The Madisonian. (Richmond, Ky.) 1913-1914, 1914-05-05
Our Contributors Column

10 ali SuItOlldl SlppSu Hull TIC
Gallipolis Daily Tribune, which
we print, because it contains some
yelled humor.
Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gill
man lectured at the Hotel Astor
in New York the other day on
the modern woman and the fu-
ture world, one of her productions
on the Larger Feminism". By
far the most significant and inter
esting development of the past
decade has been that of women.
1t has spread in all directions,
and includes every conceivable
thing in which women are inter
esting, including dress, work, pol
itics, marriage, dancing, and sex
problems of all kinds. We have
given it much attention in this
column in all its phases; not
merely because several thousand
women read all we print here,
but because we regard their strug-
giles for better lives, and their
lapses into barbaric fashions as
of intense human interest. Every
feminine folly, as we'll as every
sincere feminine effort for inn
provement, has its bearing ON
the great tide of life in which we
all, willingly or unwillingly are
carried along.
Mrs. Gilman protested against
little girls being permitted to
play with dolls. That, in her
opinion, is a harmful imitation of
their mothers, which brings to
them the ideas of a mothers
emotions and duties. The lee
turer opposes dolls for children
because it emphasizes sex, and
as she claims, makes the girls
female rather than human beings
in their training and aspirations.
Motherhood, says Mrs. Gilman,
is not everything in life for a Wo-
man, it is only a preliminary;
while the fact that it is all most
women are on earth for is hold
ing back the sex from its true
place in the world. This view,
we are informed, did not meet
with the entire approval of the
audience of women, but let that
pass.
On the subject of mans phys
ical and commercial superiority
to women, Mrs. Gilman asked
her hearers to look at the circus
women, who are doing the same
acrobatic feats of men-proof, she
holds, that there is nothing to
prevent women from doing any
thing that men do. The only
women captured by men in prim-
tive ages were the weak ones,
she said, when the sMiftest men
captured the most women and
the swiftest woman got away
from the most men. Woman's
love of finery and decoration is
all abnormal, is another idea, and
she illustrated it by the fact that
in lower animal life the male is
is the one decorated with horns,
plumes and fancy feathers. All
this use by women of beads and
feathers is merely an imitation
OF. men. Mrs. Gilman had a
blackboard on the stage, and on
it she drew a picture of a mare
dressed up in high heeled shoes,
with corset squeezing its aldo
men and a tight collar around its
neck. 1t made a ridiculous pic
ture, but no more so than women
would if they were educated up
to their proper plane in the at.
fairs of the world, and could es.
innate their present trappings in
the way of attire in the light OF
their true mission on earth.
Mrs. Gilman made her audience
think, even if they did not all
agree with her. and there may be
a big principle lurking in her sug.
gestion that playing with dolls is
bad for little girls. But that can.
not be attributed to modern in
fluences, for girls have loved dolls
for thousands of years, there be
ing dolls at least 1000 years ole
in the British Museum"
Eighteen passengers were in