Women -- Employment -- United States; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women in politics -- United States
In the matter of forming political judgments, not even the wisest men
are beyond improvement. International affairs, monetary systems, the
best way of raising taxes, and similar problems, often divide the male
electorate pretty evenly into rival parties. Since both cannot be right,
a great deal of poor political thinking must be done by the present body
of voters. Meantime, women are showing their ability to deal
intelligently with all sorts of subjects in our educational
institutions, in business and in social life. Their judgments command
respect in every other field; and it is hard to see why they could not
apply their powers to political questions.
We must remember, too, that during these last years the field of
political life has been rapidly broadening, through the awakening of
social consciousness among the people. To concern one's self with
politics now is to be interested in good market facilities, in rapid
transit for cities, in recreation centers for children, in honest
labelling of food products, in reformation of criminals, in preventing
marriage among the unfit, and in a hundred similar matters. Here women
will doubtless bring us a strong addition to our political efficiency.
They have long been considered the natural directors of social life and,
in spite of being disfranchised, they mainly handle such matters at
present. Now that these subjects are being brought into the political
field, women should follow them there, as they have followed their
industries from the homes into the factories. There is no reason to
believe that their judgments will be less sound than those of their
brothers and husbands.
Of course, women's knowledge of means and methods is much less than that
of men in their own class. Not only have they not participated in
political life, but they have been steadily warned away from that
particular tree of knowledge. Yet the present generation of women has
gone through the same preliminary education in schools with its
brothers; and many women in high schools and colleges have made a more
extended study of political institutionalism. Still more important, more
than a million women have been educating themselves for some years in
this direction through voluntary associations of some kind; while in
most States they have had some political practice through limited
suffrage, and in a few States full experience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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