The Fraud of Feminism 3

The Fraud of Feminism 3

CHAPTER II

 

THE MAIN DOGMA OF MODERN FEMINISM

 

 

We have pointed out in the last chapter that Modern Feminism has two

sides, the positive, definite, and articulate side, which ostensibly

claims equality between the sexes, the chief concern of which is

the conferring of all the rights and duties of men upon women, and

the opening up of all careers to them. The justification of these

demands is based upon the dogma, that, notwithstanding appearances

to the contrary, women are endowed by nature with the same capacity

intellectually and morally as men. We have further pointed out that

there is another side in Modern Feminism which in a vague way claims

for women immunity from criminal law and special privileges on the

ground of sex in civil law. The basis of this side of Feminism is a

sentimentalism—_i.e._ an unequally distributed sentiment in favour

of women, traditional and acquired. It is seldom even attempted to

base this sentimental claim for women on argument at all. The utmost

attempts in this direction amount to vague references to physical

weakness, and to the claim for special consideration deriving from

the old theory of the mental and moral weakness of the female sex, so

strenuously combated as out of date, when the first side of Modern

Feminism is being contended for. The more or less inchoate assumptions

of the second or sentimental side of the modern “Woman’s Movement”

amounts practically, as already stated, to a claim for women to be

allowed to commit crimes without incurring the penalties imposed by the

law for similar crimes when committed by men. It should be noted that

in practice the most strenuous advocates of the positive and articulate

side of Feminism are also the sincerest upholders of the unsubstantial

and inarticulate assumptions of the sentimental side of the same creed.

This is noticeable whenever a woman is found guilty of a particularly

atrocious crime. It is somewhat rare for women to be convicted of

such crimes at all, since the influence of sentimental Feminism with

judges and juries is sufficient to procure an acquittal, no matter how

conclusive the evidence to the contrary. Even if women are found guilty

it is usual for a virtually nominal sentence to be passed. Should,

however, a woman by any chance be convicted of a heinous crime, such

as murder or maiming, under specially aggravated circumstances, and a

sentence be passed such as would be unanimously sanctioned by public

opinion in the case of a man, then we find the whole Feminist world

up in arms. The outcry is led by self-styled upholders of equality

between the sexes, the apostles of the positive side of Feminism, who

_bien entendu_ claim the eradication of sex boundaries in political

and social life on the ground of women being of equal capacity with

men, but who, when moral responsibility is in question, conveniently

fall back on a sentiment, the only conceivable ground for which is to

be found in the time-honoured theory of the mental and moral weakness

of the female sex. As illustrations of the truth of the foregoing, the

reader may be referred to the cases of Florence Doughty in 1906, who

shot at and wounded a solicitor with whom she had relations, together

with his son; to Daisy Lord in 1908, for the murder of her new-born

child; to the case of the Italian murderess, Napolitano in Canada,

convicted of the cold-blooded butchery of her husband in his sleep

in 1911, for whose reprieve a successful agitation was got up by the

suffrage societies!

 

Let us first of all consider the dogma at the basis of the positive

side of Modern Feminism, which claims rational grounds of fact and

reason for itself, and professes to be able to make good its case

by virtue of such grounds. This dogma consists in the assertion of

equality in intellectual capacity, in spite of appearances to the

contrary, of women with men. I think it will be admitted that the

articulate objects of Modern Feminism, taking them one with another,

rest on this dogma, and on this dogma alone. I know it has been argued

as regards the question of suffrage, that the demand does not rest

solely upon the admission of equality of capacity, since men of a

notoriously inferior mental order are not excluded from voting upon

that ground, but the fallacy of this last argument is obvious. In

all these matters we have to deal with averages. Public opinion has

hitherto recognised the average of women as being intellectually below

the voting standard, and the average man as not. This, if admitted,

is enough to establish the anti-suffrage thesis. The latter is not

affected by the fact that it is possible to find certain individual men

of inferior intelligence and therefore less intrinsically qualified

to form a political judgment than certain specially gifted women.

The pretended absurdity of “George Eliot having no vote, and of her

gardener having one” is really no absurdity at all. In the first place,

given the economic advantages which conferred education upon the

novelist, and not upon the gardener, there is not sufficient evidence

available that his judgment in public affairs might not have been even

superior to that of George Eliot herself. Moreover, the possession

of exceptionally strong imaginative faculty, expressing itself as

literary genius or talent in works of fiction, does not necessarily

imply exceptional power of political judgment. But, be this as it may,

where averages are in question, exceptions obviously do not count.

