The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

C >> Charlotte Perkins Gilman >> The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

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In concrete instance, we are most definitely clear as to the verb "to
steal." This is wrong. It says so in the Bible. It if a very simple
commandment. If a man steals he is a thief. And our law following
slowly along after our moral sense, punishes stealing. But it is one
man stealing from one other man who is a thief. It is the personal
attack upon personal property, done all at once, which we can see, feel,
and understand. Let a number of men in combination gradually alienate
the property of a number of other men--a very large number of other men,
and our moral sense makes no remark. This is not intended in any ironic
sense--it is a plain fact, a physiological, or psychological fact.

The racial mind, long accustomed to attach moral values to personal acts
only, cannot, without definite effort, learn to attach them to
collective acts. We can do it, in crude instances, when mere numbers
are in question and the offence is a plain one. If a number of men in a
visible moving group commit murder or arson before our eyes, we had as
lief hang a dozen as one: but when it comes to tracing complicity and
responsibility in the deaths of a few screaming tenants of firetrap
tenements, a death unnecessary perhaps, but for the bursting of the fire
hose--then we are at fault. The cringing wretch who lit the oilsoaked
rags in the cellar we seize in triumph. He did it. Him we can hang.
"The soul that sinneth it shall die." But if the fire is "an accident,"
owing to "a defective flue," if the fire-escape breaks, the stairs give
away under a little extra weight, or ill-built walls crumble
prematurely--who can we lay hands on? Where is the soul that sinneth?

Our brains are not trained to follow a complex moral relation; we travel
in the deep ruts of mental habit as old as Adam aforesaid. Our sense of
duty, of obligation, of blame or praise is all hopelessly egotistic.
"Who is to blame?" we continue to say; when we should say, "Who are to
blame?" One heavy dose of poison resulting in one corpse shows us
murder. A thousand tiny doses of poison, concealed in parcels of food,
resulting in the lowered vitality, increased illness and decreased
efficiency of thousands of persons, shows us nothing. There is need
to-day for very honest mental effort in readjusting our moral sense so
that we may recognize social evils, social offenders and social
responsibility.

Here we are all together, rising and falling in masses under the
influence of other person's conduct, with no possibility of tracing the
death of this particular baby to the dirty hands of that particular
milker of far-off cows. It wasn't murder--he never saw the baby. You
can't hang a man for not washing his hands. We see babies die, look in
vain for the soul that sinneth, and do nothing.

We should have a poor opinion of any state where there was no moral
sense ai all, no weight of public opinion to uphold standards, no
measures to protect innocence and punish crime. This we should call
barbarism or savagery, and feel proud of our Christian civilization,
where we legislate so profusely and punish so severely--when we can lay
hands on individual offenders, whose crimes, though small, are at least
whole ones. But we are in precisely that state of barbarism in regard
to the fractional crimes of our complex social life.

If seven doctors in succession refuse to answer a poor man's call and he
dies for lack of medical aid--who has killed him? Has he seven
murderers--or is each doctor one-seventh of a murderer? Or is it not
murder at all just to let a man die?

If again, the doctor does his duty and the man dies because the
medicine given him was different from what the doctor ordered--a
cheaper, weaker drug, an adulteration or substitute--then who killed
him? The druggist who sold--the clerk who put up the prescription--the
advertiser of the stuff--the manufacturer of it--or those who live on
money invested in the manufacturing company? "The clerk!" we cry,
delightedly. "He put up the poison! He knew it was not what was
ordered! He did it with his hands!" "The soul that sinneth _it_ shall
die." And perhaps it does--or at least the body of it. Yet the same
drug goes on poisoning.

We might perhaps pass on from that shaggy Adam of our remote past and
his necessary limitations, and begin to study the real relation of human
beings in modern life, learning at last that human conduct changes as
society develops, that morality is no longer a mere matter of "thou
shalt" and "thou shalt not," but a vast complex of mutually interactive
conduct in which personal responsibility has small place.

