Enfranchisement of women : $b Reprinted from the Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review, for July 1851 — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Enfranchisement of women : $b Reprinted from the Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review, for July 1851
John Stuart Mill · en
consideration, usually depend on the good will of those who hold the
undue power; and to possessors of power any complaint, however bitter,
of the misuse of it, is a less flagrant act of insubordination than
to protest against the power itself. The professions of women in this
matter remind us of the state offenders of old, who, on the point of
execution, used to protest their love and devotion to the sovereign by
whose unjust mandate they suffered. Griselda herself might be matched
from the speeches put by Shakspeare into the mouths of male victims
of kingly caprice and tyranny; the Duke of Buckingham, for example,
in "Henry the Eighth," and even Wolsey. The literary class of women,
especially in England, are ostentatious in disclaiming the desire for
equality of citizenship, and proclaiming their complete satisfaction
with the place which society assigns to them; exercising in this, as
in many other respects, a most noxious influence over the feelings and
opinions of men, who unsuspectingly accept the servilities of toadyism
as concessions to the force of truth, not considering that it is the
personal interest of these women to profess whatever opinions they
expect will be agreeable to men. It is not among men of talent, sprung
from the people, and patronized and flattered by the aristocracy, that
we look for the leaders of a democratic movement. Successful literary
women are just as unlikely to prefer the cause of women to their own
social consideration. They depend on men's opinion for their literary
as well as for their feminine successes; and such is their bad opinion
of men, that they believe that there is not more than one in ten
thousand who does not dislike and fear strength, sincerity, or high
spirit, in a woman. They are, therefore, anxious to earn pardon and
toleration, for whatever of these qualities their writings may exhibit
on other subjects, by a studied display of submission on this: that
they may give no occasion for vulgar men to say--what nothing will
prevent vulgar men from saying--that learning makes women unfeminine,
and that literary ladies are likely to be bad wives.
WOMAN
SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION
OF MISSOURI.
MRS. FRANCIS MINOR, _President_.
MRS. BEVERLY ALLEN, _Vice-President_.
MRS. WM. T. HAZARD, _Corresponding Secretary_.
MRS. GEO. D. HALL, _Recording Secretary_.
MRS. NATHAN STEVENS, _Treasurer_.
St. Louis, Missouri.
To the General Assembly of the State of Missouri:
GENTLEMEN: