| 85IN DEFENSE OF HER OWN SEX
Mrs. Peattie Writes a Reply to the Communication of A.M.M.
She Maintains That Women Are Not Light Minded, but Are Frequently the Family Strength.
Some Sharp Arrows Which Are Shot Without Rancor in This Joust Over the "New Woman."
A.M.M. has a bitter and somewhat excited article in the Public Pulse columis of a recent issue of this journal concerning women's rights as she is fair enough to let them One does not of course know what should have caused A.M.M. to write so earnestly upon a question which at the present time appears to be abeyance. Very likly it was some private discussion which stirred her and impelled her to give voice in public to the personal indignation which she fell At any rate as her ideas represent those of a large class of women and as they are set forth withthe most evident sincereity they are entitled tothe consideration of women who are willing to bear with some pride the epithets heaped upon them by those of shallow wit-epithets which were intended to be opprobitious As Yankee was a term of cotempt, yet came to be born with honest pride by those of whom it was applied, so 'the new woman' which was meant to a slur, has come to be a shibbok h, and the women who work in science, in art, in the professions,in the trades, in the home, the church and the school have come to accept with dignity that appreciation and to fraternize under it.
The arguments which A.M.M. advances against the political enfranchisements of women are very old Though really that is no thing against them Almost all good things are old as well as most had things Nothing is older than injustice Things are older than sophistication and without injustice we should not have had the hergie triumphs of justice without sophistry we could not have had the background over against which the place the fair figure of truth one does not mind that what a originally the could hardly expect. indeed that a member of the light anything but a plagarist How could a creature so object create anything-save children like any other mammal? It is A.M.M. who after talking about all for which the creator intended us faves that we are light minded frivolous and foolish perhaps she knows But indeed could she look in the hearts of most of us she would have to admitthat however foolish we may be however frivolous we might have been long we are not like minded! Perhaps if we could be for a while the world might not seem very gay and wonderful to home of us no really bell rome A.M.M. we are not light minded we cannot conduct homes with all the find miles necessary we cannot children with all the hopes and prayers and all plant upon that we cannot mix in a world with injustice and sorrow and be like minded Perhaps you are dear A.M.M. But there are many many of us who are not and who never can be again, though we may have been so once when we were little girls and ran over the meadows of youth where the butterflies were But that was such a very long time ago.
We cannot even retain our lightmindedness A.M.M. and contemplate the awful errors made by our wisest men of whom you speak with such object reverene that it reminds me of the Japenese gravel with which good Mr. Gilbert had the subjects of the mikado approach his most illuminated majesty You are indeed under the thrall of sex I congratulate you upon your masculinde acquaintance I have known many failry good men and two remarkably good ones I have enjoyed the acquaintance of hundreds of interesting men and thousands of comparatively in-ofensive ones But the wisdom of which I speak I have not seen neither in the men with whom I have enjoyed personal acquaintanceship nor in the men with whom I have been permitted to shake hands at public levees-such as Mr. Cleveland, for instance I have seen men as heroic as the most successful fall because of another trick of fate And as for wisdom - merciful heavens' is not this country bewildered by the errors of men? Is not this state in object tropidation - are not men legarding one another with pitiable eves conscious past words of their own fallibility and of the wreck in which they have precipitated themselves? Have you not seen many and many a time families dragged to ruin by the mistaken judgement of good men and the selfish vices of bad ones? Have you not observed pretenders everywhere? Have you not learned it is often green which triumphs coarseness which succeeds tyranny which wins respect and does not the whole world bow before a shining yellow metal. Which will make the possessor a snowwhite swan in the eves of those who erstwhile, before they came into possession of that metal. thought him or her a goose? The wisdom of men truely they are as wise as women but what a little thing is that And do not women know how weak these men are - how the best of them must be cared for petted cajoied, encouraged The world is a very cruel place, and there never was a manyet who did not now and then falter before the strife of it and shrinik from it, hurt and afraid It is easy to believe that Josephine may have seen Napoleon weep quite easy to think that Martha may have kissed courage into the lips of Washington - lips which men thought so implaceable