Take an evil like our railroad management with its yearly tale of
bloodshed and dismemberment, its hundreds and thousands of killed and
wounded. We cannot pick out and hang a director or president when the
dead brakeman is dragged out from between the cars that did not have
automatic couplers. The man is dead, is killed, is murdered--but we
cannot fix responsibility. Can we arrest for murder the poor mother who
is caring for her boy sick with typhoid fever; just because she empties
slops on a watershed that feeds a little brook, that feeds a river, that
feeds a city--and thousands die of that widespread disease? She is not
personally guilty of murder. There are others in plenty between her and
the victim and many back of her to blame for her ignorance. Who can
untangle the responsibility for the ruin of a girl who was utterly
untaught, underpaid, improperly dressed, ill-fed, influenced by every
gorgeously dressed idle woman who stood before her counter, and tempted
by many men in turn? There is the one "sin"--but is she the only
"sinner"?

Consider the two awful instances of recent date--the Iroquois Theatre
fire in Chicago, the Slocum disaster in New York. Even if it were
possible to "fix responsibility," to find the one person, or more than
one whom we could prove to blame for these holocausts, what could we do
to these persons as fit punishment for such an injury to society? If we
could devise tortures prolonged and painful enough to make such
criminals feel as felt their dying victims, what good would that do? It
would raise no dead, restore no health, prevent no repetition of similar
horrors. That much has been established by the history of our primitive
systems--punishment does not prevent.

What does?

Here is the real question for society to ask--Adam did not know enough.
The age of personal morals is the age of personal punishment. The age
of recognized public evils is the age of prevention. This we are
beginning to see, beginning to do. After the Iroquois fire we were more
stringent in guarding our theatres. After the Slocum disaster the
inspection of steamships was more thorough. After the slaughter of the
innocents in the burning schoolhouse, many other school buildings were
condemned and more were safeguarded.

But this is only a beginning--a feeble, temporary, ineffectual effort.
Social morality does not consist in spasmodic attempts to be good,
following upon some terrible catastrophe. A mother's duty to a child is
not mere passionate protection after it has fallen through the ice; the
soldier's duty is not confined to wild efforts to recover the flag after
it has been lost. We have a constant definite active duty to society,
each one of us; there lies our responsibility and failing therein is our
fault.

When men or women fail in full honest efficient performance of their
social service, which means their special kind of work, they sin--if we
must call it sin--against society. Better drop the very name and
thought of "sin" and say merely, "Why are we to-day so inefficient and
unreliable in our social duty?" For reason good. We are not taught
social duty. For further reason that we are taught much that militates
against it. Our social instinct is not yet strong enough to push and
pull us into perfect relation with one another without conscious effort.
We need to be taught from infancy, which way our duty lies--the most
imperative duty of a human creature--to give his life's best service to
humanity.

This would call for new standards in the nursery, the school and the
shop, as well as the platform, press and pulpit. That is our crying
need; a truer standard of duty, and the proper development of it. The
School City is a step this way, a long one; as is the George Junior
Republic and other specific instances of effort to bring out the social
sense.

But it is in our work that we need it most. From babyhood we should be
taught that we are here dependent on one another, beautifully
specialized that we may serve one another; owing to the State, our great
centralized body, the whole service of our lives. What every common
soldier knows and most of them practice is surely not too difficult for
a common business man. Our public duty is most simple and clear--to do
our best work for the service of the world. And our personal sin--the
one sin against humanity--is to let that miserable puny outgrown
Ego--our exaggerated sense of personality--divert us from that service.

[Untitled]

With God Above--Beneath--Beside--
Without--Within--and Everywhere;
Rising with the resistless tide
Of life, and Sure of Getting There.

Patient with Nature's long delay,
Proud of our conscious upward swing;
Not sorry for a single day,
And Not Afraid of Anything!

With Motherhood at last awake--
With Power to Do and Light to See--
Women may now begin to Make
The People we are Meant to Be!

THE HUMANNESS OF WOMEN

A woman by the river's brim,
A wife and servant is to him--
And she is nothing more.

We have made mistakes, as old as humanity, about the world, and about
women.

First, as to the world:

This we have assumed to be a general battlefield for men to struggle in;
a place for free competition; full of innumerable persons whose natural
mode of life was to struggle, for existence, with one another.

