Misandry

“ It is the office of woman, her high privilege indeed,
Can she then sufficiently dread and shun dissensions with her own sex? Allow that an associate has reached that eminence, which you could not attain, be it in learning, affection, or fortune. Will you foster toward her a spirit of animosity? Is there one of this sex alive to the noble capacities of her nature, that can descend so low, as to seek redress for fancied or real injustice, by girding on the armor of retaliation and resentment? Remember Jesus, and you will bow to the wrongdoer meekly, magnanimously. ”

“ Yes, I admit it, offended pride is capable of driving me to extremes. If I should explain myself freely, you would have at your service all feminine hypocrisy; you hope that I will accuse you, so that you can reply that such a woman as you does not stoop to justify herself. How skilfully the most guilty and treacherous of your sex contrive to use proud disdain as a shield! ”

“ If their lives be spared, they are shunned by society, and treated with every mark of disapprobation and contempt. But, to the disgrace of humanity and virtue, the assassin of honor, the wretch who breaks the peace of families, who robs virgin innocence of its charms, who triumphs over the ill-placed confidence of the inexperienced, unsuspecting, and too credulous fair, is received and caressed, not only by his own sex, to which he is a reproach, but even by ours, who have every conceivable reason to despise and avoid him. ”

“ I had insulted, in the most grievous manner, the delicacy of my mistress, and that before her very eyes, and after all this how could I ask a weak woman to do what a man, priding himself on his strength, would shrink from attempting? I should have stood self-condemned, and have felt that it was my duty to remain the same to her, but flattering myself that I was overcoming mere prejudices, I was in fact that most degraded of slaves, he who uses his strength to crush the weak. ”

“ And because in writing stories to earn my bread I could not help remembering my sorrows, because I had the audacity to say that in married life there were to be found miserable beings, by reason of the weakness which is enjoined upon the woman, by reason of the brutality which is permitted to the man, by reason of the turpitudes which society covers and protects with a veil, I am pronounced immoral, I am treated as if I were the enemy of the human race. ”

“ Is every woman offended, say 'no,' then 'oh!' blush, be angry, refuse, close her thighs, after a struggle open them, and yield to her lust as mine have done? A conclave of whares telling the truth, and of Romish Priests, could alone settle the point. Have all men had the strange letches which late in life have enraptured me, though in early days the idea of them revolted me? ”

“ We exalt woman's compassion or curse her cruelty for equally irrefutable reasons, according to whether we are momentarily disposed to owe her gratitude or hatred. So what good are all these fruitless discussions; for in the eternal battle of the sexes, we are always conquered—and we can do nothing about it—and none of us as yet, be he misogynist or feminist, has found a more perfect instrument of pleasure, or any other means of reproduction, than woman. ”

“ The hardening exposures, the gnawing jealousies, of overmuch fashionable society, with its shallow and bitter emulations, do far more to contract and sour the spirit of woman, to falsify and deprave her heart, to belittle and spoil her mind, to degrade and veneer her character, than any professional career can well be supposed to do. ”

“ To speak ingenuously you men use us oddly enough, you adore the pride, flatter the vanity, gratify the ill-nature, and obey the tyranny that insults you; then slight the love, despise the affection, and enslave the obedience that would make you happy: when frowning mistresses all are awful goddesses, when submissive wives, despicable mortals. ”

“ But those same moralizers, who condemn such degradation, are capable, at any moment, to deluge any woman who happens to attract their attention by rosy cheeks, or sparkling eyes, or a luxuriant figure, with flatteries and assurances, every letter of which is a hypocrisy, and every phrase of which contains a humiliation. ”

“ How does it operate harmfully when once it has become a vice through positive women having their own way? It operates as a vice by breaking up the family unit, by unduly exhausting the menfolk of the nation, by leading to promiscuity and thence to disease, by making woman the only subject whether of agreement or disagreement among men, and by elevating to the first place among the virtues a caprine degree of masculine potency. ”

“ But outside of this community they are destroying the sex, ruining all they can, and then they boast of their villainy. Shall I say that the women are short-sighted? I will say they are weak; I will say that it is in their nature to confide in and look to the sterner sex for guidance, and thus they are the more liable to be led astray and ruined. It is the decree of the Almighty upon them to lean upon man as their superior, and he has abused his privilege as their natural protector and covered them with abuse and dishonor. ”

“ But, whether this fear be the voice of truth or the suggestion of prejudice, that woman shall not be held blameless, who, under the influence of indolence, pride, fashion, or avarice, shall neglect, abuse, or oppress, the humblest of her sex who goes forth from these walls into the broad and dangerous path of life. ”

“ But it is to be hoped that this example will be sufficient to deter all others from the commission of any such foul and unnatural crimes: for which, if they should escape the shame and ruin which they so well deserve in this world, they will be most certain of meeting with their full punishment in the next: for unnatural affections are equally vicious and equally detestable in both sexes, nay, if modesty be the peculiar characteristick of the fair sex, it is in them most shocking and odious to prostitute and debase it. ”

“ The complete hideousness of unrestrained gross conduct, which passes as permissible and occasionally as quite delightful in the masculine sex, such as drinking, brawling and excess—the complete hideousness of this conduct is plainly visible when one imagines a woman given to such behavior. On the other hand, many weaknesses of character are counted as contemptible in men, and excusable, if not charming, in women—as cowardice, weakness of will, and thoughtlessness. ”

“ When we hear the voices of those who have been called the “shrieking sisterhood” uplifted in frenzied violence against the male oppressor, when we are tempted to repudiate their follies, we may remember that crimes against good sense, good taste, and good feeling are, like other crimes, bred of the bitter resentment of wrong which springs in the breasts of all who awake to consciousness of the suffering inflicted by centuries of unjust rule. ”

