In the change from the dominance of one sex to the equal power of two,
to what may we look forward? What effect upon civilization is to be
expected from the equality of womanhood in the human race?
To put the most natural question first--what will men lose by it? Many
men are genuinely concerned about this; fearing some new position of
subservience and disrespect. Others laugh at the very idea of change in
their position, relying as always on the heavier fist. So long as
fighting was the determining process, the best fighter must needs win;
but in the rearrangement of processes which marks our age, superior
physical strength does not make the poorer wealthy, nor even the soldier
a general.
The major processes of life to-day are quite within the powers of women;
women are fulfilling their new relations more and more successfully;
gathering new strength, new knowledge, new ideals. The change is upon
us; what will it do to men?
No harm.
As we are a monogamous race, there will be no such drastic and cruel
selection among competing males as would eliminate the vast majority as
unfit. Even though some be considered unfit for fatherhood, all human
life remains open to them. Perhaps the most important feature of this
change comes in right here; along this old line of sex-selection,
replacing that power in the right hands, and using it for the good of
the race.
The woman, free at last, intelligent, recognizing her real place and
responsibility in life as a human being, will be not less, but more,
efficient as a mother. She will understand that, in the line of
physical evolution, motherhood is the highest process; and that her
work, as a contribution to an improved race, must always involve this
great function. She will see that right parentage is the purpose of the
whole scheme of sex-relationship, and act accordingly.
In our time, his human faculties being sufficiently developed, civilized
man can look over and around his sex limitations, and begin to see what
are the true purposes and methods of human life.
He is now beginning to learn that his own governing necessity of Desire
is not _the_ governing necessity of parentage, but only a contributory
tendency; and that, in the interests of better parentage, motherhood is
the dominant factor, and must be so considered.
In slow reluctant admission of this fact, man heretofore has recognized
one class of women as mothers; and has granted them a varying amount of
consideration as such; but he has none the less insisted on maintaining
another class of women, forbidden motherhood, and merely subservient to
his desires; a barren, mischievous unnatural relation, wholly aside from
parental purposes, and absolutely injurious to society. This whole
field of morbid action will be eliminated from human life by the normal
development of women.
It is not a question of interfering with or punishing men; still less of
interfering with or punishing women; but purely a matter of changed
education and opportunity for every child.
Each and all shall be taught the real nature and purpose of motherhood;
the real nature and purpose of manhood; what each is for, and which is
the more important. A new sense of the power and pride of womanhood
will waken; a womanhood no longer sunk in helpless dependence upon men;
no longer limited to mere unpaid house-service; no longer blinded by the
false morality which subjects even motherhood to man's dominance; but a
womanhood which will recognize its pre-eminent responsibility to the
human race, and live up to it. Then, with all normal and right
competition among men for the favor of women, those best fitted for
fatherhood will be chosen. Those who are not chosen will live
single--perforce.
Many, under the old mistaken notion of what used to be called the
"social necessity" of prostitution, will protest at the idea of its
extinction.
"It is necessary to have it," they will say.
"Necessary _to whom?_"
Not to the women hideously sacrificed to it, surely.
Not to society, honey-combed with diseases due to this cause.
Not to the family, weakened and impoverished by it.
To whom then? To the men who want it?
But it is not good for them, it promotes all manner of disease, of vice,
of crime. It is absolutely and unquestionably a "social evil."
An intelligent and powerful womanhood will put an end to this indulgence
of one sex at the expense of the other; and to the injury of both.
In this inevitable change will lie what some men will consider a loss.
But only those of the present generation. For the sons of the women now
entering upon this new era of world life will be differently reared.
They will recognize the true relation of men to the primal process; and
be amazed that for so long the greater values have been lost sight of in
favor of the less.
This one change will do more to promote the physical health and beauty
of the race; to improve the quality of children born, and the general
vigor and purity of social life, than any one measure which could be
proposed. It rests upon a recognition of motherhood as the real base
and cause of the family; and dismisses to the limbo of all outworn
superstition that false Hebraic and grossly androcentric doctrine that
the woman is to be subject to the man, and that he shall rule over her.
He has tried this arrangement long enough--to the grievous injury of the
world. A higher standard of happiness will result; equality and mutual
respect between parents; pure love, undefiled by self-interests on
either side; and a new respect for Childhood.
With the Child, seen at last to be the governing purpose of this
relation, with all the best energies of men and women bent on raising
the standard of life for all children, we shall have a new status of
family life which will be clean and noble, and satisfying to all its
members.
