 Part 7. The Hypocrisy of Puritanism, from Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Hypocrisy of Puritanism Speaking of Puritanism in relation to American art, Mr. Gutsen Borglum said, Puritanism has made us self-centered and hypocritical for so long that sincerity and reverence for what is natural in our impulses have been fairly bred out of us, with the result that there can be neither truth nor individuality in our art. Mr. Borglum might have added that Puritanism has made life itself impossible. More than art, more than aestheticism, life represents beauty in a thousand variations. It is indeed a gigantic panorama of eternal change. Puritanism, on the other hand, rests on a fixed and immovable conception of life. It is based on the Calvinistic idea that life is a curse imposed upon man by the wrath of God. In order to redeem himself, man must do constant penance, must repudiate every natural and healthy impulse, and turn his back on joy and beauty. Puritanism celebrated its reign of terror in England during the 16th and 17th centuries, destroying and crushing every manifestation of art and culture. It was the spirit of Puritanism which robbed Shelley of his children because he would not bow to the dicta of religion. It was the same narrow spirit which alienated Byron from his native land because that great genius rebelled against the monotony, dullness and pettiness of his country. It was Puritanism too that forced some of England's freest women into the conventional lie of marriage. Mary Wollstonecraft and later George Elliott. And recently Puritanism has demanded another toll, the life of Oscar Wilde. In fact, Puritanism has never ceased to be the most pernicious factor in the domain of John Bull, acting as censor of the artistic expression of his people and stamping its approval only on the dullness of middle-class respectability. It is, therefore, sheer British jingoism which points to America as the country of Puritanic provincialism. It is quite true that our life is stunted by Puritanism and that the latter is killing what is natural and healthy in our impulses. But it is equally true that it is to England that we are indebted for transplanting this spirit on American soil. It was bequeathed to us by the pilgrim fathers. Fleeing from persecution and oppression, the pilgrims of Mayflower fame established in the New World a reign of Puritanic tyranny and crime. The history of New England and especially of Massachusetts is full of the horrors that have turned life into gloom, joy into despair, naturalness into disease, honesty and truth into hideous lies and hypocrisies. The ducking stool and whipping-post as well as numerous other devices of torture were the favorite English methods for American purification. Boston, the city of culture, has gone down in the annals of Puritanism as the bloody town. It rivaled Salem even in her cruel persecution of unauthorized religious opinions. On the now famous Common, a half-naked woman with a baby in her arms was publicly whipped for the crime of free speech, and on the same spot Mary Dyer, another Quaker woman, was hanged in 1659. In fact, Boston has been the scene of more than one wanton crime committed by Puritanism. Salem, in the summer of 1692, killed 18 people for witchcraft, nor was Massachusetts alone in driving out the devil by fire and brimstone. As Canning justly said, the pilgrim fathers infested the New World to redress the balance of the old. The horrors of that period have found their most supreme expression in the American classic, the Scarlet Letter. Puritanism no longer employs the thumbscrew and lash, but it still has a most pernicious hold on the minds and feelings of the American people. Not else can explain the power of a Comstock. Like the Torquemadas of Anti-Bellum days, Anthony Comstock is the autocrat of American morals. He dictates the standards of good and evil, of purity and vice. Like a thief in the night, he sneaks into the private lives of the people into their most intimate relations. The system of espionage established by this man Comstock puts to shame the infamous third division of the Russian secret police. Why does the public tolerate such an outrage on its liberties? Simply because Comstock is but the loud expression of the Puritanism bred in the Anglo-Saxon blood, and from whose thralldom even liberals have not succeeded in fully emancipating themselves. The visionless and ledden elements of the old Young Men's and Women's Christian Temperance Unions, Purity Leagues, American Sabbath Unions, and the Prohibition Party, with Anthony Comstock as their patron saint, are the gravediggers of American art and culture. Europe can at least boast of a bold art and literature which delved deeply into the social and sexual problems of our time, exercising a severe critique of all our shams, as with a surgeon's knife every Puritanic carcass is dissected and the way thus cleared for man's liberation from the dead weights of the past. But with Puritanism as the constant check-up on American life, neither truth nor sincerity is possible. Nothing but gloom and mediocrity to dictate human conduct curtail natural expression and stifle our best impulses. Puritanism in this 20th century is as much the enemy of freedom and beauty as it was when it landed on Plymouth Rock. It repudiates as something vile and sinful our deepest feelings, but being absolutely ignorant as to the real functions of human emotions, Puritanism is itself the creator of the most unspeakable vices. The entire history of asceticism proves this to be only too true. The church as well as Puritanism has fought the flesh as something evil. It had to be subdued and hidden at all cost. The result of this vicious attitude is only now beginning to be recognized by modern thinkers and educators. They realize that nakedness has a hygienic value as well as a spiritual significance far beyond its influences in allaying the natural inquisitiveness of the young or acting as a preventative of morbid emotion. It is an inspiration to adults who have long outgrown any youthful curiosities. The vision of the essential and eternal human form, the nearest thing to us in all the world, with its figure and its beauty and its grace, is one of the prime tonics of life from the psychology of sex by Hablock Ellis. But the spirit of Puritanism has so perverted the human mind that it has lost the power to appreciate the beauty of nudity, forcing us to hide the natural form under the plea of chastity. Yet chastity itself is but an artificial imposition upon nature expressive of a false shame of the human form. The modern idea of chastity, especially in reference to women, its greatest victim, is but the sensuous exaggeration of our natural impulses. Chastity varies with the amount of clothing, and hence Christians and purists forever hastened to cover the heathen with tatters and thus convert them to goodness and chastity. Puritanism, with its perversion of the significance and functions of the human body, especially in regard to women, has condemned her to celibacy or to the indiscriminate breeding of a diseased race or to prostitution. The enormity of this crime against humanity is apparent when we consider the results. Absolute sexual continence is imposed upon the unmarried woman under pain of being considered immoral or fallen with the result of producing neurostenia, impotence, depression, and a great variety of nervous complaints involving diminished power of work, limited enjoyment of life, sleeplessness, and preoccupation with sexual desires and imaginings. The arbitrary and pernicious victim of total continence probably also explains the mental inequality of the sexes. Thus Freud believes that the intellectual inferiority of so many women is due to the inhibition of thought imposed upon them for the purpose of sexual repression. Having thus suppressed the natural sex desires of the unmarried woman, puritanism on the other hand blesses her married sister for incontinent fruitfulness in wedlock. Indeed, not merely blesses her but forces the woman, oversexed by previous repression, to bear children irrespective of weakened physical condition or economic inability to rear a large family. Prevention, even by scientifically proven safe methods, is absolutely prohibited. Nay, the very mention of this subject is considered criminal. Thanks to this puritanic tyranny, the majority of women soon find themselves at the ebb of their physical resources. Ill and worn, they are utterly unable to give their children even elementary care. That, added to economic pressure, forces many women to risk utmost danger rather than continue to bring forth life. The custom of procuring abortions has reached such vast proportions in America as to be almost beyond belief. According to recent investigations along this line, seventeen abortions are committed in every hundred pregnancies. This fearful percentage represents only cases which come to the knowledge of physicians. Considering the secrecy in which this practice is necessarily shrouded and the consequent professional inefficiency and neglect, puritanism continuously exacts thousands of victims to its own stupidity and hypocrisy. Prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned and chained, is nevertheless the greatest triumph of puritanism. It is its most cherished child, all hypocritical sanctimoniousness notwithstanding. The prostitute is the fury of our century, sweeping across the civilized countries like a hurricane and leaving a trail of disease and disaster. The only remedy puritanism offers for this ill-begotten child is greater repression and more merciless persecution. The latest outrage is represented by the Page Law which imposes upon New York the terrible failure and crime of Europe, namely registration and segregation of the unfortunate victims of puritanism. In equally stupid manner, purism seeks to check the terrible scourge of its own creation, venereal diseases. Most disheartening it is that this spirit of obtuse narrow-mindedness has poisoned even our so-called liberals and has blinded them into joining the crusade against the very things born of the hypocrisy of puritanism, prostitution and its result. In willful blindness, puritanism refuses to see that the true method of prevention is the one which makes it clear to all that venereal diseases are not a mysterious or terrible thing, the penalty of the sin of the flesh, a sort of shameful evil branded by purist malediction, but an ordinary disease which may be treated and cured by its methods of obscurity, disguise and concealment, puritanism has furnished favorable conditions for the growth and spread of these diseases. Its bigotry is again most strikingly demonstrated by the