Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-07-22
MEN ARE SLAVES TO WOMEN,
CORRESPONDENT TELLS M'LISS
He Knocks the Woman's Rights Movement and
Declares That He and His Brothers Are in
Need of Emancipation

f~sGc1L MONTAGUE loves the ladies'. he
- tells me in the following letter, ]
have mental picture Of Cecil demon
sttatins his love. Eors ago he would
have approached the dansel of his choice
and bashed her over the head with his
club while murmuring OF believing fer.
venfiy. II love YOU"
Civilization has worked change in
Cecil, as II has in women. Law and the
lady herself would make It dangerous for
him to pursue such tactics So he bashes
her with pen and ink, or typewritlng, to
Be exact. Writes he to me:
Dear MLiss--After giving your daily
effusions mature deliberation, have con-
cIuded that you are suffering from the
same philosophic disorder as are nearly
All women in this modern, peculiar age.
While not particularly morbid about It,
you evidently believe that something must
be done TO relieve woman from her terri
bic existence. You are right, undoubtedly
THAT much I concede from this safe dis
tance, but am very sure we would quar-
rel vociferously concerning the quality Of
that terrible existence.
You are inoculated with that theory
which loudly demands the emancipation
OF women and credits men with being
base creatures, exploitive as a sex and
totally lacking in the finer sensibilities.'
But you are wrong-absolutely emphat.
icaily and uneduivocally. The women as
= sex, instead, are base, and in support
of that argument present history. The
women, also, rather than the men, are
lacking in ideals--and in support of that
argument l present women themselves
the women of this age. who, with far more
so-calied liberty than they had in any
other age, have 50 stultihed themselves
that they support newspaper womens
pages q mean the women's pages of
newspapers, and the awful sex literature
that not even yet has reached the zenith
Of It's might. And the fashions, the arti.
fetal beauty and the refined viciousness
OF mixed conversation! Such are the
women whom the prophets Of equal rights
are calling to.
"It was our old friend Tolstoy-an
authority upon the subject, II you re-
member--who said that women do not
need to be emancipated from men as
much as men need emancipation from
women; and I add that what we need
in this age is not new type of woman.
because the new type is horrible, but we
do need a new type of man!
I'VE men are the ones who need to be
liberated from the effeminacy that has
furAd us from the fight for our convic-
tions. We are living in woman's age,
when cant and deceit run riot. There is
nothing manly about our literature, our
drama. amusenents-they are all eff
Terminate. amorous-no longer armorous.
When we do fight 1t is for greed, in
spired and made holy by the whisperings
of war brides and neurotic uplifters-
the spirit of the Crusaders has fed, and
men now. like old women, sit down and
wait to be courted by the highest bidder,
which has always been a woman's way.
THE woman has never been oppressed.
1t is foolish to talk OF her ever having
been a slave. She may have been highly
immoral-and she Is yet-consenting to
IN exploitation of her womanhood for
.what she could get out Of it,; but she
never has been oppressed because she
was a woman. The great majority of the
human race has been economically ex-
plotted since the first seeds of organ
ized society began to sprout, but this
form of exploitation knows no sex. 1t
takes hold OF men just as firmly as it
does OF women, with this difference
that the women see way out of it. and
very often go that way.
woman has always had life lightened |
for her by her slave-the man who |
shielded her from the fight and risked |
his own neck so that she might have |
food. It was the man who was killed |
In war. Always the women were saved, |
possibly-no. actually-tor other men,