The position of woman: actual and ideal / with preface by Sir Oliver Lodge.

Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The position of woman: actual and ideal / with preface by Sir Oliver Lodge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    181/192 (page 165)
    I have left myself only the thorny question of the political position of women. It is a matter for regret that, owing to circumstances to which I need not allude, we have had no thorough and dispassionate survey of this question. And I have neither the time, nor the inclination, nor the capacity, to go over the whole field of argument. But I should like to make two initial points. One is that the political question as regards women is not exclusively bound up with, still less is it identical with, the question of the franchise. And, secondly, the question of the franchise 1s too often discussed as if it depended upon the political capacity of women. A good deal of what seems to me wasted research and ingenuity has been expended in collecting isolated instances in history of social or political equality between the sexes. It would be more to the point if it could be demonstrated that the legal or the social position of women was in any degree bettered by the al- leged exercise of admittedly exceptional func- tions. But the broad fact remains that, without the franchise or with an infinitesimal share in it, women have in the past exercised great political influence. Miss Lumsden points with absolute justification to the eminent politicial qualities displayed by female rulers such as Catherine II of Russia and our own Queens, Elizabeth and Vic- toria. The reign of Anne, one of the most ordinary of women, was more distinguished than that of the majority of kings, and the reign of William ITI