senseless attitude in regard to the great discovery of Professor Erlich, hypocrisy veiling the important cure for syphilis with vague allusions to a remedy for a certain poison. The almost limitless capacity of puritanism for evil is due to its entrenchment behind the state and the law. Pretending to safeguard the people against immorality, it has impregnated the machinery of government and added to its usurpation of moral guardianship, the legal censorship of our views, feelings and even of our conduct. Art, literature, the drama, the privacy of the males, in fact our most intimate tastes are at the mercy of this inexorable tyrant. Anthony Comstock, or some other equally ignorant policeman, has been given power to desecrate genius, to soil and mutilate the sublimest creation of nature, the human form. Books dealing with the most vital issues of our lives and seeking to shed light upon dangerously obscured problems are legally treated as criminal offenses and their helpless authors thrown into prison or driven to destruction and death. Not even in the domain of the Tsar is personal liberty daily outraged to the extent it is in America, the stronghold of the puritanic eunuchs. Here the only day of recreation left to the masses Sunday has been made hideous and utterly impossible. All writers on primitive customs and ancient civilization agree that the Sabbath was a day of festivities free from care and duties, a day of general rejoicing and merry-making. In every European country this tradition continues to bring some relief from the humdrum and stupidity of our Christian era. Everywhere concert halls, theatres, museums and gardens are filled with men, women and children, particularly workers with their families, full of life and joy, forgetful of the ordinary rules and conventions of their everyday existence. It is on that day that the masses demonstrate what life might really mean in a sane society with work stripped of its profit-making soul-destroying purpose. Puritanism has robbed the people even of that one day. Naturally only the workers are affected, our millionaires have their luxurious homes and elaborate clubs. The poor, however, are condemned to the monotony and dullness of the American Sunday. The sociability and fun of European outdoor life is here exchanged for the gloom of the church, the stuffy, germ-saturated country parlor or the brutalizing atmosphere of the backroom saloon. In prohibition states that people lack even the latter unless they can invest their meager earnings in quantities of adulterated liquor. Has to prohibition. Everyone knows what a farce it really is. Like all other achievements of Puritanism it too has but driven the devil deeper into the human system. Nowhere else does one meet so many drunkards as in our prohibition towns. But so long as one can use scented candy to abate the foul breath of hypocrisy, Puritanism is triumphant. Ostensibly Puritanism is opposed to liquor for reasons of health and economy, but the very spirit of prohibition being itself abnormal, it succeeds but in creating an abnormal life. Every stimulus which quickens the imagination and raises the spirits is as necessary to our life as air. It invigorates the body and deepens our vision of human fellowship. Without stimuli in one form or another creative work is impossible, nor indeed the spirit of kindness and generosity. The fact that some great geniuses have seen their reflection in the goblet too frequently does not justify Puritanism in attempting to fetter the whole gamut of human emotions. A Byron and a Poe have stirred humanity deeper than all the Puritans can ever hope to do. The former have given to life meaning and color. The latter are turning red blood into water, beauty into ugliness, variety into uniformity and decay. Puritanism in whatever expression is a poisonous germ. On the surface everything may look strong and vigorous, yet the poison works its way persistently until the entire fabric is doomed. With Epolite X every truly free spirit has come to realize that Puritanism is the death of culture, philosophy, humor and good fellowship. Its characteristics are dullness, monotony and gloom. End of Part 7 Part 8. The Traffic in Women from Anarchism and Other Essays. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman The Traffic in Women Our reformers have suddenly made a great discovery, the white slave traffic. The papers are full of these unheard of conditions and lawmakers are already planning a new set of laws to check the horror. It is significant that whenever the public mind is to be diverted from a great social wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against indecency, gambling, saloons, etc. And what is the result of such crusades? Gambling is increasing, saloons are doing a lively business through back entrances, prostitution is at its height and the system of pimps and cadets is butt aggravated. How is it that an institution known almost to every child should have been discovered so suddenly? How is it that this evil known to all sociologists should now be made such an important issue? To assume that the recent investigation of the white slave traffic and by the way a very superficial investigation has discovered anything new is to say the least very foolish. Prostitution has been and is a widespread evil yet mankind goes on its business perfectly indifferent to the sufferings and distress of the victims of prostitution. As indifferent indeed as mankind has remained to our industrial system were to economic prostitution. Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested for a while at least. The people are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day. The righteous cry against the white slave traffic is such a toy. It serves to amuse the people for a little while and it will help to create a few more fat political jobs. Parasites who stalk about the world as inspectors, investigators, detectives and so forth. What is really the cause of the trade in women? Not merely white women but yellow and black women as well. Exploitation, of course. The merciless mullock of capitalism that fattens on underpaid labor, thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution. With Mrs. Warren, these girls feel, why waste your life working for a few shillings a week in a scullery 18 hours a day? Naturally our reformers say nothing about this cause. They know it well enough but it doesn't pay to say anything about it. It is much more profitable to play the Pharisee, to pretend an outraged morality than to go to the bottom of things. However there is one commendable exception among the young writers. Reginald Wright Kaufman, whose work The House of Bondage is the first earnest attempt to treat the social evil not from a sentimental Philistine viewpoint. A journalist of wide experience, Mr. Kaufman proves that our industrial system leaves most women no alternative except prostitution. The women portrayed in The House of Bondage belong to the working class. Had the author portrayed the life of women in other spheres he would have been confronted with the same state of affairs. Nowhere is woman treated according to the merit of her work, but rather as a sex. It is therefore almost inevitable that she should pay for her right to exist to keep a position in whatever line with sex favors. Thus it is merely a question of degree, whether she sells herself to one man, in or out of marriage, or to many men. Whether our reformers admit it or not the economic and social inferiority of women is responsible for prostitution? Just at present our good people are shocked by the disclosures that in New York City alone one out of every ten women works in a factory. That the average wage received by women is $6 per week for 48 to 60 hours of work. And that the majority of female wage workers face many months of idleness which leaves the average wage about $280 a year. In view of these economic horrors is it to be wondered at that prostitution and the white slave trade have become such dominant factors? Lest the preceding figures be considered an exaggeration, it is well to examine what some authorities on prostitution have to say. A prolific cause of female depravity can be found in the several tables showing the description of the employment pursued and the wages received by the women previous to their fall. And it will be a question for the political economist to decide how far mere business consideration should be an apology on the part of employers for a reduction in their rates of remuneration. And whether the savings of a small percentage on wages is not more than counterbalanced by the enormous amount of taxation enforced on the public at large to defray the expenses incurred on account of a system of vice, which is the direct result in many cases of insufficient compensation of honest labor. Dr. Sanger, the history of prostitution. Our present day reformers would do well to look into Dr. Sanger's book. There they will find that out of 2,000 cases under his observation but few came from the middle classes from well-ordered conditions or pleasant homes. By far the largest majority were working girls and working women, some driven into prostitution through sheer want, others because of a cruel, wretched life at home, others again because of thwarted and crippled physical natures, of which I shall speak later on. Also it will do the maintainers of purity and morality good to learn that out of 2,000 cases 490 were married women, women who lived with their husbands. Evidently there was not much of a guarantee for their safety and purity in the sanctity of marriage. It is a significant fact that Dr. Sanger's book has been excluded from the U.S. males. Evidently the authorities are not anxious that the public be informed as to the true cause of prostitution. Dr. Alfred Bloschko in prostitution in the 19th century is even more emphatic in categorizing economic conditions as one of the most vital factors of prostitution. Although prostitution has existed in all ages it was left to the 19th century to develop it into a gigantic social institution. The development of industry with vast masses of people in the competitive market, the growth and congestion of large cities, the insecurity and uncertainty of employment has given prostitution an impetus never dreamed of at any period in human history. And again have Loc Ellis, while not so absolute in dealing with the economic cause, is nevertheless compelled to admit that it is indirectly and directly the main cause. Thus he finds that a large percentage of prostitutes is recruited from the servant class, although the latter have less care and greater security. On the other hand Mr. Ellis does not deny that the daily routine, the