The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 1908. THE UP-RISING OF A SEX.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 288, 29 August 1908, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 1908. THE UP-RISING OF A SEX.

In tho Contemporary Review for July a lady writer, Teresa Billikgton-Gkeig, is accorded premier place for her interesting article, entitled " The Rebellion of Woman." This revolt, she says, is the fact of'tho agq; convention and custom aro undermined by., it, and old ideals lie shattered and discredited in the dust. It is no new thing, this rebellion of woman against the bonds of tho ages, it is as old as the conditions against which she rebels, but it has been left to this generation to see its culmination. Needless to say, the writer is a spirited champion of this unrest among womenkind, and that, while many of her contentions oom.mepd themselves at once to all reasonable male readers, others are highly debatable. Possible and probable consequences of fruition are left out of consideration, and that; great; and important factor, human nature, as it has existed, exists to-day, and always will exist until tho arrival' of the millennium, does not enter into her calculations. This is not a criticism of the article, however, but an endeavour to place before our readers its saliont features.

! The writer alleges that in proverb and aphorism man lias crystallised his conception of woman, and that in all ages this conception has revealed his fear of her unrest, and his knowledge of her discontent. His attempts to stifle its growth have merely refiiilted iri moving the centre of disturbance. And so, in this genoration the cry of the woman for liberty and justice is heard in every quarter of the globe. " The women of the West are aflame with enthusiasm; the women of tho Easf, ara w&konipg to the consciousness of new needs; everywhere there is movement and life and the breaking of barriers." In' the East the demand is for education, though the political need has already boon voiced. The movement in Europe and in English-speaking lands has been re-vitalised by the energy and resource of tho Neo-Suffragist, who believes in protest aijd pressure as we}l as propaganda. '' The daughters of the Western races are demanding the power and status of citizens in all the great empires of the world, and this demand means far more than tho expression of their desire to share in the wider life of their nations; it means that women are demanding a world-wide recognition of their hunuauhood as co-equal with the humanhood of man. Behind the claim for equality of voting right lies the conviction that women arc entitled just as men aro to all liberties of thought, action, and expression; that liberty is; a human, and not a sex, necessity."

In three countries the women's rebellion hag achieved, or is approaching, a militant stage—in England, in France, and in America. In the last-named country the revolt extends beyond the political aspect to the economic. The women teachers of New York State are fighting hard for equal pay for equal work, and tho women of tho Sooialist and Labour parties are organising special associations to safeguard their interests as workers, as well as to claim the protection of citizenship. But, tho writer claims, women fight for the vote as a means to an ond, that end being a perfect equality with man in all that regards human rights. There must be total abolition of all so-called sex-disabilities, because, they assert, humanhood, and not sex, is the basis of liberty, right, and responsibility. The question is asked: the root of tho unrest in the position that women have been' forced so long to accept, or does it lie within the nature of women themselves 1 And the reply is logically argued that it is due to the subjective position in which women have been kept, to the conditions under whjch they have existed, and that these give abundant justification for the rebellion of any human creature,

Those conditions are sketched in plainest terms, and it is pointed Qut that women even to-day are subjected to unfair legal restrictions, that they are economically oppressed, and have to submit to ??xual and social wrong for which they have no redress. Marriage laws, and the laws of parentage, make unfair distinctions between men and women! "Millions of women workers have to fight against pitiless economic combinations and universal sex-prejudice. The wages and conditions of the majority of these \yqmcn are, it is said, below the lovoj necessary for decency, heaith, and morality. Added to this the married woman getg no adequate pecuniary acknowledgment of he? wqyJs jp th? home; there is no legal statute by which a mother cfin secure for herself and her children a proportionate share of her husband's earnings; she has to bq grateful for mere maintenance. Eepausg of those things' women have lived in rebellion, and will continue in rebellion until as a ges. they ara free. " For only the equal freedom that gives equal : responsibility to both sexes, and prevents either the one or the other from employing the methods pf Constraint, purchase, or sycophancy, can remove tho disease that now exists." Tljq bar of inferiority, by which women hav« been denied splfrownersbip, self-exprps-. sion, and the right'of industrial and political freedom, niugt he removed, and then the foundation, it is claimed, of a new world will have been laid, a world in which there will ha ft perfectly harfconiaua co-operation of the two bcxcb,

from which alone pan arise for the racc a clear and sane outlook, and clean and sound organisation. " The end ia certain," concludes the writer, ■' and the victory is near," which prophesy will be CQinfovting to woman, but gonigwhat disturbing t<3 tho more ma,n,