The change in all the varied lines of human work is beyond the powers of
any present day prophet to forecast with precision. A new grade of
womanhood we can clearly foresee; proud, strong, serene, independent;
great mothers of great women and great men. These will hold high
standards and draw men up to them; by no compulsion save nature's law of
attraction. A clean and healthful world, enjoying the taste of life as
it never has since racial babyhood, with homes of quiet and
content--this we can foresee.
Art--in the extreme sense will perhaps always belong most to men. It
would seem as if that ceaseless urge to expression, was, at least
originally, most congenial to the male. But applied art, in every form,
and art used directly for transmission of ideas, such as literature, or
oratory, appeals to women as much, if not more, than to men.
We can make no safe assumption as to what, if any, distinction there
will be in the free human work of men and women, until we have seen
generation after generation grow up under absolutely equal conditions.
In all our games and sports and minor social customs, such changes will
occur as must needs follow upon the rising dignity alloted to the
woman's temperament, the woman's point of view; not in the least denying
to men the fullest exercise of their special powers and preferences; but
classifying these newly, as not human--merely male. At present we have
pages or columns in our papers, marked as "The Woman's Page" "Of
Interest to Women," and similar delimiting titles. Similarly we might
have distinctly masculine matters so marked and specified; not assumed
as now to be of general human interest.
The effect of the change upon Ethics and Religion is deep and wide.
With the entrance of women upon full human life, a new principle comes
into prominence; the principle of loving service. That this is the
governing principle of Christianity is believed by many; but an
androcentric interpretation has quite overlooked it; and made, as we
have shown, the essential dogma of their faith the desire of an eternal
reward and the combat with an eternal enemy.
The feminine attitude in life is wholly different. As a female she has
merely to be herself and passively attract; neither to compete nor to
pursue; as a mother her whole process is one of growth; first the
development of the live child within her, and the wonderful nourishment
from her own body; and then all the later cultivation to make the child
grow; all the watching, teaching, guarding, feeding. In none of this is
there either desire, combat, or self-expression. The feminine attitude,
as expressed in religion, makes of it a patient practical fulfillment of
law; a process of large sure improvements; a limitless comforting love
and care.
This full assurance of love and of power; this endless cheerful service;
the broad provision for all people; rather than the competitive
selection of a few "victors;" is the natural presentation of religious
truth from the woman's viewpoint. Her governing principle being growth
and not combat; her main tendency being to give and not to get; she more
easily and naturally lives and teaches these religious principles. It
is for this reason that the broader gentler teaching of the Unitarian
and Universalist sects have appealed so especially to women, and that so
many women preach in their churches.
This principle of growth, as applied and used in general human life will
work to far other ends than those now so painfully visible.
In education, for instance, with neither reward nor punishment as spur
or bait; with no competition to rouse effort and animosity, but rather
with the feeling of a gardener towards his plants; the teacher will
teach and the children learn, in mutual ease and happiness. The law of
passive attraction applies here, leading to such ingenuity in
presentation as shall arouse the child's interest; and, in the true
spirit of promoting growth, each child will have his best and fullest
training, without regard to who is "ahead" of him, or her, or who
"behind."
We do not sadly measure the cabbage-stalk by the corn-stalk, and praise
the corn for getting ahead of the cabbage--nor incite the cabbage to
emulate the corn. We nourish both, to its best growth--and are the
richer.
That every child on earth shall have right conditions to make the best
growth possible to it; that every citizen, from birth to death, shall
have a chance to learn all he or she can assimilate, to develop every
power that is in them--for the common good--this will be the aim of
education, under human management.
In the world of "society" we may look for very radical changes.
With all women full human beings, trained and useful in some form of
work; the class of busy idlers, who run about forever "entertaining" and
being "entertained" will disappear as utterly as will the prostitute.
No woman with real work to do could have the time for such petty
amusements; or enjoy them if she did have time. No woman with real work
to do, work she loved and was well fitted for, work honored and
well-paid, would take up the Unnatural Trade. Genuine relaxation and
recreation, all manner of healthful sports and pastimes, beloved of both
sexes to-day, will remain, of course; but the set structure of "social
functions"--so laughably misnamed--will disappear with the "society
women" who make it possible. Once active members of real Society; no
woman could go back to "society," any more than a roughrider could
return to a hobbyhorse.
New development in dress, wise, comfortable, beautiful, may be
confidently expected, as woman becomes more human. No fully human
creature could hold up its head under the absurdities our women wear
to-day--and have worn for dreary centuries.
