Perkins is less violently prejudiced than Julius Cæsar. He neither
saws the air nor pounds on the table. Indeed, I have no doubt he
believes that he entertains liberal, unbiassed views on the subject.
I wonder, then, why it never occurs to him that everything which is
new is adopted gradually, and that the world has to get accustomed to
all novel situations. I happened to see Mr. Perkins the first time he
rode a bicycle on the road, and his performance certainly justified
the prediction that he would look like a guy to the end of his days,
and yet he glides past me now with the ease and nonchalance of a
possible “scorcher.” Similarly, if women were given universal suffrage,
there would be a deal of fluttering in the dove-cotes for the first
generation or so. Doubtless four-fifths of womankind would refuse or
neglect to vote at all, and at least a quarter of those who went to the
polls would cast their ballots as tools or blindly. But just so soon as
it was understood that it was no less a woman’s duty to vote than it
was to attend to her back hair, she would be educated from that point
of view, and her present crass ignorance of political matters would be
changed into at least a form of enlightenment. Man prides himself on
his logic, but there is nothing logical in the argument that because a
woman knows nothing about anything now, she can never be taught. If we
have been content to have her remain ignorant for so many centuries,
does it not savor both of despotism and lack of reasonableness to cast
her ignorance in her teeth and to beat her about the head with it now
that she is eager to rise? Decidedly it is high time for the man who
orates tempestuously or argues dogmatically in the name of conservatism
against the cause of woman on such flimsy pleas as these, to cease his
gesticulations and wise saws. The modern woman is a potential reality,
who is bound to develop and improve, in another generation or two, as
far beyond the present interesting type as Mrs. Julius Cæsar is an
advance on her great-grandmother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account