The Fraud of Feminism 1

The Fraud of Feminism 1

The Fraud of Feminism

Author: Ernest Belfort Bax

CONTENTS

 

 

PAGE

PREFACE 1

 

INTRODUCTION 5

 

CHAPTER

I. HISTORICAL 11

 

II. THE MAIN DOGMA OF MODERN FEMINISM 20

 

III. THE ANTI-MAN CRUSADE 51

 

IV. ALWAYS THE “INJURED INNOCENT” 80

 

V. THE “CHIVALRY” FAKE 98

 

VI. SOME FEMINIST LIES AND FALLACIES 109

 

VII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MOVEMENT 140

 

VIII. THE INDICTMENT 161

 

 

 

 

_PREFACE_

 

 

_The present volume aims at furnishing a succinct exposure of the

pretensions of the Modern Feminist Movement. It aims at presenting

the case against it with an especial view to tracking down and

gibbetting the infamous falsehoods, the conventional statements, which

are not merely perversions of the truth, but which are directly and

categorically contrary to the truth, but which pass muster by sheer

force of uncontradicted repetition. It is by this kind of bluff that

the claims of Feminism are sustained. The following is a fair example

of the statements of Feminist writers:—“As for accusing the world at

large of fatuous indulgence for womanhood in general, the idea is too

preposterous for words. The true ‘legends of the Old Bailey’ tell, not

of women absurdly acquitted, but of miserable girls sent to the gallows

for murders committed in half delirious dread of the ruthlessness of

hypocritical Society.” Now it is this sort of legend that it is one

of the chief objects of the following pages to explode. Of course the

“fatuous indulgence” for “womanhood in general,” practised by the

“world at large,” is precisely one of the most conspicuous features

of our time, and the person who denies it, if he is not deliberately

prevaricating, must be a veritable Rip van Winkle awakening out of a

sleep lasting at least two generations. Similarly the story of the

“miserable girls sent to the gallows,” etc., is, as far as living

memory is concerned, a pure legend. It is well known that in the cases

referred to of the murder of their new-born children by girls, at the

very outside a year or two’s light imprisonment is the only penalty

actually inflicted. The acquittal of women on the most serious charges,

especially where the victims are men, in the teeth of the strongest

evidence, is, on the other hand, an everyday occurrence. Now it is

statements like the above on which, as already said, the Feminist

Movement thrives; its most powerful argumentative weapon with the man

in the street is the legend that woman is oppressed by man. It is

rarely that anyone takes the trouble to refute the legend in general,

or any specific case adduced as an illustration of it. When, however,

the bluff is exposed, when the real facts of the case are laid bare to

public notice, and woman is shown, not only as not oppressed but as

privileged, up to the top of her bent, then the apostles of Feminism,

male and female, being unable to make even a plausible case out in

reply, with one consent resort to the boycott, and, by ignoring what

they cannot answer, seek to stop the spread of the unpleasant truth so

dangerous to their cause. The pressure put upon publishers and editors

by the influential Feminist sisterhood is well known._

 

_For the rest, it must not be supposed that this little book makes any

claim to exhaust the subject or to be a scientific treatise. It is, and

is meant to be, a popular refutation of the current arguments in favour

of Feminism, and a brief statement of the case against Feminism. Sir

Almroth Wright’s short treatise, “The Unexpurgated Case against Woman’s

Suffrage,” which deals with the question from a somewhat different

standpoint, may be consulted with advantage by the reader._

 

_An acknowledgment should be made to the editor of _The New Age_ for

the plucky stand made by that journal in the attempt to dam the onrush

of sentimental slush set free by the self-constituted champions of

womanhood. I have also to thank two eminent medical authorities for

reading the proofs of my second chapter._

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

In the following pages it is not intended to furnish a treatise on the

evolution of woman generally or of her place in society, but simply to

offer a criticism on the theory and practice of what is known as Modern

Feminism.

