Women -- Canada; Women -- Conduct of life; Women -- History; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women -- Social conditions
More recent philosophers have been more adroit--they have sought to
soften the blow, and so they palaver the women by telling them what a
tremendous power they are for good. They quote the men who have said:
"All that I am my mother made me." They also quote that old iniquitous
lie, about the hand that rocks the cradle ruling the world.
For a long time men have been able to hush women up by these means; and
many women have gladly allowed themselves to be deceived. Sometimes
when a little child goes driving with his father he is allowed to hold
the ends of the reins, and encouraged to believe that he is driving,
and it works quite well with a very small child. Women have been
deceived in the same way into believing that they are the controlling
factor in the world. Here and there, there have been doubters among
women who have said: "If it be true that the hand that rocks the cradle
rules the world, how comes the liquor traffic and the white slave
traffic to prevail among us unchecked? Do women wish for these things?
Do the gentle mothers whose hands rule the world declare in favor of
these things?" Every day the number of doubters has increased, and now
women everywhere realize that a bad old lie has been put over on them
for years. The hand that rocks the cradle does not rule the world. If
it did, human life would be held dearer and the world would be a
sweeter, cleaner, safer place than it is now!
Women are naturally the guardians of the race, and every normal woman
desires children. Children are not a handicap in the race of life
either, they are an inspiration. We hear too much about the burden of
motherhood and too little of its benefits. The average child does well
for his parents, and teaches them many things. Bless his little soft
hands--he broadens our outlook, quickens our sympathies, and leads us,
if we will but let him, into all truth. A child pays well for his
board and keep.
Deeply rooted in every woman's heart is the love and care of children.
A little girl's first toy is a doll, and so, too, her first great
sorrow is when her doll has its eyes poked out by her little brother.
Dolls have suffered many things at the hands of their maternal uncles.
There, little girl, don't cry,
They have broken your doll, I know,
contains in it the universal note of woman's woe!
But just as the woman's greatest sorrow has come through her children,
so has her greatest development. Women learned to cook, so that their
children might be fed; they learned to sew that their children might be
clothed, and women are learning to think so that their children may be
guided.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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