The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

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

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Men do not have to do these things through their clubs, which are mainly
for pleasure; they can accomplish what they wish to through regular
channels. But the character and direction of the influence of women in
human affairs is conclusively established by the things they already do
and try to do. In those countries, and in our own states, where they
are already full citizens, the legislation introduced and promoted by
them is of the same beneficent character. The normal woman is a strong
creature, loving and serviceable. The kind of woman men are afraid to
entrust with political power, selfish, idle, over-sexed, or ignorant and
narrow-minded, is not normal, but is the creature of conditions men have
made. We need have no fear of her, for she will disappear with the
conditions which created her.

In older days, without knowledge of the natural sciences, we accepted
life as static. If, being born in China, we grew up with foot-bound
women, we assumed that women were such, and must so remain. Born in
India, we accepted the child-wife, the pitiful child-widow, the ecstatic
_suttee_, as natural expressions of womanhood. In each age, each
country, we have assumed life to be necessarily what it was--a moveless
fact.

All this is giving way fast in our new knowledge of the laws of life.
We find that Growth is the eternal law, and that even rocks are slowly
changing. Human life is seen to be as dynamic as any other form; and
the most certain thing about it is that it will change. In the light of
this knowledge we need no longer accept the load of what we call "sin;"
the grouped misery of poverty, disease and crime; the cumbrous,
inefficatious, wasteful processes of life today, as needful or
permanent.

We have but to learn the _real_ elements in humanity; its true powers
and natural characteristics; to see wherein we are hampered by the wrong
ideas and inherited habits of earlier generations, and break loose from
them--then we can safely and swiftly introduce a far nobler grade of
living.

Of all crippling hindrances in false ideas, we have none more
universally mischievous than this root error about men and women. Given
the old androcentric theory, and we have an androcentric culture--the
kind we so far know; this short stretch we call "history;" with its
proud and pitiful record. We have done wonders of upward growth--for
growth is the main law, and may not be wholly resisted. But we have
hindered, perverted, temporarily checked that growth, age after age; and
again and again has a given nation, far advanced and promising, sunk to
ruin, and left another to take up its task of social evolution; repeat
its errors--and its failure.

One major cause of the decay of nations is "the social evil"--a thing
wholly due to the androcentric culture. Another steady endless check is
warfare--due to the same cause. Largest of all is poverty; that
spreading disease which grows with our social growth and shows most
horribly when and where we are most proud, keeping step, as it were,
with private wealth. This too, in large measure, is due to the false
ideas on industry and economics, based, like the others mentioned, on a
wholly masculine view of life.

By changing our underlying theory in this matter we change all the
resultant assumptions; and it is this alteration in our basic theory of
life which is being urged.

The scope and purpose of human life is entirely above and beyond the
field of sex relationship. Women are human beings, as much as men, by
nature; and as women, are even more sympathetic with human processes.
To develop human life in its true powers we need full equal citizenship
for women.

The great woman's movement and labor movement of to-day are parts of the
same pressure, the same world-progress. An economic democracy must rest
on a free womanhood; and a free womanhood inevitably leads to an
economic democracy.

THE NUN IN THE KITCHEN

When you gaze upon a row of large, beautiful houses; those "residences"
to which the citizen "points with pride;" those "homes" which form our
ideal of life's fulfillment; bear this in mind:

For every one of those proud, spacious mansions must exist somewhere one
or more huts or hovels or crowded city tenements.

Why? To furnish from the daughters of the poor the servants necessary
to maintain such a domicile. So long as each woman performed with her
own hands the labors of the home; there were physical limits to the size
and splendor of that building.

The Palace has its slaves, the Castle its serfs, and the capacious
mansions of today owe their splendor--yes, their very existence--to the
nun in the kitchen.

"Why nun?" you will ask. Because in entering our service she is
required to be poor, chaste and submissive; she gives up home and
family; hers is a consecrated life--consecrated to the physical comfort
of our families.

We expect our servants to be women as a matter of course: are not women
made to serve? As a matter of fact, they are. That is, they are made
to serve children, but we make them serve men. And since a married
woman must serve her own husband exclusively, we must have unmarried
women to serve other women's husbands! Hence the demand for maid
service; hence the constant--though futile--effort to prevent our maids
from marrying; and hence--this we have hitherto utterly overlooked--the
continuous inadequacy of that service.

Thus an endless procession of incompetent young people--necessarily
incompetent--is forever passing in and out of our back doors; and our
domestic life--its health and happiness--is built upon these shifting
sands!

When slaves were owned we had a secure foundation, such as it was; but
the present servant is not held by a chain or collar, and as she flits
through the kitchen--either slowly or swiftly--the mistress of the
mansion is drawn upon, in varying degree, to be a stop-gap.

The family and the home are far too important to our happiness to be
left at the mercy of such a fleeting crowd of errant damosels.
Affection and obedience they may give--or may not--but competence does
not come to ignorant youth. We need, to keep the world well fed and
really clean, skilled, specialized, experienced, well-paid workers; and
it is none of our business whether they are married or single.

