Militant suffragism

“ The law which the militant suffragist has violated is among the ordinances of that code which forbade us even to think of employing our native Indian troops against the Boers; which brands it as an ignominy when a man leaves his fellow in the lurch and saves his own life; and which makes it an outrage for a man to do violence to a woman. ”

“ While themselves abstaining from any unlawful act they are perfectly willing and desirous that they and their movement shall reap all the advantages of advertisement and otherwise that may accrue from the militant policy. That the above is a true state of the case as regards the "peaceful and law-abiding" elements in the suffragist movement, which we are assured so largely outnumber the militant section, one would think must be plain to everyone, however obtuse, who has followed with attention the course of the present agitation. ”

“ We have, for instance, recently seen some of the women suffragists both in England, and to a less{250} extent here, in what they call their militant campaigns act on the principle that there are no morals in politics. ”

“ Quite as fatuous are the marriage projects of the militant suffragist. Every woman of the world could tell her—whispering it into her private ear—that if a sufficient number of men should come to the conclusion that it was not worth their while to marry except on the terms of fair give-and-take, the suffragist woman's demands would have to come down. ”

“ Anti-suffragists, especially anti-suffrage men, maintain that to take part in the strife and turmoil of practical politics is in its essence degrading to women, and calculated to sully their refinement and purity. If this, indeed, is so, why invite women into the turmoil? Why advertise, as the anti-suffragists do, the holding of classes to train young women to become anti-suffrage speakers, and thus be able to proclaim on public platforms that "woman's place is home?" ”

“ We see acknowledgment of it in the fact
that even the uneducated man in the street
resents it as an outrage to civilisation when he
sees a man strike a blow at a woman.
But to the man who is committing the out-
rage it is a thing simply unaccountable that
any one should fly out at him.
In just such a case is the militant suffragist.
She cannot understand why any one should
think civilisation is outraged when she scuffles
in the street mud with a policeman. ”

“ The adventuress of fiction always comes to grief. But the adventuress in real life--the prudent adventuress who draws the line at adultery--the would-be leader of society without the wealth--the would-be political leader without the masculine fiber--is sure of disappointment in the end.
Take the agitation over Suffragism. What is it that the woman suffragette expects to get? No one of them can, or does, clearly tell us.
It is feminism, rather than suffragism, which is dangerous. Now that they have it, my fear is that the leaders will not stop with the ballot for women. ”

“ The methods of the anti-suffragists have been copied from the non-militant suffragists. With a fine disdain of logic they have proclaimed that the sphere of woman is the home, and have come out of the home to prove it! They have even urged the formation of classes in which women may be taught to combat the argument of the suffrage antagonists. ”

“ The women’s local government movement, which has been almost killed in the last two years by Suffragist excesses and the wrath provoked by them in the nation, would then pass over into the hands of those better able to use without abusing it. ”

“ The tactics of the suffragist agitator are the same when she is dealing with a woman who is living at the charges of a husband or relative, and who recoils against the idea that she lies under a moral obligation to make to the man who works for her support some return of gratitude. The suffragist agitator will point out to her that such an obligation is slavery, and that the woman's suffrage cause is the cause of freedom. ”

“ But is not the contention of the suffragists fundamentally based upon the circumstances of the woman who is not leading this normal life,—who is unmarried, who has no children, or who is not making a home and bringing up her children herself? It is in planning for these exceptional women, as I think they do, that the suffragist leaders tend to ignore the truly representative women—the majority. ”

“ The sight of woman-baiting by a mob of her political masters; the listening to debates in the House of Commons; above all, the arguments used by anti-suffragists have made women infinitely keener and more conscious of their position than they were before. ”

“ That this sort of protest is much needed is shown from the following passage from a letter to “The New York Times” from a leading advocate of the suffrage, Mrs. Eunice Dana Brannan, which is the first public expression of what we must regard as a very unfortunate, not to say shocking, frame of mind on the part of many refined and well-educated American women:
The suffragists in America are agreed in their belief that militant action is not called for. ”

“ Our sex, if kept out of politics, has the opportunity in these days when we prate so much about peace, to [Pg 122] set about disarming distrust and discord within our own borders. Shall we not dream of a united American womanhood? We twentieth century women may take a noble stride toward it, if we will, by working for those causes that disregard the divisions of race, religion, and politics. Is it surprising that the anti-suffragist sees a vast, unexhausted field for woman's influence outside the political? ”

“ Yet we find women to-day talking and writing as if none of their sex had anything at stake in the defence of their violated homes, as if they had no sacred rights bound up with the sacred rights of men. The National American Woman Suffrage Association sent an appeal to organized suffragists all over the world, urging them to "arise in protest, and show war-crazed men that between the contending armies there stand thousands of women and children who are the innocent victims of man's unbridled ambitions." ”

“ The women of those trying days were sustained by their convictions on the subject of human rights, and with the suffragists the movement was started as a revolt against what they considered cruel injustice toward the supposed weaker sex, and because women had not equal rights under the laws of which men were the authors and administrators. ”

“ Let us now turn to the anti-suffragist view. The anti-suffragist (man or woman) holds that chivalry is a principle which enters into every reputable relation between the sexes, and that of all the civilising agencies at work in the world it is the most important. ”

“ There are such glaring cases of inequality before the law, such abuses and atrocities in women's working world today, such humiliation and insinuation in the personal life of womankind, simply because of sex, that, were the half of it told, the suffrage movement would take on such proportions as even the leaders do not dream of.
Because an experience is common in the life of womankind, because an abuse is as old as the hills, it is no less vital, no less thrilling, no less in need of righting. ”

