Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-12-19
SOCIAL INSURGENTS.

SOCIAL INSURGENTS,
Women Who Want to Do Every thing Tha.
l-reD the Men do.
Mrs. Linton in Nineteenth Century
Rten nest sdc,e pour sape,r. Nothing ID
forbidden to the wild woman as O social insur-
sent; for the one word that she cannot spell is
Fitness" Devoid of this sense OF fitness, she
Goes all manner Of things which she thinks
bestow on her the power. together with the
privileges, OF man; not thinking that in OBJ
literating the finer distinctions of sex she is
celebrating the finer traits of civilization, and
that every step made toward identity of habits
Is step downward in refinement and deicacy.
wherein lies the essential core Of civilization.
She smokes after dinner with the men, in rail-
way carriages, in public rooms-when she is
allowed. She thinks she is thereby indicating
her independence and honorng her emanci-
pated womanhood. Heaven bless her. Down
in the north country villages and elsewhere
she will find her prototypes calmly smoking
their black Guilty pipes. with no sense of shame
about tbem. Why should they not? These
ancient DANES, with ''whiskin' boards about
their nous" withered and unsightly worn
out. and no longer women in disturbances or
beauty-why should they not take to the habits
OF mem They DO not disgust, because they no
longer charm; but even III these places you do
not md the younger women with Guilty pipes
between their lips Perhaps in the coal dis
tricts where women work like men and with
men, and are dressed as men, you will see
pipes as well as hear blasphemies; but that Is
surely not an admirable state of things and
one can hardly say that the plt-brow women
excel!en: persons and good workers as they are
In their own way. are exactly the glasses in
which our fine ladies find their lovcliest fash
lons-the molds wherein they would do well
to run their own FORMS. And when, after din
ner, our young married women and husband
less girls dcspising the old distinctions and
trampiinS under foot the time ,honored con-
ventions OF former generations, Light up"
with the men, they are simply assimilating
themselves to this old Sally and that ancient
Betty down in the dales and mountain ham
LET'S, or to the stalHart cohort of pit-brow
women, for whom sex has no 3sthetic distinc-
tons. We grant the difference Of method. A
surerbly dressed young woman, bust arms and
shoulders bare and cleaning white and warm
beneath the subdued light OF a luxurious din
ner tabic-a beautiful young creature. painted,
dyed and powdered according to the mode
her lips red with wine and moist with iiqueur--
she Is really different from humping old Betty
IN unwomanly rags, smoking at her black
cutty-plpe by the cottage door on the bleak
fell-slde. In the one lies an appeal to the pas
sions of men; in the other is the death OF all
emotion. Nevertheless, the acts are the same,
the circumstances which accompany them
alone being different.
This desire 10 ass;milate their lives to those
of men runs through the Whole day's work of
the Wild women. Not content with croquet and
lawn tennis. the one of which affords ample op-
portdnIties for firtins-tor the wild women
are not always above that little pastime-and
the other for exercise even more violent than
Is good for the average woman. they have
taken to golf and cricket. where they are
hindrances for the one part and make them
selves ''sighis" for the other. Men are not
graceful when Jumping, running, STOPPING,
swinging their arms and all tLe rest of it.
They are tinc, and give sense of power that
Is perhaps moro attractive than mere beauty:
blu: as school boys are not taught gymnastics
after the mariner OF the young Greeks, to the
rhy thmic cadence of music. so that every move
ment may be rendered automatically graceful,
they are often AWKWARD enough when at
play; and the harder the work the less
there is of artistic beauty i'll the manner
Of 1t. But if men, with their mar
rover hips and broader shoulders, are
less than classically lovely when they are put
ting out their physical powers, what are the
women, whose broad hips give wider step aud
less stea0y carriage In running, and whose
arms, because OF their narrower shoulders, do
not lend themselves to beautiful curves when
they are making swinging stroke at golf or
batting and bowling at cricket
The pre;tiest woman in the world losses her
beauty when at these violent exercises. Hot
and damp, hopping her flushed and streaming
face with her handkerchief. she has lost that
sense of repose that delicate SELF restraint,
which belongs to the ideal woman. She is no
longer dainty. She has thrown off her grace
and abandoned all that makes her lovely for
the uneomely roughuess of pastimes wherein
she cannot excel and of which it was never in
tended she should be par taler.
We have not yet heard Of women polo
players, but that will come.
In the absurd endeavor to be like men, these
modern hoInasses will leave nothing untriei:
and polo-playing. tentpeggins. and fitting at
the quintain are all sure to come in timo
When weeds once begin to grow, no limits can
be put to their extent unless they are stubbed
l up betimes. The wild women, in their charac-
rttrU4Hocial insurgents, are bound by none of
this con yeEtions which once regulated society
In them We see the odd social phenomenon of
theitoluntary descent of the higher to the
lower forms OF ways and works ''Unladylike"
Is q term that has ceased to be significant
Where 'unwomauiy' has died out We could
scarcely expect this other to survive The special
must needs 60 with the generic; and we find il
80 with vengeance! With other queer iuyer-
sicns the frantic desire of making money has
invaded the whole class Of wild women; and Il
does not mitigate their desire that, as things
Gre, they have enough for all reasonable wants
Women who, few years aso, would not have
shaken hands with q dressmaker still less have
sat down to table with her, now open shops
and set up in business on their own account
not because they are poor. which would be
reason enough, but because they are restless
Dissatisfied, insurgent and like nothing 90
much as to shock established prejudiees and
make the folk stare.