drudgery, the monotony of the servant girl's lot and especially the fact that she may never partake of the companionship and joy of a home is no mean factor enforcing her to seek recreation and forgetfulness in the gaiety and glimmer of prostitution. In other words the servant girl being treated as a drudge never having the right to herself and worn out by the caprices of her mistress can find an outlet like the factory or shop girl only in prostitution. The most amusing side of the question now before the public is the indignation of our good respectable people, especially the various Christian gentlemen who are always to be found in the front ranks of every crusade. Is it that they are absolutely ignorant of the history of religion and especially of the Christian religion, or is it that they hope to blind the present generation to the part played in the past by the church in relation to prostitution? Whatever their reason they should be the last to cry out against the unfortunate victims of today since it is known to every intelligent student that prostitution is of religious origin maintained and fostered for many centuries not as a shame but as a virtue hailed as such by the gods themselves. It would seem that the origin of prostitution is to be found primarily in a religious custom. Religion, the great conserver of social tradition preserving in a transformed shape a primitive freedom that was passing out of the general social life. The typical example is that recorded by Herodotus in the fifth century before Christ at the temple of Melita, the Babylonian Venus where every woman once in her life had to come and give herself to the first stranger who threw a coin in her lap to worship the goddess. Very similar customs existed in other parts of western Asia, in North Africa, in Cyprus and other islands of the eastern Mediterranean and also in Greece where the temple of Aphrodite on the fort at Corinth possessed over a thousand hieroduals dedicated to this service of the goddess. The theory that religious prostitution developed as a general rule out of the belief that the generative activities of human beings possessed a mysterious and sacred influence in promoting the fertility of nature is maintained by all authoritative writers on the subject. Gradually however and when prostitution became an organized institution under priestly influence religious prostitution developed utilitarian sides thus helping to increase public revenue. The rise of Christianity to political power produced little change in policy. The leading fathers of the church tolerated prostitution. Brothels under municipal protection are found in the 13th century. They constituted a sort of public service, the directors of them being considered almost as public servants. Have lock Ellis, sex and society. To this must be added the following from Dr. Sanger's work. Pope Clement II issued a bowl that prostitutes would be tolerated if they pay a certain amount of their earnings to the church. Pope Sixtus IV was more practical. From one single brothel which he himself had built he received an income of 20,000 ducats. In modern times the church is a little more careful in that direction. At least she does not openly demand tribute from prostitutes. She finds it much more profitable to go in for real estate like Trinity Church for instance to rent out death traps at an exorbitant price to those who live off and by prostitution. Much as I should like to my space will not admit speaking of prostitution in Egypt, Greece, Rome and during the Middle Ages. The conditions in the latter period are particularly interesting in as much as prostitution was organized into guilds presided over by a brothel queen. These guilds employed strikes as a medium of improving their condition and keeping a standard price. Certainly that is more practical a method than the one used by the modern wage slave in society. It would be one-sided and extremely superficial to maintain that the economic factor is the only cause of prostitution. There are others no less important and vital. That too our reformers know but dare discuss even less than the institution that saps the very life out of both men and women. I refer to the sex question, the very mention of which causes most people moral spasms. It is a conceited fact that woman is being reared as a sex commodity and yet she is kept in absolute ignorance of the meaning and importance of sex. Everything dealing with the subject is suppressed and persons who attempt to bring light into this terrible darkness are persecuted and thrown into prison. Yet it is nevertheless true that so long as a girl is not to know how to take care of herself, not to know the function of the most important part of her life, we need not be surprised if she becomes an easy prey to prostitution or to any other form of a relationship which degrades her to the position of an object for mere sex gratification. It is due to this ignorance that the entire life and nature of the girl is thwarted and crippled. We have long ago taken it as a self-evident fact that the boy may follow the call of the wild. That is to say that the boy may, as soon as his sex nature asserts itself, satisfy that nature. But our moralists are scandalized at the very thought that the nature of a girl should assert itself. To the moralist, prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock. That this is no mere statement is proved by the fact that marriage for monetary considerations is perfectly legitimate, sanctified by law and public opinion, while any other union is condemned and repudiated. Yet a prostitute, if properly defined, means nothing else than any person for whom sexual relationships are subordinated to gain. Guillaume, la prostitution. Those women are prostitutes who sell their bodies for the exercise of the sexual act and make of this a profession. Banger, criminaleet, acondition, économique. In fact, Banger goes further. He maintains that the act of prostitution is intrinsically equal to that of a man or woman who contracts a marriage for economic reasons. Of course marriage is the goal of every girl, but as thousands of girls cannot marry, our stupid social customs condemn them either to a life of celibacy or prostitution. Human nature asserts itself regardless of all laws, nor is there any plausible reason why nature should adapt itself to a perverted conception of morality. Society considers the sex experiences of a man as attributes of his general development, while similar experiences in the life of a woman are looked upon as a terrible calamity, a loss of honor, and of all that is good and noble in a human being. This double standard of morality has played no little part in the creation and perpetuation of prostitution. It involves the keeping of the young in absolute ignorance on sex matters, which alleged innocence, together with an overwrought and stifled sex nature, helps to bring about a state of affairs that our puritans are so anxious to avoid or prevent. Not that the gratification of sex must needs lead to prostitution, it is the cruel, heartless, criminal persecution of those who dare divert from the beaten paths which is responsible for it. Girls, mere children, working crowded, overheated rooms, tend to twelve hours daily at a machine, which tends to keep them in a constant, overexcited sex-date. Many of these girls have no home or comforts of any kind, therefore the street or some place of cheap amusement is the only means of forgetting their daily routine. This naturally brings them into close proximity with the other sex. It is hard to say which of the two factors brings the girls' oversex condition to a climax, but it is certainly the most natural thing that a climax should result. That is the first step toward prostitution, nor is the girl to be held responsible for it. On the contrary, it is altogether the fault of society, the fault of our lack of understanding, of our lack of appreciation of life in the making. Especially, it is the criminal fault of our moralists, who condemn a girl for all eternity because she has gone from the path of virtue. That is because her first sex experience has taken place without the sanction of the church. The girl feels herself a complete outcast with the doors of home and society closed in her face. Her entire training and tradition is such that the girl herself feels depraved and fallen, and therefore has no ground to stand upon or any hold that will lift her up instead of dragging her down. Thus society creates the victims that it afterwards vainly attempts to get rid of. The meanest, most depraved and decrepit man still considers himself too good to take as his wife the woman whose grace he was quite willing to buy, even though he might thereby save her from a life of horror. Nor can she turn to her own sister for help. In her stupidity the latter deems herself too pure and chaste, not realizing that her own position is in many respects even more deplorable than her sisters of the street. The wife who married for money compared with the prostitute, says Havlock Ellis, is the true scab. She is paid less, gives much more in return and labor and care, and is absolutely bound to her master. The prostitute never signs away the right over her own person. She retains her freedom and personal rights, nor is she always compelled to submit to a man's embrace. Nor does the better-than-now woman realize the apologist claim of Lucky that, though she may be the supreme type of vice, she is also the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her happy homes would be polluted unnatural and harmful practice would abound. Moralists are ever ready to sacrifice one half of the human race for the sake of some miserable institution which they cannot outgrow. As a matter of fact prostitution is no more a safeguard for the purity of the home than rigid laws are a safeguard against prostitution. Fully fifty percent of married men are patrons of brothels. It is through this virtuous element that the married women, nay even the children, are infected with venereal diseases. Yet society has not a word of condemnation for the man, while no law is too monstrous to be set in motion against the helpless victim. She is not only preyed upon by those who use her, but she is absolutely at the mercy of every policeman and miserable detective on the beat, the officials at the station house, the authorities in every prison. In a recent book by a woman who was for twelve years the mistress of a house are to be found the following figures. The authorities compelled me to pay every month fines between fourteen dollars and seventy cents to twenty nine dollars and seventy cents. The girls would pay from five seventy to nine seventy to the