So on through all the aspects of life we may look for changes, rapid and
far-reaching; but natural and all for good. The improvement is not due
to any inherent moral superiority of women; nor to any moral inferiority
of men; men at present, as more human, are ahead of women in all
distinctly human ways; yet their maleness, as we have shown repeatedly,
warps and disfigures their humanness. The woman, being by nature the
race-type; and her feminine functions being far more akin to human
functions than are those essential to the male; will bring into human
life a more normal influence.
Under this more normal influence our present perversities of functions
will, of course, tend to disappear. The directly serviceable tendency
of women, as shown in every step of their public work, will have small
patience with hoary traditions of absurdity. We need but look at long
recorded facts to see what women do--or try to do, when they have
opportunity. Even in their crippled, smothered past, they have made
valiant efforts--not always wise--in charity and philanthropy.
In our own time this is shown through all the length and breadth of our
country, by the Woman's Clubs. Little groups of women, drawing together
in human relation, at first, perhaps, with no better purpose than to
"improve their minds," have grown and spread; combined and federated;
and in their great reports, representing hundreds of thousands of
women--we find a splendid record of human work. They strive always to
improve something, to take care of something, to help and serve and
benefit. In "village improvement," in traveling libraries, in lecture
courses and exhibitions, in promoting good legislation; in many a line
of noble effort our Women's Clubs show what women want to do.
Men do not have to do these things through their clubs, which are mainly
for pleasure; they can accomplish what they wish to through regular
channels. But the character and direction of the influence of women in
human affairs is conclusively established by the things they already do
and try to do. In those countries, and in our own states, where they
are already full citizens, the legislation introduced and promoted by
them is of the same beneficent character. The normal woman is a strong
creature, loving and serviceable. The kind of woman men are afraid to
entrust with political power, selfish, idle, over-sexed, or ignorant and
narrow-minded, is not normal, but is the creature of conditions men have
made. We need have no fear of her, for she will disappear with the
conditions which created her.
In older days, without knowledge of the natural sciences, we accepted
life as static. If, being born in China, we grew up with foot-bound
women, we assumed that women were such, and must so remain. Born in
India, we accepted the child-wife, the pitiful child-widow, the ecstatic
_suttee_, as natural expressions of womanhood. In each age, each
country, we have assumed life to be necessarily what it was--a moveless
fact.
All this is giving way fast in our new knowledge of the laws of life.
We find that Growth is the eternal law, and that even rocks are slowly
changing. Human life is seen to be as dynamic as any other form; and
the most certain thing about it is that it will change. In the light of
this knowledge we need no longer accept the load of what we call "sin;"
the grouped misery of poverty, disease and crime; the cumbrous,
inefficatious, wasteful processes of life today, as needful or
permanent.
We have but to learn the _real_ elements in humanity; its true powers
and natural characteristics; to see wherein we are hampered by the wrong
ideas and inherited habits of earlier generations, and break loose from
them--then we can safely and swiftly introduce a far nobler grade of
living.
Of all crippling hindrances in false ideas, we have none more
universally mischievous than this root error about men and women. Given
the old androcentric theory, and we have an androcentric culture--the
kind we so far know; this short stretch we call "history;" with its
proud and pitiful record. We have done wonders of upward growth--for
growth is the main law, and may not be wholly resisted. But we have
hindered, perverted, temporarily checked that growth, age after age; and
again and again has a given nation, far advanced and promising, sunk to
ruin, and left another to take up its task of social evolution; repeat
its errors--and its failure.
One major cause of the decay of nations is "the social evil"--a thing
wholly due to the androcentric culture. Another steady endless check is
warfare--due to the same cause. Largest of all is poverty; that
spreading disease which grows with our social growth and shows most
horribly when and where we are most proud, keeping step, as it were,
with private wealth. This too, in large measure, is due to the false
ideas on industry and economics, based, like the others mentioned, on a
wholly masculine view of life.
By changing our underlying theory in this matter we change all the
resultant assumptions; and it is this alteration in our basic theory of
life which is being urged.
The scope and purpose of human life is entirely above and beyond the
field of sex relationship. Women are human beings, as much as men, by
nature; and as women, are even more sympathetic with human processes.
To develop human life in its true powers we need full equal citizenship
for women.
The great woman's movement and labor movement of to-day are parts of the
same pressure, the same world-progress. An economic democracy must rest
on a free womanhood; and a free womanhood inevitably leads to an
economic democracy.
THE END.
Our Androcentric Culture, or The Man Made World, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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