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.

    183/192 (page 167)
    but which seem to me quite inapplicable to the other sex, A far stronger argument is that women require the vote in order to ensure legislation to redress social evils from which women are the chief sufferers. If I thought that the granting of the franchise to women was the only, or the best, means of obtaining such legislation, I should be inclined to say that a strong case had been made out for the concession. But I am not without hopes that the desired end may be attained without the necessary employment of this particular means. The essential question is not whether the fran- chise is necessary to enable women to exert poli- tical influence. It is whether it is desirable in the interests of the community to break the long tra- dition which has associated ultimate political re- sponsibility, as it has associated the duty of national defence, with the male sex. I am inclined to think that the demand for the vote is part of that revolt against what is deemed to be mascu- line domination, which may be carried to dan- gerous extremes, and that the concession of the demand would be a gigantic stride towards that identity of occupations which seems to be incon- sistent with the assumption of deep-seated dif- ferences between the two sexes. Woman has plenty of burdens. She has the care of the family, she has often the obligation of self- maintenance, she has the ever-widening field of philanthropy and of local administration. I ques- tion whether she should be encouraged to plunge