police. Considering that the writer did her business in a small city that the amount she gives do not include extra bribes and fines, one can readily see the tremendous revenue the police department derives from the blood money of its victims whom it will not even protect. Woe to those who refuse to pay their toll. They will be rounded up like cattle, if only to make a favorable impression upon the good citizens of the city or if the powers needed extra money on the side. For the warped mind who believes that a fallen woman is incapable of human emotion, it would be impossible to realize the grief, the disgrace, the tears, the wounded pride that was ours every time we were pulled in. Strange isn't it that a woman who has kept a house should be able to feel that way? But strangers still that a good Christian world should bleed and flee such women and give them nothing in return except obliquy and persecution. Oh, for the charity of a Christian world. Much stress is laid on white slaves being imported into America. How would America ever retain her virtue if Europe did not help her out? I will not deny that this may be the case in some instances. Any more than I will deny that there are emissaries of Germany and other countries luring economic slaves into America. But I absolutely deny that prostitution is recruited to any appreciable extent from Europe. It may be true that the majority of prostitutes in New York City are foreigners, but that is because the majority of the population is foreign. The moment we go to any other American city, to Chicago or the Middle West, we shall find that the number of foreign prostitutes is by far a minority. Equally exaggerated is the belief that the majority of street girls in this city were engaged in this business before they came to America. Most of the girls speak excellent English, are Americanized in habits and appearance, a thing absolutely impossible unless they had lived in this country many years. That is, they were driven into prostitution by American conditions, by the thoroughly American custom for excessive display of finery and clothes, which of course necessitates money. Money that cannot be earned in shops or factories. In other words, there is no reason to believe that any set of men would go to the risk and expense of getting foreign products when American conditions are overflowing the market with thousands of girls. On the other hand, there is sufficient evidence to prove that the export of American girls for the purpose of prostitution is by no means a small factor. Thus Clifford G. Rowe, ex-assistant state attorney of Cook County, Illinois, makes the open charge that New England girls are shipped to Panama for the express use of men in the employ of Uncle Sam. Mr. Rowe adds that there seems to be an underground railroad between Boston and Washington, which many girls travel. Is it not significant that the railroad should lead to the very seat of federal authority? That Mr. Rowe said more than was desired in certain quarters is proved by the fact that he lost his position. It is not practical for men in office to tell tales from school. The excuse given for the conditions in Panama is that there are no brothels in the canal zone. That is the usual avenue of escape for a hypocritical world that dares not face the truth, not in the canal zone, not in the city limits. Therefore prostitution does not exist. Next to Mr. Rowe there is James Bronson Reynolds, who has made a thorough study of the white slave traffic in Asia. As a staunch American citizen and friend of the future Napoleon of America Theodore Roosevelt, he is surely the last to discredit the virtue of his country. Yet we are informed by him that in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Yokohama the Augean stables of American vise are located. Their American prostitutes have made themselves so conspicuous that in the Orient American girl is synonymous with prostitute. Mr. Reynolds reminds his countrymen that while Americans in China are under the protection of our consular representatives, the Chinese in America have no protection at all. Everyone who knows the brutal and barbarous persecution Chinese and Japanese endure on the Pacific coast will agree with Mr. Reynolds. In view of the above facts, it is rather absurd to point to Europe as the swamp whence come all the social diseases of America. Just as absurd is it to proclaim the myth that the Jews furnish the largest contingent of willing prey. I am sure that no one will accuse me of nationalistic tendencies. I am glad to say that I have developed out of them, as out of many other prejudices. If therefore I resent the statement that Jewish prostitutes are imported, it is not because of any Judaistic sympathies, but because of the facts inherent in the lives of these people. No one but the most superficial will claim that Jewish girls migrate to strange lands unless they have some tie or relation that brings them there. The Jewish girl is not adventurous. Until recent years she had never left home, not even so far as the next village or town except it were to visit some relative. Is it, then, credible that Jewish girls would leave their parents or families, travel thousands of miles to strange lands through the influence and promises of strange forces? Go to any of the large incoming steamers and see for yourself if these girls do not come either with their parents, brothers, aunts, or other kinsfolk. There may be exceptions, of course, but to state that large numbers of Jewish girls are imported for prostitution or any other purpose is simply not to know Jewish psychology. Those who sit in a glass house do wrong to throw stones about them. Besides, the American glass house is rather thin. It will break easily, and the interior is anything but a gamely sight. To ascribe the increase in prostitution to alleged importation to the growth of the cadet system or similar causes is highly superficial. I have already referred to the former. As to the cadet system, as boring as it is, we must not ignore the fact that it is essentially a phase of modern prostitution, a phase accentuated by suppression and graft resulting from sporadic crusades against the social evil. The procurer is no doubt a poor specimen of the human family, but in what manner is he more despicable than the policeman who takes the last cent from the street walker and then locks her up in the station house? Why is the cadet more criminal or a greater menace to society than the owners of department stores and factories who grow fat on the sweat of their victims only to drive them to the streets? I make no plea for the cadet, but I fail to see why he should be mercilessly hounded while the real perpetrators of all social iniquity enjoy immunity and respect. Then too it is well to remember that it is not the cadet who makes the prostitute. It is our sham and hypocrisy that create both the prostitute and the cadet. Until 1894 very little was known in America of the procurer, then we were attacked by an epidemic of virtue. Vice was to be abolished, the country purified at all cost. The social cancer was therefore driven out of sight but deeper into the body. Keepers of brothels as well as their unfortunate victims were turned over to the tender mercies of the police. The inevitable consequence of exorbitant bribes and the penitentiary followed. While comparatively protected in the brothels where they represented a certain monetary value, the girls now found themselves on the street absolutely at the mercy of the graft greedy police. Desperate, needing protection and longing for affection these girls naturally proved an easy prey for cadets themselves the result of the spirit of our commercial age. Thus the cadet system was the direct outgrowth of police persecution, graft and attempted suppression of prostitution. It was sheer folly to confound this modern phase of the social evil with the causes of the latter. Mere suppression and barbaric enactments can serve but to embitter and further degrade the unfortunate victims of ignorance and stupidity. The latter has reached its highest expression in the proposed law to make humane treatment of prostitutes a crime, punishing anyone sheltering a prostitute with five years imprisonment and ten thousand dollars fine. Such an attitude merely exposes the terrible lack of understanding of the true causes of prostitution as a social factor as well as manifesting the puritanic spirit of the scarlet letter days. There is not a single modern writer on the subject who does not refer to the utter futility of legislative methods in coping with the issue. Thus Dr. Blashko finds that governmental suppression and moral crusades accomplish nothing save driving the evil into secret channels, multiplying its dangers to society. Havlock Ellis, the most thorough and humane student of prostitution, proves by a wealth of data that the more stringent the methods of persecution, the worse the condition becomes. Among other data we learn that in France in 1560 Charles IX abolished brothels through an edict but the number of prostitutes were only increased while many new brothels appeared in unsuspected shapes or were more dangerous. In spite of all such legislation or because of it there has been no country in which prostitution has played a more conspicuous part from sex and society. An educated public opinion freed from the legal and moral hounding of the prostitute can alone help to ameliorate present conditions. Willful shutting of eyes and ignoring of the evil as a social factor of modern life can but aggravate matters. We must rise above our foolish notions of better than now and learn to recognize in the prostitute a product of social conditions. Such a realization will sweep away the attitude of hypocrisy and ensure a greater understanding and more humane treatment. As to a thorough eradication of prostitution, nothing can accomplish that save a complete transvaluation of all accepted values, especially the moral ones, coupled with the abolition of industrial slavery. End of Part 8 Part 9 Woman Suffrage from Anarchism and Other Essays This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman Woman Suffrage We boast of the age of advancement of science and progress. Is it not strange then that we still believe in fetish worship? True, our fetishes have different form and substance, yet in their power over the human mind they are still as disastrous as were those of old. Our modern fetish is universal suffrage. Those who have not yet achieved that goal fight bloody revolutions to obtain it and those who have enjoyed its reign bring heavy sacrifice to the altar of this omnipotent deity. Woe to the heretic who dare question that divinity. Woman even more