 

By Modern Feminism I understand a certain attitude of mind towards

the female sex. This attitude of mind is often self-contradictory and

illogical. While on the one hand it will claim, on the ground of the

intellectual and moral equality of women with men, the concession of

female suffrage, and commonly, in addition thereto, the admission of

women to all professions, offices and functions of public life; on the

other it will strenuously champion the preservation and intensification

of the privileges and immunities before the law, criminal and civil, in

favour of women, which have grown up in the course of the nineteenth

century.

 

The above attitude, with all its inconsistencies, has at its back a

strong sex-conscious party, or sex union, as we may term it, among

women, and a floating mass of inconsequent, slushy sentiment among

men. There is more than one popular prejudice which obscures the

meaning and significance of Modern Feminism with many people. There

is a common theory, for instance, based upon what really obtained to

some extent before the prevalence of Modern Feminism, that in any case

of antagonism between the two sexes, women always take the man’s side

against the woman. Now this theory, if it ever represented the true

state of the case, has long ceased to do so.

 

The powerful female sex union spoken of, in the present day, exercises

such a strong pressure in the formation of public opinion among

women, that it is rapidly becoming next to impossible, even in the

most flagrant cases, where man is the victim, to get any woman to

acknowledge that another woman has committed a wrong. On the other

hand it may be noted, that the entire absence of any consciousness of

sex antagonism in the attitude of men towards women, combined with

an intensification of the old-world chivalry prescribed by tradition

towards the so-called weaker sex, exercises, if anything, an increasing

sway over male public opinion. Hence the terrific force Feminism has

obtained in the world of the early twentieth century.

 

It is again often supposed, and this is also a mistake, that in

individual cases of dispute between the sexes, the verdict, let

us say of a jury of men, in favour of the female prisoner or the

female litigant is solely or even mainly determined by the fact of

the latter’s good looks. This may indeed play a part; but it is easy

to show from records of cases that it is a subordinate one—that,

whatever her looks or her age may be, the verdict is given her not so

much because she is a _pretty_ woman as because she is a _woman_. Here

again the question of attractiveness may have played a more potent part

in determining male verdicts in the days before Feminist sentiment

and Feminist views had reached their present dominance. But now the

question of sex alone, of being a woman, is sufficient to determine

judgment in her favour.

 

There is a trick with which votaries of Feminism seek to prejudice the

public mind against its critics, and that is the “fake” that any man

who ventures to criticise the pretensions of Feminism, is actuated by

motives of personal rancour against the female sex, owing to real or

imaginary wrongs suffered by him at the hands of some member or members

of the sex. I suppose it may be possible that there are persons, not

precisely microcephalous idiots, who could be made to believe such

stuff as this in disparagement of him who ventures an independent

judgment on these questions; otherwise the conduct of Feminists in

adopting this line of argument would be incomprehensible. But we

would fain believe that the number of these feeble-minded persons,

who believe there is any connection between a man having independent

judgment enough to refuse to bend the knee to Modern Feminist dogma,

and his having quarrelled with any or all of his female friends or

relations, cannot be very numerous. As a matter of fact there is not

one single prominent exponent of views hostile to the pretensions of

what is called the “Woman’s Movement” of the present day, respecting

whom there is a tittle of evidence of his not having lived all his life

on the best of terms with his womankind. There is only one case known

of indirectly by the present writer, and that not of a prominent writer

or speaker on the subject, that would afford any plausible excuse

whatever for alleging anti-Feminist views to have been influenced by

personal motives of this kind. I am aware, of course, that Feminists,

with their usual mendacity, have made lying statements to this effect

respecting well-nigh every prominent writer on the anti-Feminist side,

in the hope of influencing the aforesaid feeble-minded members of

the public against their opponents. But a very little investigation

suffices to show in every case the impudent baselessness of their

allegations. The contemptible silliness of this method of controversy

should render it unworthy of serious remark, and my only excuse

for alluding to it is the significant sidelight it casts upon the

intellectual calibre of those who resort to it, and of the confidence

or want of confidence they have in the inherent justice of their cause and the logical strength of their case.