The Business of Being a Woman

neasy

ibit of restlessness the American woman gives. To an unaccustomed observer she seems always to be running about on the face of things with no other purpose than to put in her time. He points to the triviality of the things in which she can immerse herself-her fantastic and ever-changing raiment, the welter

mancipation of woman. At a time when she is freer than at any other period of the worl

, have always been unwelcome. Society distrusts uneasiness in sacred quarters; that is, in her established and privileged works. They are the best mankind has to show for itself. At least they are the things for which the race

arassed. Woman, by virtue of the business nature assigns her, has always been theoretically the maker and keeper of this necessary place of peace. But she has rarely made it and kept it with full content. Eve was

he declared the Continental Congress must relieve if it would avoid a woman's rebellion. Under the stress of the Revolution children, apprentices, schools, colleges, Indians, an

freely and fully she must pay in unrest and vagaries. For the normal woman the fulfillment of life is the making of the thing we bes

ually getting into each other's way, wrecking each other's plans, frustrating each other's schemes. The woman almost never is able to adjust her life so as

gs upon ear

ruised is wom

old, hoarded f

man's love; and

r flesh! There

hame. And then

l, what shall

he must have

ght her that-h

s thing that sle

boring long, sh

rd may bear wi

iercely, bless

woman

iest curse society brings on human beings-the most fertile cause of apathy, agony, and failure. If the woman's cry is more poignant under it than the man's, it is because the machine which holds them both allows him a wi

the world, seek a soporific, repudiate the scheme of things, or from the vantage point

ullest, grossest forms. Again, whole groups have taken themselves out of the partnership which both Nature and Society have ordered. The Amazons refused to recognize man as an equal and mated si

such proportions, to so diversify, refine, and broaden it that no half failure or utter failure of its fundamental relations would swamp her, leave her comfortless, or prevent her working out that family which she kn

ninity, as the world knew it. Theoretically, too, her ears were no longer to be closed to all ideas save those of her church or party,-a new thing, freedom of speech, was abroad,-her lips were opened with man's. Moreover, her business of family building was modified, as well as her attitude towards life. The necessity of all women educating themselves that they might be able to educate their children was an obligation on the face of the new undertaking. Another revolutionary duty put upon her was-paying her way. There can be no re

ast they put int

w notions worked on women. There were groups which resented and refused them, became reactionary at the stating of them. There were those which grew grave and troubled under them, shrinking from the portentous upheaval they felt in their touch, yet sensing that they must be accepted. T

the Amazon had a body of women broken more utterly with things as they

revolt, which has gone on systematically ever since. The essence of her complaint, as embodied in the above expression, is that man is a conscious tyrant holding woman an unwilling captive-cutting her off from the things in life which real

n conducted heretofore by society, is of less importance than the Business of Be

go in the world? And is not man a victim as well as she-caught in the same trap? Moreover, is woman never a tyrant? One of the first answers to her original revolt came from the most eminent woman of the day, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and it was call

temperamental and intellectual operations were identical with a man's, there would be hope of success,-but they are not. She is a

ically different being. Can she realize her quest in this way? Generally speaking, nothing is more wasteful in hu

ce is not capable of argument in their minds. Nor do they see themselves dwarfed by their business. They know instinctively that under no other circumstances can such ripeness and

ch, society, republic,-this is their destiny,-this is worth while. They may not be able to state it, but all their instincts and experiences convince them of the supreme and eternal value of their place in the world. They dare not tamper with it. Their opposition to the militant program badly and even cruelly expressed at times has at bottom, as an opposition always has, the principle of preservation. It is not bigotry or van

eat his wife-but as a matter of fact few men did beat their wives, and popular opinion was a powerful weapon. They might deplore the laws of property-but few of them were deeply touched by them. The husband, the child, the home, the social circle, the church, these things were i

hasis in her program and her methods. If she is to attract attention, she must be extreme. The campaigner is like the actor-he must exaggerate to get his effect over the footlights. Moreover, there are natures like that of the actor who could not play Othello unless his whole body was blackened. Nor is the

ion than fixing blame. It is half a cure in itself to know or to think you know the cause of your difficulties. Moreover, it gives her a scapegoat against whom it is easy to make up a case. She knows him too well, much better than he knows her, much bett

does, get into politics-that she assumes to be the practical way of curing the inferiority of position and of powers which she is willing to admit, even willing to demonstrate. That a man's lif

She has, however, had an enormous influence in keeping them alive in the great slow-moving mass of women, where the fate of new ideas rests and where they are always tried out with extreme caution. Without her the vision of enlarging and liberalizing their own particular business to meet the needs of the New Democracy which so exalted the women of the Revolution, would not to-day be as nearly realized as it is. To speak slightingly of her part in the women's movement is uncomprehending. She was then, and always has been, a tragic figure, this woman in the front of the woman's movement-driven by a great unrest, sacrificing old ideals to attain new, losing herself in a frant

from the campaign for woman's rights. All the vague terror which at times runs through a girl's dream of marriage, the sudden vision of probable agonies, of possible failure and death, become under

the excitement and triumph of a "career." The Business of Being a Woman becomes something to be apologized for. All over the land there are women with children clamoring about them, apologizing for never having done anything! Women whose days are spent in trade and professions complacen

ut radiant. Curing injustice, too, seems particularly easy to the young. It is simply a matter of finding a remedy and putting it into force! The young American woman of militant cast finds it is easy to believe that the Business of Being a Woman is slavery. She has her mother's pains and sacrific

n by the fact that she is still the most conspicuous of Uneasy Women. But that she has produced a type and an influential one is certain.

TNO

1

ION OF S

rth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entit

t, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by a

part of man towards woman, having in direct object the establishment of an abs

exercise her inalienable rig

mit to laws, in the formati

are given to the most ignorant and deg

ctive franchise, thereby leaving her without representation i

rried, in the eyes of

l right in property, eve

presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to

om the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women-the

the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government whi

receives but a scanty remuneration. He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction whi

r obtaining a thorough education, a

iming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with s

f morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude wom

ming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of acti

r confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect,