Los Angeles herald., 1910-12-04
WOMAN'S INFLUENCE

The fact that women are in a pc
riod of transition, that they are just
breaking loose from the enslavement
within the four walls of the home, ex-
plains the many discomforts and hard
ships which they are forced to endure.
Transition necessarily means pain
and sorrow. But now that women
have started on this journey of tran
sition there is no turning back.
Some who object to women in
mems colleges would shut the doors
to them, others point to the suffering
they endure in the industrial world
and advocate shutting them out of
industry also, but this can not be done.
The only thing 20 do is to throw open
the doors the wider and let them en-
ter in.
In France and Germany the many
departments of industry which are
carried on by women and which make
such a large part of the life of women
drudgery is due to the militarism of
the countries. If women knew what
militarism had done for them there
would be less admiration for brass
buttons and shoulder straps.
The period of transition from the
old idea of woman's position to the
modern one has been marked with suf-
fering. With the italian awaken
ing, the beginning of the Renaissance,
came the idea that marriage is some
what more than physical and biolog-
ical union. The idea came that mar
riage means the union of two lives in
all that concerns the human spirit.
Is it any wonder that acute suffer-
ing falls on the woman as she enters
new fields while still possessed of the
instincts of self-abnegation, the spirit
of obedience to a superior will, which
she had always had Her strongest
opponent to making a brilliant career
for herself is the old biological idea
that she should stay in her home.
Take the educational world. The
first step in women's education was
the finishing" school, where she was
prepared properly to decorate a draw
ing room. For twenty-five years high
er education has been the vogue until
men are now protesting against the
influx OF women into the colleges.
You will find the vocational courses
crowded with men and the courses
which deal with the cultivation of life
crowded with women. Men are
ashamed to come into the latter. 1t is
the old sex spiri: cropping out.
In the religious world 1t is the same
Preachers are complaining that the
churches are filled with women. The
men are absorbed with business,
which now has the same relative inn
portance that militarism formerly did,
anu are W lllC NilOASii
In the industrial worlG, which has
been thrown open to women we find
that women have gone into nursing,
medicine, fine arts. all of which deal
with the person. They are most sue
cessful in things that bring immediate
personal approval They are least in
the activities that take initiative and
involve a long period of waiting be-
fore there is personal recognition of
achievement.
Whatever makes for the equality of
man and woman makes for progress.
Moral equality does not mean identity.
The greatest argument for giving
equal political rights to both sexes is
that it would help to place the rela-
tionship of men and women on an
equality. Goethe said "the eternal
woman leads us ever upward and on
The eternal woman leads us upward
and on, and she can take comfort in
the belief that pain is sign of life
and that life is infinitely worth while.