This is the individualist view, and is distinctly masculine.

Males are essentially individualistic--born to vary and compete; and an
exclusively masculine world must be individualistic and competitive.

We have been wrong. The new Social Philosophy recognizes Society as an
orderly life-form, having its own laws of growth; and that we, as
individuals, live only as active parts of Society. Instead of accepting
this world of warfare, disease, and crime, of shameful, unnecessary
poverty and pain, as natural and right, we now see that all these evils
may be removed, and we propose to remove them. Humanity is waking up,
is beginning to understand its own nature, is beginning to face a new
and a possible problem, instead of the dark enigma of the past.

Second, as to the woman:

Our mistake about her was a very strange one. No one knows yet how or
why it was made; yet there it stands; one of the most colossal blunders
ever made by mankind. In the face of all creation, where the female is
sometimes found quite self-sufficient, often superior, and always equal
to the male, our human race set up the "andro-centric theory," holding
that man alone is the race type; and that woman was "his female." In
what "Mr. Venus" described as "the vicious pride of his youth," our
budding humanity distinguished itself by discrediting its mother. "You
are a female," said Ancient Man, "and that's all. We are the People!"

This is the alpha and omega of the old idea about woman. It saw in her
only sex--not Humanity.

The New Woman is Human first, last and always. Incidentally she is
female; as man is male. As a male he has done his small share in the
old physical process of reproduction; but as a Human Creature he has
done practically all in the new Social processes which make
civilization.

He has been Male--and Human:--She has been Female--and nothing
else;--that is, in our old idea.

Holding this idea; absurd, erroneous, and mischievous to a terrible
degree; we strove to carry it out in our behavior; and human history so
far is the history of a wholly masculine world, competing and fighting
as males must, forever seeking and serving the female as males must, yet
building this our world as best they could alone.

Theirs is the credit--and the shame--of the world behind us, the world
around us; but the world before us has a new element--the Humanness of
Woman.

For a little over a century we have become increasingly conscious of a
stir, an uprising, and protest among women. The long-suppressed "better
half" of humanity has begun to move and push and lift herself. This
Woman's movement is as natural, as beneficial, as irresistible as the
coming of spring; but it has been misunderstood and opposed from the
first by the glacial moraine of old ideas, the inert force of sheer
blank ignorance, and prejudice as old as Adam.

At first the women strove for a little liberty, for education; then for
some equality before the law, for common justice; then, with larger
insight, for full equal rights with men in every human field; and as
essential base of these, for the right of suffrage.

Woman suffrage is but one feature of the movement, but it is a most
important one. The opposition to it is wholly one of sex-prejudice, of
feeling, not of reason; the opposition of a masculine world; and of an
individualism also masculine. The male is physiologically an
individualist. It is his place in nature to vary, to introduce new
characteristics, and to strive mightily with his rivals for the favor of
the females. A world of males must fight.

With the whole of history of this combative sort; with masculinity and
humanity identical, in the average mind; there is something alien,
unnatural, even revolting, in the claim of woman to her share in the
work and management of the world. Against it he brings up one constant
cry--that woman's progress will injure womanhood. All that he sees in
woman is her sex; and he opposes her advance on the ground that "as a
woman" she is unfit to take part in "a man's world"--and that if she
did, it would mysteriously but inevitably injure her "as a woman."

Suggest that she might be able to take part in "a woman's world,"--and
has as much right to a world made her way as he has to his man-made
world! Suggest that without any such extreme reversal, she has a right
to half the world; half the work, half the pay, half the care, half the
glory!

To all this replies the Male-individualist:

"The World has to be as it is. It is a place to fight in; fight for
life, fight for money. Work is for slaves and poor people generally.
Nobody would work unless they had to. You are females and no part of
the world at all. Your place is at home: to bear and rear children--and
to cook."

Now what is the position toward women of this new philosophy that sees
Society as one thing, and the main thing to be considered; that sees the
world as a place open to ceaseless change and improvement; that sees the
way so to change and improve it that the major part of our poor silly
sins and sorrows will disappear utterly for lack of cause?