LETTERS FROM SUBSCRIBERS

Being wholly unable to respond individually to the kind and helpful
letters, I wish here to personally thank each friend for his or her
really important contributions to the establishment of this magazine.

It is the rich response which gives assurance that the work is worth
doing, and that it reaches those for whom it is written.

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN.

COMMENT AND REVIEW

THE CENTURY OF THE CHILD

This is the well chosen title for one of the most important books of
this Twentieth Century, written by Ellen Key, that great Swedish woman
who so intensely loves "the child," a book which has set all Europe
thinking, has revolutionized the attitude of mind of thousands of young
women, and filled thousands of old ones with vain remorse.

In Germany a very considerable movement among girls of the upper
classes, involving a new attitude towards marriage and maternity, has
resulted from this one work.

I take a special, personal interest in it because my "Woman and
Economics" was held to represent the opposite pole of thought regarding
women from that of this book.

What is Miss Key's position?

She holds that "the child" is the most important of personages, that
life should all be bent to its service, that the woman's one,
all-inclusive purpose is the right bearing and rearing of children. She
shows how painfully inadequate is our present provision for child
culture, how unprepared is the average mother, how unsuitable the
atmosphere of the average home and also of the average school; and makes
searching comment on our methods of teaching--especially in teaching
religion.

Her chapter on "The Education of the Child" is so important that it has
been taken out and made a book by itself.

There is present throughout the book a deep sincerity, a boundless love
and sympathy, and evidence of the widest and most searching observation.
It throws a relentless light on our cheap and trivial way of facing the
gravest issues of life, and should stir every woman's heart to new
enthusiasm for the power and glory of motherhood.

The most controversial chapters--to most of us--are the first, in which
marriage is discussed, and the one on religion; but to my mind the most
important question here, as in all deep study of child culture, is this:
Is the mother the best person to supply the entire care for and culture
of the child?

Miss Key holds that she is. For that reason she deprecates any
education, any profession, any interest or purpose in a woman's life
which at all interferes with this primal claim of motherhood. She
allows to women the right, as individuals, to forego motherhood and
develop their egos as they will; but of women as a class she demands the
most entire consecration to this function. Her requirements are
soul-absorbing and exclusive of all others. It is not alone in the
hours spent with the child that the mother should be at work upon him,
but in every waking hour--in her work and rest times--the child should
be always on her heart, and she should ceaselessly revolve in her mind
the problems of her work as a mother.

The book is a determined protest against the present tendency to
specialization among women: it is thrown up like a rampart against the
rising tide of independence and free human life demanded by the girls of
today--and its strength lies in the deep truth of its attitude towards
the child.

It is true that the child is the most important personage. In him--in
her--must appear the inherited growth of the world. Unless our children
are born better, born stronger, born cleaner and more beautiful than we,
the race does not progress. And unless the first years are rightly
treated, we lose in wrong education much of the fruit of right breeding.

It is true that we need among women a new, strong, clear "class
conscious" motherhood which shall recognize that this deep duty is
superior to that of the wife; that it is woman's worst crime to consent
to bear children of vicious, diseased fathers; that it is woman's first
duty, not merely to reproduce, but to improve the human race.

So far I am in hearty agreement with Ellen Key, and congratulate the
world of to-day upon her book. She herself is a "human mother," a
"social mother," loving children because they are children not because
they are her own. Such love, such high intelligence and insight, such
quenchless enthusiasm, are in themselves the proof that wise and
beneficial child-service may be given by extra-maternal hearts, heads
and hands. Wherein I disagree with this world-helper will be found in a
few remarks on "The New Motherhood," elsewhere in these pages.

*

I was asked by a justly indignant subscriber to review Molly Elliot
Sewell's amazing performance in the September "Atlantic" called "The
Ladies' Battle," and replied at the time that I had not seen the
article. Since then I have, and am glad to say a few words on a matter
the only importance of which is that The Atlantic Monthly should have
committed itself to such a presentation.

There is but one reasonable way to oppose Woman Suffrage today: that is
to bring definite proof that it has worked for evil in the states and
countries where it has been long in practice. This means not merely to
show that evil still exists in these communities, or even that some
women take part in it: it must be shown that new or greater evils exist,
and that these are proven due to use of the ballot by women. We have
yet to wait for such legitimate opposition.

This effort of Miss Sewall's, like all the others, consists almost
wholly of prophesies of horror as to the supositious effects of an
untried process, and where she does bring definite charges of corrupt
behavior in a woman suffrage state, the corruption charged is one common
to man suffrage everywhere, and is in no way attributable to the
presence of voting women. Her anti-suffrage opinions, quoted from these
states, can be overwhelmingly outnumbered by pro-suffrage ones from
equally good sources.

She repeatedly alludes to woman suffrage as "a stupendous governmental
change," "the overturning of the social order which woman suffrage would
work," and other similar alarmist phrases; yet, as a matter of fact,
women have voted more than a generation, and are now voting, in various
of our states and in foreign countries all over the world without the
slightest "governmental change" or "overturning of social order" other
than a gradual improvement through legitimate legislation.

