Читать книгу Ginger-Snaps - Fern Fanny - Страница 15

I DO not know who writes the editorials on the "Woman Question" in its various aspects, in our more prominent New York papers. I read them from day to day, with real disappointment at their immaturity, their flippancy, their total lack of manliness, and respect for, or appreciation of, true womanhood. I say this in no spirit of bitterness, but of real sorrow, that men stepping into the responsible position they hold on those papers, have not better considered the subjects of which they treat. That the writers are not known outside the office, seems to me a very unmanly reason for their misrepresentations. Every morning I ask, over my coffee, Have these men mothers, sisters, wives, who so persistently misrepresent the doings of self-respecting, self-supporting, intelligent women? Does Congress make no mistakes, that women should be expected, in their pioneering, to have arrived at absolute perfection? Is there no heat, in debate, on its floor; no uncourteousness of language? Did not one member, a short time since, call out there to have another member "spanked"? Does the speaker's mallet never call to order, men selected by their constituents, because supposed most intelligently to represent the various local and other interests of the country? Does the cut of a man's hair or coat injuriously or approbatively affect his speech upon the floors? Does anybody care what color it is, or how worn? I ask myself these questions when I read reports of "strong-minded women's meetings," as they are sneeringly termed, which consist mainly on the absence of a "long train" to their dresses, or the presence of it; on the straightness of their hair, or the frizzing of it; on the lack of ornamentation, or the redundance of it. This mocking, Mephistopheles-dodging of the real questions at issue, behind flimsy screens, seems to me not only most unworthy of these writers, but most unworthy of, and prejudicial to, the prominent journals in which they appear.

If they think that women make such grave mistakes, – mistakes prejudicial to the great interests they seek publicly to promote, the great wrongs they seek to right, – would it not be kinder and more manly, courteously to point them out, if so be that they themselves know "a more excellent way"? Among all these women, are there none who are intelligent, intellectual, earnest, and modest withal? Have the editors of these very papers in which these attacks appear, never gladly employed just such, to lend grace, wit, and spirit to their own columns, that they have only sneers and taunts for the cause they espouse, and never a brave, kind, sympathetic recognition of their philanthropic efforts? Is the cause so utterly Quixotic, espoused by such women, who make their own homes bright with good cheer, neatness, taste, and wholesome food, that they cannot gallantly extend a manly hand after it and help them over those bright thresholds, and out into a world full of pain and misery, to lift the burden from their less favored sisters?

If they have the misfortune not to know such women among "the strong-minded," would it not be well to seek them out, and better inform themselves on the subjects upon which they daily write?

The pioneer women who have bravely gone forward, and still keep "marching on," undaunted in the face of this unmanly and ungenerous dealing, have, doubtless, counted the cost, and will not be hindered by it. I do not fear that; but I do regret that any editor of a prominent paper in New York should belittle it and himself, by allowing any of his employés to keep up this boyish pop-gun firing into the air.

The other night, I attended a lecture, the proceeds of which were to be devoted to a charitable institution for women.

Now here was a man willing to do this for the particular women's charity to be benefited by it, but he couldn't do it without stepping out of his way to sneer at female suffrage and kindred movements which are advocated and engineered by pure, intelligent, cultivated, earnest women, or fixing his seal of approbation on this particular branch of philanthropy, as the only remedy for all the ills that come of an empty purse and a grieved heart.

And just here is the fly in all these philanthropic ointments. Mix your medicines in my shop, or they will turn out poisons. That is the spirit. Now I don't believe that one society, or one man or woman, is the pivot on which this universe turns; and wishing well, as I do every progressive, humanitarian movement, I deplore that its leaders will not keep this fact in mind. I don't say that I wish women would keep it in mind, for I am a diligent reader of newspapers, and I see men every day ignoring this broad foundation of civilization. I see them making mouths at each other over a political bone or religious fence; or I hear naughty names called, because one man grabbed a bit of news for his paper, and scampered off with it to the dear public, before his editorial neighbor got scent of it. Oh, women don't do all the gossip and slander and back-biting in the world. They don't make all the silly or stupid speeches either. Nor do they "rush into print," any oftener than certain unquiet male spirits, "thirsting for notoriety," as the phrase goes, who think they know when a colt is a horse, and vice versa, better than any other man, because they studied Greek at Oxford. Humbug is not always a female, but when humbug is a female, she generally hails from the top round of the ladder! I am happy to say that, though I may be putting a stone into the hands of mine adversary by the admission!

Human nature might be improved, even in the year 1869. How glad the pop-gun clergyman of a small parish is, when some clerical big-gun is supposed to make a false move on the sacerdotal chequer-board! How he rushes publicly to "deplore" that his "dear brother in Christ should lay himself open to the world's censure in this manner"! His "dear brother's" popularity and big salary were not the animus of that criticism – oh, no! Now I'm not one of those who believe that "a minister" is certainly a saint, above his fellows; or that Christianity is benefited by refusing to admit the shortcomings of church-members. I once heard Rev. Dr. Hall preach a sermon on this subject, every word of which was pure gold and ought to be printed in pamphlet form and placed in the pews of all our churches.

"Mix your medicines in my shop, or they will be poisons"! How sick I am of it! There is so much elbow room in the world, why fight only for one corner? But men, set us "weak women" such a terrible example, fighting and squabbling about straws, and whining when they are defeated. Now, if instead of wasting their time this way, or idling it away as fashionable loungers, – I speak after the manner of the New York – to women, – if instead of belonging to useless up-town clubs, where with the heads of their canes in their mouths, they sit in the day-time, measuring passing female ankles, or drinking and talking male scandal, or betting; – if instead they would – each butter-fly son of them – take some good, interesting book, and finding some tenement house, sit down of an evening and amuse some laboring man, who would else flee from the discomforts of such a place to the nearest grog-shop, how noble would this male butterfly of Fifth Avenue then appear! In fact, this particular form of benevolence commends itself to me as the only one that could rescue him from the butterfly existence of up-town clubs.

A thought strikes me! As the "New York – " remarks, when advising women to teach sewing to poor girls, "but perhaps these female butterflies of Fifth Avenue don't know themselves how to sew." Alas! should these male butterflies of the Fifth Avenue club-houses not know how to read, when they get to the tenement house of their poor brother!

Now, to conclude, I see nothing antagonistic to a sewing-machine in a woman's vote, but the Editor of the New York – is always throwing a blanket over a woman's head, for fear she will see a ballot-box. You may make soup, my dear, graciously says he, for poor women; or flannel shirts for very little paupers, if you'll promise not to burn your fingers in politics. That never'll do, my dear! It is not