than man is a fetish worshiper, and though her idols may change, she is ever on her knees, ever holding up her hands, ever blind to the fact that her God has feet of clay. Thus woman has been the greatest supporter of all deities from time immemorial. Thus too she has had to pay the price that only Gods can exact. Her freedom, her heart's blood, her very life. Nietzsche's memorable maxim, when you go to woman, take the whip along, is considered very brutal, yet Nietzsche expressed in one sentence the attitude of woman towards her Gods. Religion, especially the Christian religion, has condemned woman to the life of an inferior, a slave. It has thwarted her nature and fettered her soul, yet the Christian religion has no greater supporter, none more devout than woman. Indeed it is safe to say that religion would have long ceased to be a factor in the lives of the people if it were not for the support it receives from woman. The most ardent church workers, the most tireless missionaries the world over are women, always sacrificing on the altar of the Gods that have chained her spirit and enslaved her body. The insatiable monster war robs woman of all that is dear and precious to her. It exacts her brothers, lovers, sons, and in turn gives her a life of loneliness and despair. Yet the greatest supporter and worshipper of war is woman. She it is who instills the love of conquest and power into her children. She it is who whispers the glory of war into the ears of her little ones and who rocks her baby to sleep with the tunes of trumpets and the noise of guns. It is woman too who crowns the victor on his return from the battlefield. Yes it is woman who pays the highest price to that insatiable monster war. Then there is the home. What a terrible fetish it is. How it saps the very life energy of woman, this modern prison with golden bars. It's shining aspect blinds woman to the price she would have to pay as wife, mother, and housekeeper. Yet woman clings tenaciously to the home, to the power that holds her in bondage. It may be said that because woman recognizes the awful toll she is made to pay to the church state and the home, she wants suffrage to set herself free. That may be true of the few. The majority of suffragists repudiate utterly such blasphemy. On the contrary, they insist always that it is woman's suffrage which will make her a better Christian and homekeeper, a staunch citizen of the state. Thus suffrage is only a means of strengthening the omnipotence of the very gods that woman has served from time immemorial. What wonder then that she should be just as devout, just as zealous, just as prostrate before the new idol woman's suffrage. As of old, she endures persecution, imprisonment, torture, and all forms of condemnation with a smile on her face. As of old, the most enlightened even hope for a miracle from the 20th century deity, suffrage. Life, happiness, joy, freedom, independence, all that and more is to spring from suffrage. In her blind devotion, woman does not see what people of intellect perceived 50 years ago. That suffrage is an evil, that it is only help to enslave people, that it has but closed their eyes, that they may not see how craftily they were made to submit. Woman's demand for equal suffrage is based largely on the contention that women must have the equal right in all affairs of society. No one could possibly refute that if suffrage were a right, alas for the ignorance of the human mind which can see a right in an imposition. Or is it not the most brutal imposition for one set of people to make laws that another set is coerced by force to obey? Yet woman clamors for that golden opportunity that has wrought so much misery in the world and robbed man of his integrity and self-reliance. An imposition which has thoroughly corrupted the people and made them absolute prey in the hands of unscrupulous politicians. The poor, stupid, free American citizen, free to starve, free to tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys universal suffrage, and by that right he has forged chains about his limbs. The reward that he receives is stringent labor laws prohibiting the right of boycott, of picketing, in fact of everything except the right to be robbed of the fruits of his labor. Yet all these disastrous results of the 20th century fetish have taught woman nothing, but then woman will purify politics we are assured. Needless to say I am not opposed to woman's suffrage on the conventional ground that she is not equal to it. I see neither physical, psychological, nor mental reasons why woman should not have the equal right to vote with man. But that cannot possibly blind me to the absurd notion that woman will accomplish that wherein man has failed. If she would not make things worse, she certainly could not make them better. To assume therefore that she would succeed in purifying something which is not susceptible of purification is to credit her with supernatural powers. Since woman's greatest misfortune has been that she was looked upon as either angel or devil, her true salvation lies in being placed on earth. Namely in being considered human and therefore subject to all human follies and mistakes. Are we then to believe that two errors will make a right? Are we to assume that the poison already inherent in politics will be decreased if woman were to enter the political arena? The most ardent suffragist would hardly maintain such a folly. As a matter of fact, the most advanced students of universal suffrage have come to realize that all existing systems of political power are absurd and are completely inadequate to meet the pressing issues of life. This view is also borne out by a statement of one who is herself an ardent believer in woman's suffrage, Dr. Helen L. Sumner. In her able work on equal suffrage, she says, In Colorado we find that equal suffrage serves to show in the most striking way the essential rottenness and degrading character of the existing system. Of course Dr. Sumner has in mind a particular system of voting, but the same applies with equal force to the entire machinery of the representative system. With such a basis it is difficult to understand how woman as a political factor would benefit either herself or the rest of mankind. But, say our suffrage devotees, look at the countries and states where female suffrage exists. See what woman has accomplished in Australia, New Zealand, Finland, the Scandinavian countries, and in our own four states, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. Distance, lens, enchantment, or to quote a Polish formula, it is well where we are not. Thus one would assume that these countries and states are unlike other countries or states, that they have greater freedom, greater social and economic equality, a finer appreciation of human life, deeper understanding of the great social struggle with all the vital questions it involves for the human race. The women of Australia and New Zealand can vote and help make the laws. Are the labour conditions there better than they are in England where the suffragettes are making such a heroic struggle? Does there exist a greater motherhood, happier and freer children than in England? Is woman there no longer considered a mere sex commodity? Has she emancipated herself from the puritanical double standard of morality for men and women? Certainly none but the ordinary female stump politician will dare answer these questions in the affirmative. If that be so, it seems ridiculous to point to Australia and New Zealand as the mecca of equal suffrage accomplishments. On the other hand, it is a fact to those who know the real political conditions in Australia that politics have gagged labour by enacting the most stringent labour laws making strikes without the sanction of an arbitration committee a crime equal to treason. Not for a moment do I mean to imply that woman's suffrage is responsible for this state of affairs. I do mean, however, that there is no reason to point to Australia as a wonder worker of woman's accomplishment since her influence has been unable to free labour from the thralldom of political bossism. Finland has given woman equal suffrage, nay, even the right to sit in parliament. Has that helped to develop a greater heroism and intenser zeal than that of the women of Russia? Finland, like Russia, smarts under the terrible whip of the bloodies are. Where are the Finnish proskivs? Spiridinovas, finers, briskoskivs. Where are the countless numbers of Finnish young girls who cheerfully go to Siberia for their cause? Finland is sadly in need of heroic liberators. Why has the ballot not created them? The only Finnish Avenger of his people was a man, not a woman, and he used a more effective weapon than the ballot. As to our own states where women vote and which are constantly being pointed out as examples of marvels, what has been accomplished there through the ballot that women do not to a large extent enjoy in other states, or that they could not achieve through energetic efforts without the ballot? True in the suffrage states women are guaranteed equal rights to property, but of what avail is that right to the mass of women without property, the thousands of wage workers who live from hand to mouth? That equal suffrage did not and cannot affect their condition is admitted even by Dr. Sumner, who certainly is in a position to know. As an ardent suffragist and having been sent to Colorado by the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League of New York State to collect material in favor of suffrage, she would be the last to say anything derogatory. Yet we are informed that equal suffrage has but slightly affected the economic conditions of women, that women do not receive equal pay for equal work, and that the woman in Colorado has enjoyed school suffrage since 1876. Women teachers are paid less than in California. On the other hand, Ms. Sumner fails to account for the fact that although women have had school suffrage for 34 years and equal suffrage since 1894, the census in Denver alone a few months ago disclosed the fact of 15,000 defective school children. And that too with mostly women in the educational department and also notwithstanding that women in Colorado have passed the most stringent laws for child and animal protection. The women of Colorado have taken great interest in the state institutions for the care of dependent defective and delinquent children. What a horrible indictment against women's care and interest if one city has 15,000 defective children. What about the glory of women's suffrage since it has failed utterly in the most important social issue, the child? Where is the superior sense of justice that women was to bring into the political field? Where