The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1893-11-24

y men, their equal capacity
- for nearly all occupations
Offices and honors, and above all their
right to regulate and control their own
affairs, whether political, financial, So
cial or domestic. /, as woman, stand
up stoutly for my own sex; 1 do most
firmly believe them to be in all but
brute strength the equal of man, and in
spiritual and moral strength very fire.
quently his superior. l admire women,
z love women, long and work for
the advancement of women; but, as q
woman not without powers of observa-
ton and wide experience of the world,
1 cannot but see a certain side of the
truth not often brought forward by
( women aud not at all understood by
men, and this is the inherent helpless
ness of woman in struggle with man.
Possibly this helplessness is largely
due to hereditary prejudice on the part
OF man, hereditary self distrust ON the
part of woman, but it is also largely due
to the inherent natures of the two sexes.
Every virile man has vein of brutality
in his composition, more or less deity
buried beneath the surface of his civili-
cation, and every woman is at heart
timid of encountering this brutality
that is to say, every womanly woman is.
Almost any man brought into bust
ness relations with woman not his en-
ployee meets her propositions or argu-
ments with either an air Of good natured
tolerance, or disquieted contempt of
skeptical scrutiny, OF of magnanimous
acceptance, perhaps harder to bear than
any other of the demonstrations of his
superiority.
Let woman try to argue political
point, or a point of statecraft or politi-
cal economy with man, and she usually
receives some such answer as the IA
nous insult offered by Gladstone, think,
to some titled woman who earnestly i'm
plored him to advocate some measure.
Listening with an amused smile to all
she had to say, he simply calculated at
the end, sob, you darling!' and passed
on as carelessly good humored as if he
had been listening to the prattle of a
pretty child. Or, if the man is not as
benevolent as Gladstone, he may reply
in the spirit of Napoleon, who assured
Mime. de Stael that the most valuable
woman in his empire was the one who
has borne most sons for France. or
again, after the manner of Henry VIII
of England, who babe tho nuns who
tried to argue Tor their right to live their
own lives in their own way: eco spin,
you jades; go spin!"
To epitomize the three utterances,
women in general are to men in general
either "darlings," or mothers of children,
or household and domestic machines.
Within these limits woman receives adj
miration, protection and certain
amount of appreciation from every grade
of men, but let her step outside these
limits, let her try to meet man upon his
own intellectual or authoritative plat
form, and her disadvantage is at once
made apparent, and her helplessness to
overcome is stares her in the face.
No man ever meets her and converses
upon momentous subjects precisely as
he does with another man, and until this
is the case there are no true equal rights
for the woman. The woman seeks an in
terview with her business man or lawyer;
she wishes certain things done and done
at once; the business man or the lawyer
assures her with an air of indulgent pa
tience that what she suggests cannot be
done, at least not in her way and at her
time; that to sell, or to buy, or to invest,
or to do whatever it is she wishes to do
is not possible. or if possible not desir-
able, and she had better leave it all in
his hands and rest secure that he will do
what is for the best. Now just here
comes in the helplessness of which
speak. The woman feels confident that
the thing she wishes could be done, and
that it would be well that it should be
done, but she lacks the habit of COM
mand, the self confidence, the weight of
will, that would enable her to hold her
own without agitation or struggle.
A woman can no more hold her own
against the well trained masculine mind
in matters of business, the law or poll
tics, than she can against the well trained
masculine muscle in pugilistic en-
counter, and this is what mean by the
inherent helplessness of woman. She
may be better informed than the man,
she may have deep rooted conviction
that she is right, but she does not dare
to take the thing into her own hands
and manage it in manner contrary to
that advised by the man who claims to
know that she is wrong.
Another point of Il woman's inherent
helplessness is her sensitiveness. The
mans sheer, or his half yelled contempt
- 4 Do
likeness and Difference, all tell upon her
courage and beat it down as If with
blows of fist or the singing cuts of
whip. She feels wounded, hurt, ashamed
even, while remaining sure that she is
in the right. She withdraws from the
contest apparently defeated; but, like
0alilei, secretly murmuring, But new
crtheless 1t does move"
In fact, Galilei is conspicuous illus