You think do you madam that a wrangle over tights is unseenly Why, then, so was the American revolution unseemly, so was the wrangle which secured the manumission of slaves so has been every struggle for liberty unseemly Do you think that evolution is lady like? Do you think superstitions - such for instance, as the unquestioning respect for all things masculine which you entertain - are to be crushed with a cambric needle Seemly is it seemly for the man in the facry to cry out with oaths that for the littance for which he works he has sold his life his vote his freedom of thought? Is it seemly for women to starve on even less than men, because forescoth they have not a vote with which to argue . Seemly madam there is nothing seemly - unless it be a 5 o'clock tea or a bread mixing The world does not move by seemliness The women who argued and bore calumny for the liberties which you now enjoy who secured for women the right to the educated of which you have probably availed yourself here the Probably you would therefore not have associated with them The standard of seemliness which some women entertain is that of profound nullity To be perfectly respectable one must needs have done nothing at all A sawdust doll, dear madam is always seemly
A.M.M. appears to think that all women are loved and protected, and she wants to know, why they cannot be content with such felicity She has again shown herself to be fortunate in her acquaintances I have myself had the misfortune to know many women who were never offered the love or protection of any man I have known many who having being offered such love and protection could not accept it because their own hearts would not respond I have known many who were widowed, and many others who appeared to be born without the wifely or materal instinct, just as some men are incapable of happy domesticity. Then, too, I have seen women who could not narrow themselves to domesticity However much they might envy those women who could be happy by a fireside they themselves could not , but were impelled by some great power to immolate themselves for humanity some of these have been in convents some have been in hospitals some in pulpits, and some in teachers chairs They felt a call to their wide vocation as I suppose Whitfield felt a call to his, and John Brown a call to his There are isolated and remarkablebeings who are thus impelled to the unusual, and since they are disinterested and even suffer martydom for their convictions one cannot afford to dilbelieve in the call though one may be commonplace one's self and never have responded to any sort of a call unless it be the dinner bell
Indeed, A.M.M. I would have been entirely indifferent to all you had to say with those weary old arguments about the objections to womens rights, if it had not been that you called us light minded, frivolous and foolish Was your mother so Some of us have memories of silent patience, of loving forbearance, of courage in poverty, of heroism in suffering and charity to all of self subdoing, of endless sacrifices which makes us wonder and bow the head Some of us have friends now, young women, who bear shameful burdens imposed upon them by these wise men whom you so admire, and who bear these burdens with a noble dignity, their lips sealed against complaint, their heads held high in loyality, though their spirits cower in secret shame With such memories of those who are gone, or past their work with such knowledge of living friends one cannot but protest against the accusation of light mindedness, frivoloty and foolishness Even Mr Pope would not have said anything so mean as that, and Walter Scott, you remember very well, though admitting that we might be somewhat uncertain and hard to please in our idle moments was eager to pay tribute to our fidelity and courage when the occasion arose for the exercise of those virtues Myself, I think if homes are sustained and generations raised by creatures of so little account, it were well if humanity were at an end and the fever called living well over the whole of us. | 85IN DEFENSE OF HER OWN SEX
Mrs. Peattie Writes a Reply to the Communication of A.M.M.
She Maintains That Women Are Not Light Minded, but Are Frequently the Family Strength.
Some Sharp Arrows Which Are Shot Without Rancor in This Joust Over the "New Woman."
A.M.M. has a bitter and somewhat excited article in the Public Pulse columis of a recent issue of this journal concerning women's rights as she is fair enough to let them One does not of course know what should have caused A.M.M. to write so earnestly upon a question which at the present time appears to be abeyance. Very likly it was some private discussion which stirred her and impelled her to give voice in public to the personal indignation which she fell At any rate as her ideas represent those of a large class of women and as they are set forth withthe most evident sincereity they are entitled tothe consideration of women who are willing to bear with some pride the epithets heaped upon them by those of shallow wit-epithets which were intended to be opprobitious As Yankee was a term of cotempt, yet came to be born with honest pride by those of whom it was applied, so 'the new woman' which was meant to a slur, has come to be a shibbok h, and the women who work in science, in art, in the professions,in the trades, in the home, the church and the school have come to accept with dignity that appreciation and to fraternize under it.
The arguments which A.M.M. advances against the political enfranchisements of women are very old Though really that is no thing against them Almost all good things are old as well as most had things Nothing is older than injustice Things are older than sophistication and without injustice we should not have had the hergie triumphs of justice without sophistry we could not have had the background over against which the place the fair figure of truth one does not mind that what a originally the could hardly expect |
