A Short History of Women's Rights: From the Days of Augustus to the Present Time. with Special Reference to England and the United States. Second Edition Revised, With Additions.Hecker, Eugene A. (Eugene Arthur)
History
A Short History of Women's Rights: From the Days of Augustus to the Present Time. with Special Reference to England and the United States. Second Edition Revised, With Additions.
Hecker, Eugene A. (Eugene Arthur)
Women's rights -- History
IV. The History of Woman Suffrage: edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida Husted Harper, 4 vols.
[First two published by Fowler and Wells, New York, 1881 and 1882; last
two by Susan B. Anthony, Rochester, 1887 and 1902.]
V. The Encyclopedia of Social Reforms: edited by William D.P. Bliss,
with the Co-operation of many Specialists. Funk and Wagnalls, New York
and London, 1898.
NOTES:
[410] See, for example, the account in the _New York Tribune_, Sept. 8,
9, and 12, 1853, of what happened at the Women's Rights Convention at
that time.
[411] In 1900 there were 7399 female physicians and surgeons in the
United States, and 808 female dentists.
[412] In 1900 there were 1049 women lawyers in the United States. The
above statements are from Bliss, _Encyc_., p. 1291.
[413] In 1900 there were 3405 women clergy in the United States.
[414] In 1900 there were 2193 women journalists in the United States.
This does not, of course, include women reporters and the like.
CHAPTER IX
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
It is twenty-three centuries since Plato gave to the world his
magnificent treatise on the State. The dream of the Greek philosopher of
equal rights for all intelligent citizens, among whom he includes women,
has in large part been realised; but much is yet wanting to bring
society to the standard of the Ideal Republic. In not a few States of
the world the conditions affecting property rights are inequitable; in
all but very few States woman is still barred from the field of politics
and from the legitimate rights of citizenship; and the day seems far
distant when the States possessing a representative government will be
prepared to accept the woman citizen as eligible for administrative
positions.
It will, therefore, be my purpose in this chapter first to consider five
of the most serious objections to the granting of equal suffrage, that
is to say, to the concession to women of full citizens' rights under the
law. It will be found that these objections are based on a presumed
inferiority of women to men in various respects. I shall give
consideration next in order to the question of the inferiority or
superiority of one sex over the other. In view, furthermore, of the new
ferment in thought in modern society, it will be useful to analyse
certain habits of mind and to indicate the necessity for a readjustment
of old beliefs in the light of recent evolution. I shall conclude my
history with a suggestion for definite reforms which, I believe, must be
brought about, whether equal suffrage is granted or not, before women
can attain their maximum of efficiency.
The opposition to the granting of equal suffrage is, as I have said,
based mainly upon five classes of contentions:
I. The theological.
II. The physiological.
III. The social or political.
IV. The intellectual.
V. The moral.
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