The morning call., 1893-09-17
We are in the woman'6 century.

every now and then we are treated to 2
new demonstration of the fact that
Woman, with a capital w. has discovered
this century, as Columbus discovered
America, and has taken possession of II in
the name of The Sex. We who will nausa
10 observe may see going on before our
very eyes that remarkable process which
Miss Willard has described as 'the eleya-
ton of woman out of sexbood into woman
hood. 10 the casual observer, all unac-
customed to such fine distinctions as ara
here implied, the process is curously sug-
gestlVe OF that well-known historic at
tempt OF the party with the bootstraps.
ana MISS Wizards description would i'm
Ply somewhat similar results in the way
of progress.
woman, like the poor, we have had with
US always, but only recently has she come
Into IN possession, so to speak, of the capital
w: She has always done a large share of
tnls worlds work, but in years gone by
sne mas oeen content, compelled, in fact, to
sing small, as 1t were, on the subject Of her
SehleVements. Now, she is singing very
large indeed, and, candor cOmpels the adj
mission, not always harmoniously, regard
ing her place in the wor Id and the import
ance of the same.
Woman with big w is a very different
creature trom her, who. in years gone by,
mas written Tor us, painted US pictures,
written US music, given us great poems and
beautiful statues-who has done woman
service IN politics and war, and done it all
on a merely woman plane. She has come,
In fact, to despise this plane and these
achievements. and has erected a plat
form OF her own, ia which the big w
would appear to be the chiefest
plank. and upon which she is JUST
now engaged in posing as a something
apart from the rest of the human race-an
invention of the present century, like cold
storage or the phonOgraph. The unad-
Vanced contingent of her sex are distinctly
not In 1t with her. They are merely
women. She is Woman, with capital w.
she Is willing TO engage in the elevation of
this unadYaDced contingent, but if the
truth were to be told, she regards the task
as somewhat hopeless. She still seems TO
be somewhat of DR.. JOhnson's opinion.
that "a woman preaching is like a dog
standing on his hind legs-the wonder is
not that she does it so we'll but that she
does it at all, and her naive complaisance
in her own achievement is curiously sug-
gestive OF the suspicion that she is not
quite free from an apprehension that she
may. after all. be merely performing a
clever trick; that presently some one will
snap whip and say: That will do"
and she VIII again get down upon all fours
ana take her biscuit
While the performance lasts, however,
she Is determined that it shall not lack for
observers, and 10 this end she has assem-
bied herself in ngresses-naIionaL in
teTnatlOnal and supernatural; has held
meetings, assemblies, conventions and
convocations of herself. called by herself,
presided over by herself, and addressed by
herself on the subject of herself. We have
had Woman, always with the capital W,
considered IN her relation to all things
earthly, and to the sun, moon and STARS
and the planet Mars, until we are satiated
since yesterday with the decoction which
mas become so thick that even the capital
w IS no longer adequa te to Stir it.
Ihe woman who has COnsecrated her
Lille to the Elevation of her Sex has ap-
peared among Us-she has become a factor
In our civilization, as it were, and pursues
her avocation earnestly with both hands.
NOW, there Is nothing to deplOre in all
these congresses anG conventions. Every
movement that tends TO bring human
beings together is a good thing It is bet
ter that human beings should pursue un-
wisdom IN conc TT than 10 follow wisdom
solitary and alone, for concerted intelli-
, gence would ere long see the folly of its
pursuit and turn to wisdom, where the
solitary seeker might miss her altogether,
with no one to tell him his error. Human
intercourse is after all the best thing in
the world, and the most terrible charge
that woman has to bring against the
sphere in life" to which man has rele-
gated her, in times past, is that it has
largely been solitary one, cutting her
off, by its isolation in the sanctity Of the
home, from Intercourse with her fellows,
save through the inane and utterly in
adequate medium of society and social
usage.
1t is good thing for women to get to-
getber, TO work together and TO come to
know their own strength and their own
weakness; but there is bomething morbid
and 10 the average mind unpleasant in the
exhibition afforded OF the alteration of
woman by woman. These federatons for
felicltatiOn are not wholesome. They tend
TO widen the breach that already exists
between men and women and to keen
alive that unpleasant sex consciousness
that has for generations, yes, ages past,
been stun bling block in the way of the
races progress. Woman may or may not
be the ascendant type She may be, as
certain latter-day scientists, men as we'll
as women, contend, the race type, but
even as man has conclusivelY shown that
it is not good for him to be alone
in the work Of the world, that
single-handed he cannot do that work
SO, II her present course is continued,
woman will yet demonstrate to the world,
II not to herself, that even she cannot
long work alone. She is iR danger of fall
ing into the same error man made at the
start-of drawing sex lines too distinctly,
and by too strenuous lnsistence upon
them OF hindering the growth of the whole
race. II IS hot 10 DC u6UlHQ iildl Sub Is eO-
titled 10 her innings in the game, or that
turn about is fair play; but retaliatory
measures are fit weapons only for great
railroad corporations and other evils, and
it is TO be hoped that Woman will be gen.
erOus with the race when her capital w is
actually in satisfactory working order.
1t is this excessive femininity of which
she is making such an al-uncOnscious dis
play that is rendering advanced woman
SO ridiculous to-day. We have succeeded
in getting co-education in our schools and
colleges, cooperation between men and
women. and the entrance of women into
nearly every line of work and business is
an accomplished fact, but woman herself,
by her rigorous ipsislence upon the line of
intellectual and industrial demarcation
between the sexes is doing much 10 hinder
her own advancement. We have been
treated to one colossal exhibition Of
womanly weakness along these lines at
the Worlds Columbian Exhibition.
Now, l would not be understood as
maintaining that we women should not be
fully and we'll represented not only in
these great expOsitions, but in Congress
and at the polls, and In every gathering
and body where human beings assemble