was it in 1903 when the mine owners waged a guerrilla war against the Western Miners Union? When General Bell established a reign of terror, pulling men out of beds at night, kidnapping them across the borderline, throwing them into bullpens, declaring to hell with the Constitution the club is the Constitution. Where were the women politicians then and why did they not exercise the power of their vote? But they did. They helped to defeat the most fair-minded and liberal men, Governor Waite. The latter had to make way for the tool of the Mine Kings, Governor Peabody, the enemy of labor, the Tsar of Colorado. Certainly male suffrage could have done nothing worse. Granted, wherein then are the advantages to women and society from women's suffrage? The oft-repeated assertion that women will purify politics is also but a myth. It is not borne out by the people who know the political conditions of Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. Woman, essentially a purist, is naturally bigoted and relentless in her effort to make others as good as she thinks they ought to be. Thus in Idaho she has disenfranchised her sister of this street and declared all women of lewd character unfit to vote. Lewd not being interpreted, of course, as prostitution in marriage. It goes without saying that illegal prostitution and gambling have been prohibited. In this regard the law must needs be of feminine nature. It always prohibits. Therein all laws are wonderful. They go no further, but their very tendencies open all the floodgates of hell. Prostitution and gambling have never done a more flourishing business than since the law has been set against them. In Colorado the Puritanism of women has expressed itself in a more drastic form. Men of notoriously unclean lives and men connected with saloons have been dropped from politics since women have the vote. Could brother Comstock do more? Could all the Puritan fathers have done more? I wonder how many women realize the gravity of this would-be feat. I wonder if they understand that it is the very thing which, instead of elevating women, has made her a political spy, a contemptible pry into the private affairs of people. Not so much for the good of the cause, but because, as a Colorado woman said, they like to get into houses they have never been in and find out all they can politically and otherwise. Yes, and into the human soul, and it's minutest nooks and corners. For nothing satisfies the craving of most women so much as scandal. And when did she ever enjoy such opportunities as are hers the politicians? Notoriously unclean lives and men connected with the saloons. Certainly the lady vote gatherers cannot be accused of much sense of proportion. Granting even that these busybodies can decide whose lives are clean enough for that eminently clean atmosphere politics, must it follow that saloon keepers belong to the same category? Unless it be American hypocrisy and bigotry so manifest in the principle of prohibition, which sanctions the spread of drunkenness among men and women of the rich class, yet keeps vigilant watch on the only place left to the poor man. If no other reason, woman's narrow and purest attitude toward life makes her a greater danger to liberty wherever she has political power. Man has long overcome the superstitions that still engulf women. In the economic competitive field man has been compelled to exercise efficiency, judgment, ability, competency. He therefore had neither time nor inclination to measure everyone's morality with a puritanic yardstick. In his political activities too he has not gone about blindfolded. He knows that quantity and not quality is the material for the political grinding mill, and unless he is a sentimental reformer or an old fossil, he knows that politics can never be anything but a swamp. Women who are at all conversant with the process of politics know the nature of the beast, but in their self-sufficiency and egotism they make themselves believe that they have but to pet the beast, and he will become as gentle as a lamb, sweet and pure. As if women have not sold their votes, as if women politicians cannot be bought. If her body can be bought in return for material consideration, why not her vote? That it is being done in Colorado and in other states is not denied even by those in favor of women's suffrage. As I have said before, women's narrow view of human affairs is not the only argument against her as a politician superior to man. There are others. Her lifelong economic parasitism has utterly blurred her conception of the meaning of equality. She clamors for equal rights with men, yet we learn that few women care to canvas in undesirable districts. Dr. Helen A. Sumner. How little equality means to them compared with the Russian women who face hell itself for their ideal. Woman demands the same rights as man, yet she is indignant that her presence does not strike him dead. He smokes, keeps his hat on, and does not jump from his seat like a flunky. These may be trivial things, but they are nevertheless the key to the nature of American suffragists. To be sure their English sisters have outgrown these silly notions. They have shown themselves equal to the greatest demands on their character and power of endurance. All honor to the heroism and sturdiness of the English suffragettes. Thanks to their energetic, aggressive methods, they have proved an inspiration to some of our own lifeless and spineless ladies. But after all the suffragettes too are still lacking in appreciation of real equality. Else how is one to account for the tremendous, truly gigantic effort set in motion by those valiant fighters for a wretched little bill which will benefit a handful of propertyed ladies with absolutely no provision for the vast mass of working women. True as politicians they must be opportunists, must take half measures if they cannot get all. But as intelligent and liberal women they ought to realize that if the ballot is a weapon, the disinherited need it more than the economically superior class and that the latter already enjoyed too much power by virtue of their economic superiority. The brilliant leader of the English suffragette, Ms. Emmeline Pankhurst herself admitted when on her American lecture tour that there can be no equality between political superiors and inferiors. If so, how will the working women of England already inferior economically to the ladies who are benefited by the Shackleton bill be able to work with their political superiors should the bill pass? Is it not probable that the class of Annie Keeney so full of zeal devotion and martyrdom will be compelled to carry on their backs their female political bosses even as they are carrying their economic masters? They would still have to do it were universal suffrage for men and women established in England? No matter what the workers do they are made to pay, always. Still those who believe in the power of the vote show little sense of justice when they concern themselves not at all with those whom as they claim it might serve most. Author's note, Mr. Shackleton was a Labour leader. It is therefore self-evident that he should introduce a bill excluding his own constituents. The English Parliament is full of such judices. The American suffrage movement has been until very recently altogether a parlor affair absolutely detached from the economic needs of the people. Thus Susan B. Anthony, no doubt an exceptional type of woman, was not only indifferent but antagonistic to Labour. Nor did she hesitate to manifest her antagonism when in 1869 she advised women to take the places of striking printers in New York. Equal suffrage, Dr. Helen A. Sumner. I do not know whether her attitude had changed before her death. There are, of course, some suffragists who are affiliated with working women, the Women's Trade Union League for instance, but they are a small minority and their activities are essentially economic. The rest look upon toil as a just provision of providence. What would become of the rich if not for the poor? What would become of these idle parasitic ladies who squander more in a week than their victims earn in a year if not for the 80 million wage workers? Equality. Who ever heard of such a thing? Few countries have produced such arrogance and snobbishness as America. Particularly this is true of the American woman of the middle class. She not only considers herself the equal of man but his superior, especially in her purity, goodness and morality. Small wonder that the American suffragist claims for her vote the most miraculous powers. In her exalted conceit she does not see how truly enslaved she is, not so much by man as by her own silly notions and traditions. Suffrage cannot ameliorate that sad fact. It can only accentuate it as indeed it does. One of the great American women leaders claims that woman is entitled not only to equal pay but that she ought to be legally entitled even to the pay of her husband. Failing to support her he should be put in convict stripes and his earnings in prison be collected by his equal wife. Does not another brilliant exponent of the cause claim for woman that her vote will abolish the social evil which has been fought in vain by the collective efforts of the most illustrious minds the world over? It is indeed to be regretted that the alleged creator of the universe has already presented us with his wonderful scheme of things. Else woman suffrage would surely enable woman to out to him completely. Nothing is so dangerous as the dissection of a fetish. If we have outlived the time when such heresy was punishable at the stake we have not outlived the narrow spirit of condemnation of those who dare differ with accepted notions. Therefore I shall probably be put down as an opponent of woman but that cannot deter me from looking the question squarely in the face. I repeat what I have said in the beginning. I do not believe that woman will make politics worse nor can I believe that she could make it better. If then she cannot improve on man's mistakes why perpetuate the latter? History may be a compilation of lies nevertheless it contains a few truths and they are the only guide we have for the future. The history of the political activities of men proves that they have given him absolutely nothing that he could not have achieved in a more direct less costly and more lasting manner. As a matter of fact every inch of ground he has gained has been through a constant fight a ceaseless struggle for self-assertion and not through suffrage. There is no reason whatever to assume that woman in her climb to emancipation has been or will be helped by the ballot. In the darkest of all countries Russia with her absolute despotism woman has