“ Your imagination will supply the finishing strokes of this frightful picture.—These unfortunate victims of indigence or of the seduction of man, are deserving of compassion. With all their vices, they have, after all, one less than many of their sex who pride themselves on chastity, without really possessing it; that is, hypocrisy. As they shew themselves to be what they really are, they cannot make the secret mischief which a detected prude not unfrequently occasions under the deceitful mask of modesty. ”

“ You speak of ‘obligations,’ and ‘social bars;’ you cannot mean that you would deliberately sacrifice your woman’s soul, with all its honor and its aims, to a life of dishonor and deceit—for so I dare to name it—for dread of the idle dictum of a malicious social scarecrow? ”

“ They smile and laugh, and even chuckle with delight, when the intrigue of double-dealing has ensnared its victim—when the lewd debauchee ogles his mistress, and by some sudden spring seizes her by surprise—when virtue is made to look ridiculous by the tenderness of her scruples—when the doctrines and precepts of our holy religion are caricatured by the profane witling of the stage—and when vice, disgusting and appalling vice, speaks out its profanity, or acts its part with the adroitness of consummate villainy. ”

“ Here were women disguised as men, and men in the attire of women, hiding vice of every vileness and crime of every enormity,—at once the most disgusting, the most appalling, and the most unnatural that the heart of man has conceived. ”

“ I know many who practise this foul crime. Those who do it generally lose their self-respect, become ashamed of their womanhood, and shrink away from society, conscious that they deserve to be shunned or pitied, by all that is pure and noble. ”

“ A multitude of women, innocent at first, have been turned aside from the right path by men who do not think as you do. They now avenge themselves upon your sex for the evil it has done them. They corrupt and ruin men who, in their company, lose all sense of morality, who learn to laugh at what you believe and venerate, and undermine and destroy their health. ”

“ What was the origin of this insane, wicked, cruel prejudice against independent thought and vigorous work on the part of women, that fills every rank of life with miserable wives, and mothers who ought never to be entrusted with the care of children? ”

“ And yet, without pity for the laceration of the hearts of those three women, he forces them to gulp down the affront put upon them, to silently swallow their mutual jealousy and resentment, to smother their shame. He forces them to appear in public face to face ”

“ He attacks every kind of social abuse, and does not even spare the ladies—some are too fast, some are learned and pedantic, some cruel to their slaves—even scourging them with cowhides. "What fault," he asks, "has the girl committed, if your own nose has displeased you?" ”

“ Cummings.—"How many poor girls have been jilted who don't go about doing misanthropy, but mope at home and sorrow and sicken over their wrong in secret,—a wrong that attacks not merely their pride, but their life itself. ”

“ The demand for novelty, "variety," or change in love matters, is not a part of my being, and only foiled zealots—feminine—and worse things in male shape, ever started such malignant slanders against me,—human perverts of both genders, who, failing to induce me to pervert certain knowledge and powers to their base ends and systems, sought to injure me by the meanest and most contemptible of all possible scandal. ”

“ Such is the laxity of moral principle, that a woman of unimpeached character is but rarely to be found; and I can speak from my own observation and experience, that examples of criminal conduct, being of frequent occurrence and generally expected, have ceased to be the objects of reprobation, and are no longer the subjects of enquiry. What is more extraordinary, and shews a deeper sort of depravity, is the circumstance that such instances are entirely confined to the married women. ”

“ The crime to which I allude needs only to be examined to convince any one of its cruelty to the fair sex, and its extensively demoralising influence on society. Let any man ask himself how he would feel were his daughter or his sister to be betrayed. This question ought to be fairly canvassed. Although it will be allowed that men, devoid of honour and modesty, who have let loose their unbridled, bad passions, will not be easily stopped in their career, yet, notwithstanding, this evil may be, by the strong arm of the law, greatly banished from the land, and innate modesty planted in its stead. ”

“ Lastly, sullying, degrading, debasing must be the effect upon all—home and neighbourhood, wife and children, guests and friends—of an entertainment in which, pretending to no secrecy and mindful of no modesty, she who,, of all womankind, is the only one to take a hire for her 'person', she who has forfeited the sweet name of sister, she who is nor maid nor wife nor widow, she whose "heart is snares and nets" and whose "house is the way to hell," simulates a virtue she daily desecrates, or pleads for a pleasure she daily pollutes. ”

“ I fear you are but a loose young fellow. For shame, madam! exclaimed I; can you set your face against what women of the first taste and condition encourage? A prejudice against what is vulgarly called vice may be all very well for citizens' wives. ”

“ Through crystal walls each little mote will peep.
Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,
Poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books.
No man inveigh against the withered flower,
But chide rough winter that the flower hath killed;
Not that devoured, but that which doth devour,
Is worthy blame. O, let it not be hild
Poor women’s faults, that they are so fulfilled
With men’s abuses! Those proud lords, to blame,
Make weak-made women tenants to their shame. ”

“ You seem to pre-suppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the hearts of all men and more especially of all women, are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; that violence and vice are inherent in human nature, and that nothing but laws and ceremonies prevent the world from becoming a vast slaughter-house, or an universal brothel. You judge your own sex and the other by the specimens you have met with in wretched haunts of mercenary profligacy ”

“ Led by such a number of examples, and incited by my share in the common interest, I sometimes venture to consider this universal grievance, having endeavoured to divest my heart of all partiality, and place myself as a kind of neutral being between the sexes, whose clamours, being equally vented on both sides with all the vehemence of distress, all the apparent confidence of justice, and all the indignation of injured virtue, seem entitled to equal regard. ”