New Britain herald., 1915-06-14
"What is Woman Able to Do?" Asked
Now Instead Of what is She Suitable For?"
Mrs Alice Duer Miller Thus Sums Up the Advance Which
Fenlinsm Has Made in Changing Attitude Toward
Recognition That W. omen Are People.

W uC IHaI uSSQ TO DC the QueScllAl
which was asked when occasion arose.
Now they ask, What is she able to
do?' And thus Mrs Alice Duar
Miller summed up the advance which
feminism has made. And then she
defined fen1inism.
Fen1inisin is the effort to test
sex limitation. The object of this
test is to determine which limitations
are true and which are false, and
to do away with the false She
further explained, ''Feminism would
not force any woman to do anything.
1t does not presume to assert that
she should. ought, or has the right
to do anything. 1t merely allows her
to find out for herself.
For nearly two years Mrs. Miller
has been asking, Are Women Peo-
pie p in the woman's pages of the
Sunday Tribune. She has delighted
host of people with the sparks of
her keen satire. which are at the
same time so dignified and so incor-
trovertibly logical that they never
evoke opposition.
Well-Turned Phrase.
Are Women People?'' came out
Saturday in book form. And in it
Mrs. Miller is epigramnaatic. pithy
and ernatically logical as she
constitutionally must be. She is apt
to commence an interview with an
epigram feninistic, and then, passing
from pinnacle to pinnacle, drag her
listeners and readers with her until
they realize that movements, emo
tions and results are to be achieved
through words, and that after all
the only solution for a problem is
well-turned phrase.
One asks her. vaguely or indefinite
Nv. to talk on woman and the war,
She arises from her seat and saunt-
ering over to the oldfashioned man
tel of her old-fashioned living room
with a tread that is a little too mo-
dern to be what the novelists des-
crihe as pantherine, leans her elbow
on the marble slab. She is very tall
and slender, humorous and aristo-
cratic.
WARP" she asks. in her rather
deep voice. War, you know, has
never had the prestige among women
that it has had among men," And
Herewith she raised war and mans
regard for it to an intellectual status.
The firm ground of emotionalism was
swept violently from under ones
feet, and one was left to regard In
bewilderment the spectacle OF a ma
ton calmly and esthetically select
ing warfare as a modus vivendi.
Women Can Fight.
"women can fight, suppose, but it
10 rather a pity to waste them in that
fashion, 1 should imagine Merely a
nroblem of mathematics. Are
Women People % is. after all, merely
a mathematical stunt also, albeit a
very enhancing one. Mrs. Miller. 1t
may be stated is at heart mathema-
t,cian when she is not a feminist and
g. suffragist. or rather while she is the
latter, for it is said an artist never
loses himself in philisr1nism. She
was graduated from Barnard college
with scholarship in mathematics,
and several fiattering offers to con-
tipue in her chosen work. And since
then She has been studying the pro-
sress of wori1anhood adding and sub I
tracing and multiplying while the
less optimistic have thought division
necessary. She commenced her pres
ent book as sort of first aid to
suffrage speakers, desiring merely to
point out to them and to any others
who might be interested in the contra !
dictions, the Inconsistencies and the
absurdities which are rife on the |
woman question. This, TOO was more
or less question of mathematics, |
with working rules laid down by her
wide study Of the question.
'The one big step in the vindication
CT woman as a member of the genus
man was the granting of education
to her. In early New England days
she was often allowed to receive pri- |
1nary education for two hours, during |
a period when her learning would not
interfere with that of the boys. So
the kind-hearted professor would i'm |
part learning to her from five until
seven in the morning. Later 1t be- |
came impossible to withhold from her
all knowledge, and she became part |
OF the school system. But she was
harassed throughout by the fear Of
knowing too much and becoming un- |
womanly, and was retarded and !
cheated of the desire to learn by this !
psychological prohibition.
Ideal of True Fcminity.
But now since we know that |
Florence Nightingale, who at her time |
was considered to be the boldest, most |
unwcmanly of faninines, is in reality |
our ideal of true feminity, we know
that standards, about women as about |
everything else, are yransftory. No |
one now talks of the unfeminine
character of a woman's desire to ac-
ccmplish. He merely argues that she
cannot do it. Therefore, while she
las most educative rights, she is still |
debarred from professional institu-
tions. Harvard and Columbia, for |
example, will not admit her to their
law courses. She may not be a
physician, according to certain other |
institutions. All that she mas to now
is to prove herself capable, and the |
last argument of the anti-feminists