 

The underlying assumption of the suffrage movement may therefore be

taken to be the average equality of the sexes as regards intellectual

value.[24:1]

 

[24:1] I believe there are some Feminist fanatics who pretend

to maintain the superiority of the female mind, but I doubt

whether this thesis is taken seriously even by those who put it

forward. In any case there are limits to the patent absurditie

which it is worth while to refute by argument.

 

An initial difficulty exists in proving theoretically the intellectual

inferiority of women to men, or even their relative unsuitability for

fulfilling functions involving a special order of judgment. There are

such things as matters of fact which are open to common observation

and which none think of denying or calling in question unless they

have some special reason for doing so. Now it is always possible to

deny a fact, however evident it may be to ordinary perception, and it

is equally impossible to prove that the person calling in question

the aforesaid evident fact is either lying (or shall we say is

“prevaricating”), or even that he is a person hopelessly abnormal in

his organs of sense-perception.

 

At the time of writing, the normal person who has no axe to grind in

maintaining the contrary, declares the sun to be shining brightly,

but should it answer the purpose of anyone to deny this obvious fact,

and declare that the day is gloomy and overcast, there is no power of

argument by which I can prove that I am right and he is wrong. I may

point to the sun, but if he chooses to affirm that he doesn’t see it I

can’t prove that he does. This is, of course, an extreme case, scarcely

likely to occur in actual life. But it is in essence similar to those

cases of persons (and they are not seldom met with) who, when they

find facts hopelessly destructive of a certain theoretical position

adopted by them, do not hesitate to cut the knot of controversy in

their own favour by boldly denying the inconvenient facts. One often

has experience of this trick of controversy in discussing the question

of the notorious characteristics of the female sex. The Feminist driven

into a corner endeavours to save his face by flatly denying matters

open to common observation and admitted as obvious by all who are not

Feminists. Such facts are the pathological mental condition peculiar to

the female sex, commonly connoted by the term hysteria; the absence,

or at best the extremely imperfect development of the logical faculty

in most women; the inability of the average woman in her judgment of

things to rise above personal considerations; and, what is largely a

consequence of this, the lack of a sense of abstract justice and fair

play among women in general. The aforesaid peculiarities of women,

as women, are, I contend, matters of common observation and are only

disputed by those persons—to wit Feminists—to whose theoretical

views and practical demands their admission would be inconvenient if

not fatal. Of course these characterisations refer to averages, and

they do not exclude partial or even occasionally striking exceptions.

It is possible, therefore, although perhaps not very probable, that

individual experience may in the case of certain individuals play a

part in falsifying their general outlook; it is possible—although,

as I before said not perhaps very probable—that any given man’s

experience of the other sex has been limited to a few quite exceptional

women and that hence his particular experience contradicts that of

the general run of mankind. In this case, of course, his refusal to

admit what to others are self-evident facts would be perfectly _bona

fide_. The above highly improbable contingency is the only refuge for

those who would contend for sincerity in the Feminist’s denials. In

this matter I only deal with the male Feminist. The female Feminist is

usually too biassed a witness in this particular question.

 

Now let us consider the whole of the differentiations of the

mental character between man and woman in the light of a further

generalisation which is sufficiently obvious in itself and which has

been formulated with special clearness by the late Otto Weininger in

his remarkable book, “Geschlecht und Charakter” (Sex and Character). I

refer to the observations contained in Section II., Chaps. 2 and 3. The

point has been, of course, previously noted, and the present writer,

among others, has on various occasions called special attention to it.

But its formulation and elaboration by Weininger is the most complete

I know. The truth in question consists in the fact, undeniable to all

those not rendered impervious to facts by preconceived dogma, that,

as I have elsewhere put it, while man _has_ a sex, woman _is_ a sex.

Let us hear Weininger on this point. “Woman is _only_ sexual, man is

_also_ sexual. Alike in time and space this difference may be traced

in man, parts of his body susceptible to sexual excitement are small

in number and strictly localised. In woman sexuality is diffused over

the whole body, every contact on whatever part excites her sexually.”

Weininger points out that while the sexual element in man, owing to

the physiological character of the sexual organs, may be at times more

violent than that in woman, yet that it is spasmodic and occurs in

crises separated by intervals of quiescence. In woman, on the other

hand, while less spasmodic, it is continuous. The sexual instinct with

man being, as he styles it, “an appendix” and no more, he can raise

himself mentally entirely outside of it. “He is conscious of it as

of something which he possesses but which is not inseparate from the

rest of his nature. He can view it objectively. With woman this is

not the case; the sex element is part of her whole nature. Hence, it

is not as with man, clearly recognisable in local manifestations, but