From this viewpoint male and female fall into two lower positions, both
right and proper; useful, beautiful, essential for the replenishment of
the race on earth. From this viewpoint men and women rise, together,
from that lower relation, to the far higher one of Humanness, that
common Humanness which is hers as much as his. Seeing Society as the
real life-form; and our individual lives as growing in glory and power
as we serve and develop Society; the movement of women becomes of
majestic importance. It is the advance of an entire half the race, from
a position of arrested development, into full humanness.

The world is no longer seen as a battlefield, where it is true, women do
not belong; but as a garden--a school--a church--a home, where they
visibly do belong. In the great task of cultivating the earth they have
an equal interest and an equal power. Equality is not identity. There
is work of all kinds and sizes--and half of it is woman's.

In that vast labor of educating humanity, till all of us understand one
another; till the thoughts and feelings necessary to our progress can
flow smooth and clear through the world-mind, women have preeminent
part. They are the born teachers, by virtue of their motherhood, as
well as in the human joy of it.

In the power of organization which is essential to our progress we have
special need of women, and their rapid and universal movement in this
direction is one of the most satisfactory proofs of our advance. In
every art, craft and profession they have the same interests, the same
power. We rob the world of half its service when we deny women their
share in it.

In direct political action there is every reason for women's voting that
there is for men's; and every reason for a spreading universal suffrage
that there is for democracy. As far as any special power in government
is called for, the mother is the natural ruler, the natural
administrator and executive. The functions of democratic government may
be wisely and safely shared between men and women.

Here we have our great position fairly before us:--the improvement of
the world is ours to make; women are coming forward to help make it;
women are human with every human power; democracy is the highest form of
government--so far; and the use of the ballot is essential to democracy;
therefore women should vote!

Against this rises the tottering fortress of the ultra-masculine,
abetted by a petty handful of witless traitors--those petticoated
creatures who also see in women nothing but their sex. They may be, in
some cases, honest in their belief; but their honesty does no credit to
their intelligence. They are obsessed by this dominant idea of sex; due
clearly enough to the long period of male dominance--to our androcentric
culture. The male naturally sees in the female, sex; first, last and
always. For all these centuries she has been restricted to the exercise
of feminine duties only, with the one addition of house-service.

The wife-and-mother sex, the servant sex, she is to him; and nothing
more. The woman does not look at men in this light. She has to
consider them as human creatures, because they monopolize the human
functions. She does not consider the motorman and conductor as males,
but as promotors of travel; she does not chuck the bellboy under the
chin and kiss the waiter!

Inextricably mingled with the masculine view is the individualist view,
seeing the world forever and ever as a place of struggle.

Then comes this great change of our time, the dawning of the Social
consciousness. Here is a world of combination, of ordered grouping and
inter-service. Here is a world now wasting its wealth like water--all
this waste may be saved. Here is a world of worse than unnecessary war.
We will stop this warfare. Here is a world of hideous diseases. We
will exterminate them. Here is a world of what we call "Sin"--almost
all of which is due to Ignorance, Ill-health, Unhappiness, Injustice.

When the world learns how to take care of itself decently; when there
are no dirty evil places upon it, with innocent children born daily and
hourly into conditions which inevitably produce a certain percentage of
criminality; when the intelligence and good breeding which now
distinguish some of us are common to all of us--we shan't hear so much
about sin!

A socially conscious world, intelligent, courageous, earnest to improve
itself, seeking to establish a custom of peaceful helpful
interservice--such a world has no fear of woman, and no feeling that she
is unfit to participate in its happy labors. The new social philosophy
welcomes woman suffrage.

*

But suppose you are not in any sense Socialistically inclined. Suppose
you are still an Individualist, albeit a believer in votes for women.
Even so, merely from the woman's point of view, enough can be said to
justify the promise of a New World.

What makes the peace and beauty of the Home--its
order--comfort--happiness?--the Woman.

