Feminism; Women; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women -- Social conditions
For the rest, it can only be said that men who should reject their own,
and elect members of the opposite sex to represent them in Parliament,
would by that vote alone of non-confidence in the ability or the good
faith of their kind, proclaim the human male a pitiful failure in
species; an order without specialisation of brain, of character, or of
moral, to give it essential values in Human concerns.
Woman, on the other hand, would stand acclaimed a Super-Being. One not
only highly-specialised by God and Nature, as creatrix of the Race, and
endowed with gifts to be the Racial nurse and guide and teacher, but,
added to these most vital of human capacities, she would stand
accredited by man with such superior qualifications also for the
administration of the State as to lead him to adjudge her his superior
in this capacity likewise. While her still further pre-eminence is now
to be emphasised by pitting her on equal terms against the male, in all
the Arts and Crafts, the professions and the businesses.
Truly--poor Super-Being that she is to be--burdened and spent by her
super-tax of faculties and functions, she will need, indeed, to break
into the Racial Trust-Fund, in order to equip herself for these her
multifarious exactions. Because not only will it be her affliction to
produce the Race and mother it, but she must provide for it too;
moreover, must doctor it, play lawyer, parson and accountant to it;
paint its pictures, mould its statuary, plan its architecture, build its
houses, compose its music, blow its trumpets, beat its drums; and, over
and beyond all these, must administer its politics, and serve it
presently, no doubt, as Premier, Primate and Chancellor.
While it must be merely a matter of brief time, when, to her other
tasks, will be added the manning of its Army, its Navy and Air-Services,
and the serving of its guns.
Should Feminist aims be realised--and already they are more than
half-won--it will be a case, truly, of _Exit Man!_
Rejected on all counts, as possessing no intrinsic sex-values, to offset
woman's vital and pre-eminent one of the creation of Life (for his
biological part in this is so slight and brief as to be unworthy of note
were it not indispensable, and will be insignificant, indeed, when he no
longer serves as highly-specialised agent and artificer of the Racial
faculty); possessing no distinctive qualities and no obligations of
fatherhood, to protect and to provide for offspring, and thereby to
offset woman's vital and important one of nurturing and rearing this; no
more than woman's equal (if that) in the Sciences and Arts, in Politics
and Commerce--Truly no alternative will be left him save to retire,
abased, into the dim background of the Human Pageant; a self-admitted
failure, without place or standing, by virile and exclusive right and
power of body, brain and office.
IX
A more inspiring picture presents itself, however.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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