698 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



C0rrjesp^aMjeiicje. 



OCCUPATIONS, PRIVILEGES, AND 

 DUTIES OF WOMAN. 



Editor Popular Science MontMy : 

 O IR : In consideration of the great inter- 

 10 est I felt in an able article in your maga- 

 zine for May, entitled Political Rights and 

 Duties of Woman, I venture to express some 

 of the thoughts which stirred me upon its 

 perusal. 



As I understood them, the writer's objec- 

 tions to the principle of woman suffrage 

 can be classed under three general heads : 

 objections as to the advisability or possibil- 

 ity of certain occupations for women ; objec- 

 tions on the plea of the privileges which they 

 already enjoy ; and objections based on the 

 idea of any change in the character- of woman, 

 as wife or mother. 



It is to me a matter of surprise, as it 

 must be to many, that the question of occu- 

 pation should be considered as having any 

 bearing whatsoever upon the subject. Al- 

 though irrelevant, in a consideration of it, 

 we must own the magnitude of the subject, 

 as viewed not only in regard to woman but 

 to all human kind. What class can take 

 upon itself the responsibility of dictating to 

 any other class what occupation it is or is 

 not fitted to enter upon ? It is easily seen 

 that such a course would inevitably clip the 

 wings of progress, as it is a tenet of its 

 movement that the fittest survive, and the 

 unusually gifted of one generation become 

 in some degree the type of the next. Of 

 one thing we may be sure, that no one per- 

 forms tasks for which he is incapable, and 

 those succeed who possess the faculties ne- 

 cessary to success. A majority of the walks 

 of life have already been thrown open 

 to women, so that the question of a new 

 occupation opened for them by the right of 

 ballot, narrows itself down to the one of 

 officeseeking and ofticeholding. We on 

 both sides of the question own, of course, 

 that not all women will desire to enter upon 

 this work, or to take advantage of their 

 political rights, with any more alacrity than 

 do a large share of men. There is one thing 

 of which I may be permitted to feel sure, 

 that if any woman succeeds in wresting office 

 from a masculine candidate, or even in time 

 reaches the White House, it will be by means 

 of abilities which no one can gainsay, for, 

 rather than that votes will be given her be- 

 cause she is a woman, the likelihood will be 

 that she will wrest them from prejudice and 

 conservatism in spite of that fact. 



Every year is further proving that sex 

 does not extend to intellect, and those who 

 still hold to that belief will in the course of 



time have to blind their eyes to a great 

 many facts in order to cherish it. The 

 grande passion stirs men as well as women, 

 and has power to inspire or weaken in the 

 same degree. 



Women are a privileged class, the paper 

 says. It is true that few of us have any 

 remembrance but of kindness and love from 

 father, husband, and brother, and that very 

 many of us have no great Avrongs to bring 

 to light, no troubles for which to claim re- 

 dress. But it is hardly a privilege we enjoy 

 to be loved, but rather mere justice, for do 

 we not love also, and are we not in the 

 same degree kind ? These privileges, if we 

 may call them so, which we mutually enjoy, 

 I hardly think can be weakened by the 

 ballot or by anything less than a sudden 

 change and upheaval in the heart of the 

 universe itself. It is a privilege, we read, 

 that women enjoy in being " exempted 

 from the perils, wounds, and deaths incident 

 to war " ; that the ballot now takes the 

 place of the more savage conflict of war, and 

 in this conflict, as in the other, women are 

 exempt. You can't exempt women from 

 fighting ; five out of six fight. They fight, as 

 does man, the forces of Nature, time, flesh, 

 and the devil. Woman is in the thick of the 

 world's conflict, whatever and wherever her 

 arena, as are all human creatures, struggling 

 with that friction which is progress, with 

 those forces with which processes of evolu- 

 tion polish the stone for the workman, the 

 soul for its soaring. The potter binds her 

 soul to his wheel, as yours is bound, and 

 what she desires is the same freedom, the 

 same room for her wings. 



Certainly, now that the conflict has been 

 removed from the open field of war to the 

 more peaceful one of the ballot, the old and 

 earliest valid reason for dictating to her — her 

 minimum of physical strength — has been re- 

 moved. In no way of life, except in those 

 old, savage, hand-to-hand struggles, is the 

 race invariably to the physically strongest. 

 Do the athletes, the prize fighters, bestow a 

 privilege upon weaker men when they re- 

 frain from knocking them down? The 

 necessary requisite, after all, is not brute 

 strength, but health. 



The question of character is a very large 

 one, and moved by far too mysterious and 

 wonderful forces to be decided by the ballot. 

 It may be that many men are mistaken in 

 their idea that the qualities of gentleness, 

 amiability, obedience, or a small range of 

 thought, make women better wives and 

 mothers than human beings who are capable 

 of justice, breadth of view, strength of judg- 

 ment, and wide sympathies and interests. 