become man's equal not through the ballot but by her will to be and to do. Not only has she conquered for herself every avenue of learning and vocation but she has won man's esteem his respect his comradeship. I even more than that she has gained the admiration the respect of the whole world. That too not through suffrage but by her wonderful heroism her fortitude her ability will power and her endurance in the struggle for liberty. Where are the women in any suffrage country or state that can lay claim to such a victory? When we consider the accomplishments of women in America we find also that something deeper and more powerful than suffrage has helped her in the march to emancipation. It is just sixty-two years since a handful of women at the Seneca Falls Convention set forth a few demands for their right to equal education with men and access to the various professions trades etc. What wonderful accomplishment, what wonderful triumphs. Who but the most ignorant dare speak of women as a mere domestic drudge? Who dare suggest that this or that profession should not be open to her? For over sixty years she has molded a new atmosphere and a new life for herself. She has become a world power in every domain of human thought and activity and all that without suffrage, without the right to make laws, without the privilege of becoming a judge, a jailer or an executioner. Yes, I may be considered an enemy of women, but if I can help her see the light I shall not complain. The misfortune of women is not that she is unable to do the work of man, but that she is wasting her life force to outdo him with a tradition of centuries which has left her physically incapable of keeping pace with him. Oh, I know some have succeeded, but at what cost? At what terrific cost? The import is not the kind of work woman does, but rather the quality of the work she furnishes. She can give suffrage or the ballot no new quality, nor can she receive anything from it that will enhance her own quality. Her development, her freedom, her independence must come from and through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality and not a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right to anyone over her body. By refusing to bear children unless she wants them. By refusing to be a servant to God, the state, society, the husband, the family, etc. By making her life simpler, but deeper and richer. That is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance of life in all its complexities. By freeing herself from the fear of public opinion and public condemnation. Only that, and not the ballot, will set woman free, will make her a force hitherto unknown in the world. A force for real love, for peace, for harmony. A force of divine fire, of life-giving. A creator of free men and women. End of Part 9. Part 10. The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation from Anarchism and Other Essays. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman. The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation. I begin with an admission. Regardless of all political and economic theories treating of the fundamental differences between various groups within the human race, regardless of class and race distinctions, regardless of all artificial boundary lines between women's rights and man's rights, I hold that there is a point where these differentiations may meet and grow into one perfect whole. With this I do not mean to propose a peace treaty. The general social antagonism which has taken hold of our entire public life today, brought about through the force of opposing and contradictory interests, will crumble to pieces when the reorganization of our social life based upon the principles of economic justice shall have become a reality. Peace or harmony between the sexes and individuals does not necessarily depend on a superficial equalization of human beings, nor does it call for the elimination of individual traits and peculiarities. The problem that confronts us today in which the nearest future is to solve is how to be one's self and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one's own characteristic qualities. This seems to me to be the basis upon which the mass and the individual, the true Democrat and the true individuality, man and woman, can meet without antagonism and opposition. The motto should not be, forgive one another, rather, understand one another. The oft quoted sentence of Madame Du Stille, to understand everything means to forgive everything, has never particularly appealed to me. It has the odor of the confessional. To forgive one's fellow being conveys the idea of pharisaical superiority. To understand one's fellow being suffices. The admission partly represents the fundamental aspect of my views on the emancipation of woman and its effect upon the entire sex. Emancipation should make it possible for woman to be human in the truest sense. Everything within her that craves assertion and activity should reach its fullest expression. All artificial barriers should be broken and the road towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery. This was the original aim of the movement for woman's emancipation. But the results so far achieved have isolated woman and have robbed her of the fountain springs of that happiness which is so essential to her. Merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being who reminds one of the products of French arboriculture with its arabesque trees and shrubs, pyramids, wheels and wreaths. Anything except the forms which would be reached by the expression of her own inner qualities. Such artificially grown plants of the female sex are to be found in large numbers, especially in the so-called intellectual sphere of our life. Liberty and equality for woman. What hopes and aspirations these words awakened when they were first uttered by some of the noblest and bravest souls of those days. The sun in all his light and glory was to rise upon a new world. In this world woman was to be free to direct her own destiny. An aim certainly worthy of the great enthusiasm, courage, perseverance and ceaseless effort of the tremendous host of pioneer men and women who staked everything against a world of prejudice and ignorance. My hopes also move towards that goal. But I hold that the emancipation of woman as interpreted and practically applied today has failed to reach that great end. Now woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation if she really desires to be free. This may sound paradoxical but it is nevertheless only too true. What has she achieved through her emancipation? Equal suffrage in a few states. Has that purified our political life as many well-meaning advocates predicted? Certainly not. Incidentally it is really time that persons with plain sound judgment should cease to talk about corruption in politics in a boarding school tone. Corruption of politics has nothing to do with the morals or the laxity of morals of various political personalities. Its cause is altogether a material one. Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world, the mottos of which are to take is more blessed than to give, buy cheap and sell dear. One soiled hand washes the other. There is no hope even that woman with her right to vote will ever purify politics. Emancipation has brought woman economic equality with man, that is she can choose her own profession and trade. But as her past and present physical training has not equipped her with the necessary strength to compete with man, she is often compelled to exhaust all her energy, use up her vitality and strain every nerve in order to reach the market value. Very few ever succeed, for it is a fact that women teachers, doctors, lawyers, architects and engineers are neither met with the same confidence as their male colleagues, nor receive equal remuneration. And those that do reach that enticing equality generally do so at the expense of their physical and psychical well-being. As to the great mass of working girls and women, how much independence is gained of the narrowness and lack of freedom of the home is exchanged for the narrowness and lack of freedom of the factory, sweatshop, department store or office. In addition is the burden which is laid on many women of looking after a home sweet home, cold, dreary, disorderly, uninviting, after a day's hard work. Glorious independent, no wonder that hundreds of girls are willing to accept the first offer of marriage, sick and tired of their independence behind the counter at the sewing or typewriting machine. They are just as ready to marry as girls of the middle class who long to throw off the yoke of parental supremacy. A so-called independence which leads only to earning the merest subsistence is not so enticing, not so ideal, that one could expect women to sacrifice everything for it. Our highly praised independence is, after all, but a slow process of dulling and stifling women's nature, her love instinct and her mother instinct. Nevertheless, the position of the working girl is far more natural and human than that of her seemingly more fortunate sister in the more cultured professional walks of life. Teachers, physicians, lawyers, engineers, etc., who have to make a dignified, proper appearance while the inner life is growing empty and dead. The narrowness of the existing conception of women's independence and emancipation, the dread of love for a man who is not her social equal, the fear that love will rob her of her freedom and independence, the horror that love or the joy of motherhood will only hinder her in the full exercise of her profession. All these together make of the emancipated modern woman a compulsory vessel before whom life with its great clarifying sorrows and its deep entrancing joys rolls on without touching or gripping her soul. Emancipation, as understood by the majority of its adherents and exponents, is of too narrow a scope to permit the boundless love and ecstasy contained in the deep emotion of the true woman, sweetheart, mother, in freedom. The tragedy of the self-supporting or economically free woman does not lie in too many but in too few experiences. True, she surpasses her sister of past generations and knowledge of the world and human nature. It is just because of this that she feels deeply the lack of life's essence which alone can enrich the human soul and without which the majority of women have become mere professional automatons. That such a state of affairs was bound to come was foreseen by those who realized that in the domain of ethics there still remained many decaying ruins of the time of the undisputed superiority of man, ruins that are still considered useful. And what is more important, a goodly number