“ MENTAL OUTLOOK AND PROGRAMME OF THE FEMALE LEGISLATIVE REFORMER
The suffragist woman, when she is the kind of woman who piques herself upon her ethical impulses, will, even when she is intellectually very poorly equipped, and there is no imprint of altruism upon her life, assure you that nothing except the moral influence of woman, exerted through the legislation, which her practical mind would be capable of initiating, will ever avail to abate existing social evils, and to effect the moral redemption of the world. ”

“ Lying here flat on my back, I am smiling at Woman! at every individual woman on earth! at this ridiculous feminine uprising, this suffragette revolution—at your National Female Federation Committee; the thousands of local unions; this strike of your entire sex; this general boycott of my sex! ”

“ We cannot but expect (for old prejudice dies hard) that, for some time, there will be women like Marie Corelli and the ignoble 21,000 anti-Suffragists who will be content still to play into the hands of decadent men. But I foresee that both the submissive women and the decadent men will become fewer in number and more impotent in action, until, at no distant time, the woman who could, in any public way, betray the interests of her sisters or play into the hands of those who desire to oppress her would be branded as a traitor, not to her own sex only but to humanity. ”

“ The idea of militant suffragists respecting a law of this order is almost humorous, and yet the smile dies before the pity one feels for the Minister whose confession of failure is embodied in such a measure. Here was a mighty Government weakly resolved that justice to women it would not grant, knowing that submission of women it could not force, and so was willing to compromise with a piece of class legislation absolutely contrary to all of its avowed principles. ”

“ All this betrayed his fear that the women were turning votes. Even The Times, that anti-Suffragist newspaper which had always condemned the Suffragette tactics and minimised the effect of their work, acknowledged now that their attack was damaging the Government candidates' chances, and, on July 6th, the special correspondent of this paper wrote:
The women suffragists have made a favourable impression upon the electorate and the miners specially appear to have been thoroughly converted by the new propaganda.... ”

“ It would have been too wonderful if women, in their fight for liberty, had proved themselves perfect. We have not. We have shown human foibles, like men, partisanship and violence, like men, and we have shown some faults which, though not specifically feminine, are the faults natural to subjected persons.
When all is said about the mistakes and faults and follies of suffragists, those of the Government have been far greater. They belittled the women’s movement, and treated it with the sort of sneering contempt which is more provocative than anything in the world. ”

“ Anti-suffragists ask women not to turn their attention to politics and neglect civic reform; not to make this appalling mistake, which will set back the social progress of our cities for many years; not to make powerless, through woman suffrage, as the New York World wants to do, the women who are now working for social betterment. ”

“ All that is worth while saying on these points is that the suffragist is here manufacturing grievances for herself, first, by reasoning from the false premiss that every legal distinction which happens to press hardly upon a few individuals ought for that to be abrogated; and, secondly, by steady leaving out of sight that logical inconsistencies can, for the more part, be got rid of only at the price of bringing others into being. ”

“ They had to dip back into the middle ages to find a means of repressing the women in revolt, and the whole history shows how futile it is for men who have been considered able statesmen to deal with dissatisfied women who are determined to win their citizenship and who will not submit to government until their consent is obtained. That is the whole point of our agitation. The whole argument with the anti-suffragists, or even the critical suffragist man, is this: that you can govern human beings without their consent. ”

“ Anti-suffragists by accepting it, and applying to their sex the new demands of specialization, put themselves abreast of the times; but suffragists lag behind, still harping on the exploded theories of equality and identity. The strikingly progressive message the new century presents us is this: Give equal opportunity to men and women for expression along their different lines. Government, law making, law enforcement, with all the allied problems of tariff, taxation, police, railroads, interstate and international relationships, etc., must still be the business of men. ”

“ All these will assure you, these young girls—and what is seething in their minds is stirring also in the minds in the girls in the colleges and schools which are staffed by unmarried suffragists—that woman has suffered all manner of indignity and injustice at the hands of man. ”

“ It doesn't matter what you say," she added consolingly, as she went towards two approaching women with outstretched hand and an ingratiating smile.
"Ah! ce sont les suffragettes!" exclaimed one of these unexpectedly. "Nous sommes des suffragistes françaises, nous aussi! Vive le féminisme!"
"Oh, how perfectly delightful!" said the English suffragist, beaming on them. "Do stop and listen. Nous allons avoir un—oh, bother! What is 'meeting'?—un rendez-vous, mesdames!" ”

“ But the brutal severity with which some of the militant suffragists were treated gave suffragists of all parties another subject on which they were in agreement.
Minor breaches of the law, such as waving flags and making speeches in the lobbies of the Houses of Parliament, were treated more severely than serious crime on the part of men has often been. A sentence of three months' imprisonment as an ordinary offender was passed in one case against a young girl who had done nothing except to decline to be bound over to keep the peace which she was prepared to swear she had not broken. ”

“ Herein lies the distinction between the suffragist and the anti-suffragist. The suffragist wishes to be enfranchised, but does not seek to compel those who prefer to be governed by others from being so. Anti-suffragists do not wish to be enfranchised, they consent to be governed, but they would prevent those people from governing themselves who do not consent to be governed. ”

“ But, as a matter of fact, if you will inquire, you will find that nearly all the opposition of women is directed against the enfranchisement of other women, not themselves. Most anti-suffragists will agree that some women are fit for the vote. Scarcely any woman thinks that she herself is unfit; it is the other women who are unfit. ”