Her service is given, not hired. Her attitude is of one seeking to
administer a common fund for the common good. She does not set her
children to compete for their dinner--does not give most to the
strongest and leave the weakest to go to the wall. It is only in her
lowest helplessness; under the degrading influence of utter poverty,
that she is willing to exploit her children and let them work before
their time.

If she, merely as Woman, merely as wife and mother, comes forward to
give the world the same service she has given the home, it will be
wholly to its advantage.

Go and look at the legislation initiated or supported by women in every
country where women vote--and you will see one unbroken line of social
service. Not self-interest--not mercenary profit--not competition; but
one steady upward pressure; the visible purpose to uplift and help the
world.

This world is ours as much as man's. We have not only a right to half
its management but a duty to half its service. It is our duty as human
beings to help make the world better--quickly! It is our duty as Women
to bring our Motherhood to comfort and help humanity--our children every
one!

HERE IS THE EARTH

Here is the earth: As big, as fresh, as clean,
As when it first grew green;
Our little spots of dirt walled in,
As easy to outgrow as sin,
In the swift, sweet, triumphal hour
Of nature's power.

We have not hurt the world: Still safe we rest
On that great loving breast.
Proud, patient mother! Strong and still!
Our little years of doing ill
Lost in her smooth, unmeasured time
Of life sublime.

We need not grieve, nor kneel our faults to own;
She has not even known
That we offended! Our misdeeds
She covers with one summer's weeds:
Her love we thought so long away--
Is ours to-day.

And here are we. Our bodies are as new
As ever Adam grew:
Replenished still with daily touch,
By the fair mother, loving much.
Glad living things! Still conscious part
Of earth's rich heart!

And for the soul which these fair bodies give
Increasing room to live--?
It is the same soul that was born
In the dim, lovely, unknown morn
Of Nature's waking--the same soul--
Still here, and whole!

Strong? `Tis the force that governs ring on ring
Where quiet planets swing.
Glad? `Tis the joy of riotous flowers
And meadow-larks in May, now ours,
Ours endlessly--to have--to give--
To all who live!

No grief behind have we, no fear before
But only more and more
The splendid passion of the soul
In new creation to unroll:
All life, poured new in all the lands,
Through our glad hands!

WHAT DIANTHA DID

CHAPTER III.

BREAKERS

Duck! Dive! Here comes another one!
Wait till the crest-ruffles show!
Beyond is smooth water in beauty and wonder--
Shut your mouth! Hold your breath! Dip your head under!
Dive through the weight and the wash, and the thunder--
Look out for the undertow!

If Diantha imagined that her arithmetical victory over a too-sordid
presentation of the parental claim was a final one, she soon found
herself mistaken.

It is easy to say--putting an epic in an epigram--"She seen her duty and
she done it!" but the space and time covered are generally as far beyond
our plans as the estimates of an amateur mountain climber exceed his
achievements.

Her determination was not concealed by her outraged family. Possibly
they thought that if the matter was well aired, and generally discussed,
the daring offender might reconsider. Well-aired it certainly was, and
widely discussed by the parents of the little town before young people
who sat in dumbness, or made faint defense. It was also discussed by
the young people, but not before their parents.

She had told Ross, first of all, meaning to have a quiet talk with him
to clear the ground before arousing her own family; but he was suddenly
away just as she opened the subject, by a man on a wheel--some wretched
business about the store of course--and sent word that night that he
could not come up again. Couldn't come up the next night either. Two
long days--two long evenings without seeing him. Well--if she went away
she'd have to get used to that.

But she had so many things to explain, so much to say to make it right
with him; she knew well what a blow it was. Now it was all over
town--and she had had no chance to defend her position.

The neighbors called. Tall bony Mrs. Delafield who lived nearest to
them and had known Diantha for some years, felt it her duty to make a
special appeal--or attack rather; and brought with her stout Mrs.
Schlosster, whose ancestors and traditions were evidently of German
extraction.

Diantha retired to her room when she saw these two bearing down upon the
house; but her mother called her to make a pitcher of lemonade for
them--and having entered there was no escape. They harried her with
questions, were increasingly offended by her reticence, and expressed
disapproval with a fullness that overmastered the girl's self-control.