of the emancipated are unable to get along without them. Every movement that aims at the destruction of existing institutions and the replacement thereof with something more advanced, more perfect has followers who in theory stand for the most radical ideas, but who nevertheless in their everyday practice are like the average Philistine feigning respectability and clamoring for the good opinion of their opponents. There are, for example, socialists and even anarchists who stand for the idea that property is robbery, yet who will grow indignant if anyone owe them the value of a half dozen pens. The same Philistine can be found in the movement for women's emancipation. Yellow journalists and milk and water literatures have painted pictures of the emancipated women that make the hair of the good citizen and his dull companion stand up on end. Every member of the women's rights movement was pictured as a George Sand in her absolute disregard of morality. Nothing was sacred to her. She had no respect for the ideal relation between man and woman. In short, emancipations stood only for a reckless life of lust and sin, regardless of society, religion and morality. The exponents of women's rights were highly indignant at such representation, and lacking humor, they exerted all their energy to prove that they were not at all as bad as they were painted, but the very reverse. Of course, as long as woman was the slave of man, she could not be good and pure, but now that she was free and independent, she would prove how good she could be and that her influence would have a purifying effect on all institutions in society. True, the movement for women's rights has broken many old fetters, but it has also forged new ones. The great movement of true emancipation has not met with a great race of women who could look liberty in the face. Their narrow, puritanical vision banished man as a disturber and doubtful character out of their emotional life. Man was not to be tolerated at any price, except perhaps as the father of a child, since a child could not very well come to life without a father. Fortunately, the most rigid puritans never will be strong enough to kill the innate craving for motherhood. But woman's freedom is closely allied with man's freedom, and many of my so-called emancipated sisters seem to overlook the fact that a child born in freedom needs the love and devotion of each human being about him, man as well as woman. Unfortunately, it is this narrow conception of human relations that has brought about a great tragedy in the lives of the modern man and woman. About fifteen years ago, appeared a work from the pen of the brilliant Norwegian, Laura Marholm, called Woman a Character Study. She was one of the first to call attention to the emptiness and narrowness of the existing conception of woman's emancipation and its tragic effect upon the inner life of woman. In her work, Laura Marholm speaks of the fate of several gifted women of international fame. The genius Eleonora Douze, the great mathematician and writer, Sonja Kovalevskia, the artist and poet-nature Marie Vashkertsev, who died so young. Through each description of the lives of these women of such extraordinary mentality, runs a marked trail of unsatisfied craving for a full, rounded, complete and beautiful life, and the unrest and loneliness resulting from the lack of it. Through these masterly psychological sketches, one cannot help but see that the higher the mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial mate who will see in her not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her character. The average man, with his self-sufficiency, his ridiculously superior heirs of patronage toward the female sex, is an impossibility for a woman as depicted in the character study by Laura Marholm. Equally impossible for her is the man who can see in her nothing more than her mentality and her genius, and who fails to awaken her woman nature. A rich intellect and a fine soul are usually considered necessary attributes of a deep and beautiful personality. In the case of the modern woman, these attributes serve as a hindrance to the complete assertion of her being. For over a hundred years the old form of marriage, based on the Bible, till death doth part, has been denounced as an institution that stands for the sovereignty of the man over the woman of her complete submission to his whims and commands and absolute dependence on his name and support. Time and again it has been conclusively proved that the old matrimonial relation restricted woman to the function of a man's servant and the bearer of his children, and yet we find many emancipated women who prefer marriage with all its deficiencies to the narrowness of an unmarried life, narrow and unendurable because of the chains of moral and social prejudice that cramp and bind her nature. The explanation of such inconsistency on the part of many advanced women is to be found in the fact that they never truly understood the meaning of emancipation. They thought that all that was needed was independence from external tyrannies. The internal tyrants, far more harmful to life and growth, ethical and social conventions, were left to take care of themselves, and they have taken care of themselves. They seem to get along as beautifully in the heads and hearts of the most active exponents of women's emancipation as in the heads and hearts of our grandmothers. These internal tyrants, whether they be in the form of public opinion or what will mother say, or brother, father, aunt or relative of any sort, what will Mrs. Grundy, Mr. Comstock, the employer, the board of education say? All these busybodies, moral detectives, jailers of the human spirit, what will they say? Until woman has learned to defy them all, to stand firmly on her own ground and to insist upon her own unrestricted freedom, to listen to the voice of her nature, whether it call for life's greatest treasure, love for a man, or her most glorious privilege, the right to give birth to a child, she cannot call herself emancipated. How many emancipated women are brave enough to acknowledge that the voice of love is calling, wildly beating against their breasts, demanding to be heard, to be satisfied? The French writer John Rebrock, in one of his novels, New Beauty, attempts to picture the ideal, beautiful, emancipated woman. This ideal is embodied in a young girl, a physician. She talks very cleverly and wisely of how to feed infants. She is kind and administers medicines free to poor mothers. She converses with the young man of her acquaintance about the sanitary conditions of the future, and how various bacilli and germs shall be exterminated by the use of stone walls and floors, and by the doing away with rugs and hangings. She is, of course, very plainly and practically dressed mostly in black. The young man, who at their first meeting was overawed by the wisdom of his emancipated friend, gradually learns to understand her and recognizes one fine day that he loves her. They are young, and she is kind and beautiful, and though always in rigid attire, her appearance is softened by a spotlessly clean white collar and cuffs. One would expect that he would tell her of his love, but he is not one to commit romantic absurdities. Poetry and the enthusiasm of love cover their blushing faces before the pure beauty of the lady. He silences the voice of his nature and remains correct. She too is always exact, always rational, always well behaved. I fear if they had formed a union, the young man would have risked freezing to death. I must confess that I can see nothing beautiful in this new beauty who is as cold as the stone walls and floors she dreams of. Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks. If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus. The greatest shortcoming of the emancipation of the present day lies in its artificial stiffness and its narrow respectabilities, which produce an emptiness in woman's soul that will not let her drink from the fountain of life. I once remarked that there seemed to be a deeper relationship between the old fashioned mother and hostess ever on the alert for the happiness of her little ones and the comfort of those she loved and the truly new woman than between the ladder and her average emancipated sister. The disciples of emancipation pure and simple declared me a heathen fit only for the steak. Their blind zeal did not let them see that my comparison between the old and the new was merely to prove that a goodly number of our grandmothers had more blood in their veins, far more humor and wit, and certainly a greater amount of naturalness, kind-heartedness and simplicity than the majority of our emancipated professional women who fill the colleges, halls of learning and various offices. This does not mean a wish to return to the past, nor does it condemn woman to her old sphere, the kitchen and the nursery. Salvation lies in an energetic march onward towards a brighter and clearer future. We are in need of unhampered growth out of old traditions and habits. The movement for woman's emancipation has so far made but the first step in that direction. It is to be hoped that it will gather strength to make another. The right to vote or equal civil rights may be good demand, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in court. It begins in woman's soul. History tells us that every oppressed class gained true liberation from its masters through its own efforts. It is necessary that woman learn that lesson, that she realize that her freedom will reach as far as her power to achieve her freedom reaches. It is therefore far more important for her to begin with her inner regeneration, to cut loose from the weight of prejudices, traditions and customs. The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair, but after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved. Indeed, if partial emancipation is to become a complete and true emancipation of woman, it will have to do away with the ridiculous notion that to be loved, to be sweetheart and mother, is synonymous with being slave or subordinate. It will have to do away with the absurd notion of the dualism of the sexes, or that man and woman represent two antagonistic worlds. Pettiness separates. Breath unites. Let us be broad and big. Let us not overlook vital things because of the bulk of trifles confronting us. A true conception of the relation of the sexes will not admit of conqueror and conquered. It knows of but one great thing, to give of one's self boundlessly in order to find one's self richer, deeper, better. That alone can fill the emptiness and transform the tragedy of woman's emancipation into joy. Limitless joy. End of Part 10.