The notable essence of this paper lies in two statements, advanced with
the utmost solemnity as "basic principles" and "basic reasons," whereas
they might both be dismissed by sweeping legal exclusion as
"incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial."

First, no electorate has ever existed, or ever can exist, which cannot
execute its own laws.

Second, no voter has ever claimed, or ever can claim, maintenance from
another voter.

To dismiss the second with an airy wave of the hand, us its merely
inquire if it is a fact that in our four woman suffrage states married
women have no legal claim to support from their husbands? As a matter
of fact, they have. Therefore it is apparent that even now in this
country, as in many others, one voter has claimed, does claim, and
succeeds in getting, maintenance from another voter. Exit the second
"basic reason."

The first one looks quite formidable. It calls up in one's mind a
peculiar alignment of the sexes in which all the women voters are
segregated and opposed to all the men voters and that this all-woman
vote is on some matter which concerns all men, and that all men utterly
object to doing what all women want them to do, and that all women could
not make all men do what they wanted them to do--against their wills.
Perhaps they couldn't. Perhaps they could. There are more ways of
coercing them than by brute force. But in any case what has this
preposterous vagary to do with woman suffrage?

Have the women voters of any state or country ever united as a body
against the men voters? Is there any reason to suppose that they ever
will? There are some measures, as in dealing with the social evil,
wherein women might conceivably vote "solid" against a considerable
number of men; but even then there would remain a large proportion of
wise and good men on the side of virtue and health--and this proportion
is increasing daily. Decisions made by all women on questions of this
sort could be efficiently enforced by them.

The absurdity of this first "basic proposition" is in its innocent
assumption of flatly opposing interests between men and women, whereas
most of their interests are identical. In following out her grisly
fears of valiant man forcibly preventing womankind from voting, our
authoress again forgets existing facts and again surrenders herself to
gloomy prediction.

"A dozen ruffians at a single polling place could prevent a hundred
women from depositing a single ballot," she says.

Yes. But do they?

A dozen ruffians could do alarming damage to a hundred women almost
anywhere if the women had no guns. Has Mrs. Seawell ever had the
pleasure of observing the absence of "ruffians" at the polling places in
Woman Suffrage states? She seems to imagine that women, in acquiring
the ballot, instantly thereby lose, not only all their male relatives,
but the protection of the law, and become a species of "enemy," with
men, terrified and enraged, banded together against them--which is a
childish absurdity.

The errors of fact in this article are gross and unpardonable. If Mrs.
Seawell had ever examined "The Woman's Bible" she would have noticed
that it was not "Miss Anthony's," but was undertaken by Mrs. Elizabeth
Cady Stanton with collaboration of some others, and that it was not an
attempt to make the Bible a "suffrage document" but to show how it
discriminated against women.

She alleges that the divorce rate is "practically higher" in the four
suffrage states than in any others in the Union whereas Wyoming is the
one state where divorce has decreased rather than increased. She speaks
of Colorado as having had "more than thirty years of suffrage" whereas
it was only introduced in 1893.

Any person capable of real interest in this question of practical
politics and world improvement are urged to concentrate their study, not
on the most fiercely sentimental presentation of what woman suffrage
will do or will not do, but on the numerous and easily accessible facts
as to what it really does, information concerning which can be readily
obtained at the National Woman Suffrage Headquarters, 505 Fifth avenue,
New York city.

*

In the preliminary announcement of this magazine, twelve short articles
were promised by name.

As the months came round, other matters arose for attention, other
articles were urgent, and this arbitrary set was much in the way.

One, The Nun in the Kitchen, was seized upon by another magazine. They
wanted the title particularly, so it was given them--and the price
thereof goeth to feed the Forerunner. But, being a much larger
magazine, they benevolently allowed the same name and a similar article
to appear in these modest pages.

The others, "Our Overworked Instincts" and "How We Waste Three-Fourths
of Our Money" being promised, are now printed, altogether and with most
gratifying brevity, their length never having been specified. The New
Year is not going to be hampered with any such too previous
announcements.

*

We mean to carry lists of books useful to our readers. We wish to prove
that it will pay publishers to advertise with us. If you order any book
reviewed here, please send your order to THE FORERUNNER.

"Pure Sociology," by Lester F. Ward, Macmillan, Pub., $4.00.

"Hygiene and Morality," by Lavina L. Dock, R.N., G. P. Putnam's Sons,
Pub., $1.25.

"Marriage as a Trade," by Cicely Hamilton, Moffat, Yard & Co., Pub.,
$1.25.

"To-day's Problems." Trade Union Book Concern. Chicago, Ill.

"The Century of the Child," by Ellen Key; G. P. Putnam's Sons., Pub.,
$1.50.

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"The Englishwoman" is intended to reach the cultured public and bring
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The Common Cause

WHAT IS IT?

There are in England something like twenty-five National Societies for
promoting the enfranchisement of women. The oldest of these is the
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, which was started in 1861
and whose President is Mrs. Fawcett, LL.D. The National Union has over
two hundred branches in Great Britain, and a total membership of about
20,000. It is the only British Woman's Suffrage Society affiliated to
the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.