Anarchism; Feminism; Women -- Social and moral questions
Nietzsche's memorable maxim, "When you go to woman, take the whip
along," is considered very brutal, yet Nietzsche expressed in one
sentence the attitude of woman towards her gods.
Religion, especially the Christian religion, has condemned woman to
the life of an inferior, a slave. It has thwarted her nature and
fettered her soul, yet the Christian religion has no greater
supporter, none more devout, than woman. Indeed, it is safe to say
that religion would have long ceased to be a factor in the lives of
the people, if it were not for the support it receives from woman.
The most ardent churchworkers, the most tireless missionaries the
world over, are women, always sacrificing on the altar of the gods
that have chained her spirit and enslaved her body.
The insatiable monster, war, robs woman of all that is dear and
precious to her. It exacts her brothers, lovers, sons, and in return
gives her a life of loneliness and despair. Yet the greatest
supporter and worshiper of war is woman. She it is who instills the
love of conquest and power into her children; she it is who whispers
the glories of war into the ears of her little ones, and who rocks
her baby to sleep with the tunes of trumpets and the noise of guns.
It is woman, too, who crowns the victor on his return from the
battlefield. Yes, it is woman who pays the highest price to that
insatiable monster, war.
Then there is the home. What a terrible fetich it is! How it saps
the very life-energy of woman,--this modern prison with golden bars.
Its shining aspect blinds woman to the price she would have to pay as
wife, mother, and housekeeper. Yet woman clings tenaciously to the
home, to the power that holds her in bondage.
It may be said that because woman recognizes the awful toll she is
made to pay to the Church, State, and the home, she wants suffrage to
set herself free. That may be true of the few; the majority of
suffragists repudiate utterly such blasphemy. On the contrary, they
insist always that it is woman suffrage which will make her a better
Christian and homekeeper, a staunch citizen of the State. Thus
suffrage is only a means of strengthening the omnipotence of the very
Gods that woman has served from time immemorial.
What wonder, then, that she should be just as devout, just as
zealous, just as prostrate before the new idol, woman suffrage. As
of old, she endures persecution, imprisonment, torture, and all forms
of condemnation, with a smile on her face. As of old, the most
enlightened, even, hope for a miracle from the twentieth century
deity,--suffrage. Life, happiness, joy, freedom, independence,--all
that, and more, is to spring from suffrage. In her blind devotion
woman does not see what people of intellect perceived fifty years
ago: that suffrage is an evil, that it has only helped to enslave
people, that it has but closed their eyes that they may not see how
craftily they were made to submit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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