Woman's Vote.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13650, 18 July 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

Woman's Vote.

THE REAL GENESIS OF:A-MODERN MOVEMENT. By Cicely Hamilton, author of "Diana of Dobs-on's." (London "Daily. Chronicle.") It would be to attempt to disguise from out selves that ills dvinand for political c-nfranchisememnt is only one phase of the Woman Movement of to-day. Ii will l>e someiliiing for us, of c«ui.-.e, to hi recogniNed as citizens of no mean country; it. .will be something more to have the right and the power to n»ke ami modify legislation in our own interests; but. behind the pei-s!t>teuL and, at tunes, unruly cry of "'Votes for Women" lies, to my thinking, a deeper need-than either of these —the need (not alwajs ci.r/seious) of one-half of the human race to progress, to develop it* capacities, to grow. liiieily, the woman of these lat.t-r days is asking to be the captain of her own sonl. I take it that, in the interests of (he race, ic will be well when her demand is acceded to—that, in the interests of the race, it will bs well when man learns to look npr.n her as a complex human being, with an existence independent of her relations' io himself, independent of her motherhood, actual or potential. I am not decrying motherhood ; on the contrary, 1 ara surely exali.ing it when I hold that women trained hi! 6 completeness and responsibility will be fitter and worthier mothers than women half-de-veloped and educated (as for cemiurics they have been), with the one object in life of making themselves attractive to the opposite sex. ECONOMIC. NECESSITY.

The root and primary cause of that one-sided and defective training was, of course, economic. Woman being the disinherited of the race, it behoved her to make herself attractive to ihe peesessor of the nation's weal.h and means of production, so that, he might allow her to share in their benefits. Those qualities that were likely to appeal "io him she cultivated assiduously—physical charm and the slave—at ribute.s of suppleness and submission; tho.~e qualities (chiefly intellec.ual) which were likely to bring her into conflict and competition with him. she neglected, repressed and endeavouted to conceal. And, in" this connection, be it remembered that for generations it has been impressed upon us that. men do not like women with brains. The livelihood of (he average woman depending to a great extent, upon the goodwill and admiration of the average man, ii. follows that, for genera ions, the braingrowth of a large proportion of the human race has b.vn deliberately and of set purpose atrophied and stunted—for reasons purely-economic. And I should hardly imagine that even, the most wooden-headed scientist would contend that a permanent condition of arrested brain-development in mothers of a race is likely to be of advantage to the progress of that race in general. It is against that enforced condition of arrested development that'. eonsciot'sly or unconsciously, the women of to-day are rebelling. Of the factors which have urged them to revolt the most powerful is that which in. the past has ensured their submission 1 economic pressure. Various causes (chief among them the growth and development of our modem industrial system which has transferred what were formerly women's home trades to the factory and the shop) have combined to drive the twentieth century woman out of her home and into the paid labour market, there to compete with men for a money wage. This industrial competition it is which, more than anything else, is altering and modifying the ordinary relations of the sexes and the attitude of the ordinary woman towards life. Economic necesahein the past taught her to cultivate oiny that side of her character which was? attractive to man; economic necessity in the present is teaching her that, in order to hold her own in a world of competition, in order to obtain the bread by which the lives, she mus-i. encourage other sides of her nature to grow and expand, mus'. train all her talents and capacities to the utmost—not only thr.se outwardly pleasing attributes which may perhaps gain her a husband. In short, the woman of to-day is being forced by circumstances quite beyond her control to l«c«me less of a helpmeet to man and. more of a help to heiself— less angelic, perhaps, but a very great deal more human. A PAINFUL .STRUOOLE. And I would remind those who scoff at our attempts—often, it- may be, eiratic—to obey the promptings of nature and necessity, and seek that, fuller development which the conservative would deny to us, that our wider humanity is; only being attained at t3i? erst of much suffering. The women of the modern world are being forced out of the home and into tlie labour market in ever-increasing numbers; but it is still only a comparatively small proportion of those numbers who enter the market thoroughly prepared for work; while I have no hesitation in saying that the majority of women are actually hampered in their endeavours to earn their bread bv their training in the tradition that woman's destiny is marriage, and the sole object of her existence to find favour in the eyes of a husband. Small wonder that "while that- tradition slill lingers, woman's work should be inefficient, and therefore cheap as dirt. What father would nnd: conf.'der it a crueltv and a ein to educate his son

only /with -the- object of making himself pleasing.and agreeable .in-the eyes of the opposite sex—and then, without further preparation, to thrust him out into the world .to : earn "his living as lie might? But tliat.ii> what is still being don* to thousands of girls (more particularly to girls of (he middle classes) in a country where the. marriage rate, lends to shrink, and • where the. women outnumber the men by. hundreds of thousands. Only those who haweoiiisuch helphss,. half-developed creatures —women, in the. fullest sense- of the word, they are not—.strugo-ling to earn a .pitiful livelihood, can realise the amount of -suffering such a system entai's. Further, it degrades the position'of the wife and mother by making marriage an economic m-i-e?tsity on (lie part of ii large class of women, and nol. as it should be. ii purely voluntary act. The only remedy for such a plain, of thing'--, k. of comae, the recognition hv woman of her own completeness that, so far *is we can judge. oTir movement, of to-dav is landing—-.surely In ultimate benefit a rare that-is born of woman!