often self-contradictory and illogical. While on the one hand it will claim, on the ground of the intellectual and moral equality of women with men, the concession of female suffrage, and commonly, in addition thereto, the admission of women to all professions, offices and functions of public life ”

“ Wriggle and prevaricate as they may, it is impossible for Suffragists and Feminists to successfully evade the undoubted truth that the mentality of women is characterised constitutionally by a general instability, manifesting itself in pathological symptoms radically differing in nature and in frequency from any that obtain in men.
Very conspicuous among the fallacies that have done yeoman service in the Feminist Movement is the assumption that women are constitutionally the “weaker sex.” ”

“ Why are our occasional attempts to deal with the sex problem on the stage so repulsive and dreary that even those who are most determined that sex questions shall be held open and their discussion kept free, cannot pretend to relish these joyless attempts at social sanitation? Is it not because at bottom they are utterly sexless? What is the usual formula for such plays? A woman has, on some past occasion, been brought into conflict with the law which regulates the relations of the sexes. ”

“ The Feminist prefers to see evidence of male oppression in the place woman has occupied in social and political life, rather than the natural consequence of her organic constitution, her secondary sexual characteristics, and the natural average inferiority which flows therefrom. As regards the personal relations between men and women, an impartial view of the case must inevitably lead to the conclusion that whatever else man in general may have on his conscience, no reasonable reproach lies to his score as regards his treatment of woman. ”

“ We challenge this statement as an unmitigated falsehood. Its makers ought to know perfectly well that they cannot justify it. There are no laws on the statute book inflicting injustice on women as a Sex, but there are many laws inflicting injustice on men in the supposed interests of women. ”

“ The Question I shall at present handle is, whether the time an ingenious Gentleman spends in the Company of Women, may justly be said to be misemploy’d, or not. I put the question in general terms; because whoever holds the affirmative must maintain it so, or the Sex is no way concern’d to oppose him. On the other side I shall not maintain the Negative, but with some Restrictions and Limitations; because I will not be bound to justifie those Women, whose Vices and ill Conduct expose them deservedly to the Censure of the other Sex, as well as of their own. ”

“ Yet those who maintain that distinction of intelligence, etc., between the sexes are traceable to external conditions affecting one sex only and inherited through that sex alone, cannot evade the above assumption. Those, therefore, who regard it as an article of their faith that Woman would show herself not inferior in mental power to man, if only she had the chance of exercising that power, must find a surer foundation for their opinion than this theory of the centuries of oppression, under which, as they allege, the female sex has laboured. ”

“ But even apart from the late John Stuart Mill, for considerably more than a generation past—indeed, one may say, more or less from the beginning of the present century—mankind, in this and some other countries, has had sedulously instilled into its mind the notion that the female sex is labouring under a grievous oppression at the hands of the tyrant male. ”

“ While Modern Feminism has succeeded in establishing a powerful sex-solidarity amongst a large section of women as against men, there is not only no sex-solidarity of men as against women, but, on the contrary, the prevalence of an altogether opposed sentiment. Men hate their brother-men in their capacity of male persons. ”

“ Where I meant to end—and I can do it quickly—is to say that nothing any one can say applies to women as a class, for women no longer accept or believe in standards for themselves as a sex. They are creatures of shifting standards—unhappy or happy as the mood may strike them. ”

“ Looking over these twenty-eight years, I feel that what we have achieved, as yet, bears no proportion to what we have suffered in the daily humiliation of spirit from the cruel distinctions based on sex. Though our State laws have been essentially changed, and positions in the schools, professions, and world of work secured to woman, unthought of thirty years ago, yet the undercurrent of popular thought, as seen in our social habits, theological dogmas, and political theories, still reflects the same customs, creeds, and codes that degrade women in the effete civilizations of the old world. ”

“ It is quite true that some Feminists, when hard pressed, may grudgingly concede the untenability on rational grounds of the Sentimental Feminists' claims. But taken as a whole, and in their practical dealings, the Political Feminists are in accord with the Sentimental Feminists in claiming female immunity on the ground of sex. This is shown in every case where a female criminal receives more than a nominal sentence. ”

“ If they strike at some of our bosom sins, our deep-rooted prejudices, our long cherished opinions, let us not condemn them on that account, but investigate them fearlessly and prayerfully, and not shrink from the examination; because, if they are true, they place heavy responsibilities upon women. In throwing them before the public, I have been actuated solely by the belief, that if they are acted upon, they will exalt the character and enlarge the usefulness of my own sex, and contribute greatly to the happiness and virtue of the other. ”

“ Inordinate revenge for real or fancied wrongs, disproportioned vindictiveness for the chance slights of a complex social life may be safely reckoned on to actuate the bitterer section of a female noblesse as well as a male one. If power does not corrupt, at least it gives room for corruption to spread.
Modern life among English speaking people, while releasing women from male guidance, has, by individualising women, multiplied the occasions of conflict between members of the two sexes. ”

“ If the reader wishes to test which sex really values this tinsel of false sentiment as its own, as its most powerful weapon, let him attempt to tear it away from the relations of the sexes in the presence of both women and men, and then he will see from the unreasoning fury he provokes in the former which sex is most to blame for its existence. ”

“ Second, the development of the feminist movement which has its deepest foundation in the age-old sexual misunderstandings of women by men, and which has led on and on into social and political complications of gravest significance. The very nature of the feminist revolt from masculine domination made plain speaking on sex matters inevitable. ”

“ It is the fashion of Feminists, ignoring these fundamental physiological sex differences, to affirm that the actual inferiority of women, where they have the honesty to admit such an obvious fact, is accountable by the centuries of oppression in which Woman has been held by wicked and evil-minded Man. ”