in their struggle for freedom for the same opportunities of study, for the same fields of work, the same citizenship as man, women have encountered all possible opposition, from that of the pope, who recently pronounced the most positive condemnation of the whole movement for the emancipation of woman, and that of parliament, to the rough pranks of students. man’s attempt to define the boundaries of “woman’s natural sphere” continues always. the woman physician, for example, had to struggle, in her student years, against prejudice in the dissecting room, and, in her practice, against the professional jealousy of men. the history of emancipation has much shameful conduct on the part of man toward woman to record. great reluctance to recognise the results of woman’s work is still common. when this work, in literature and art for instance, is compared with man’s, the comparison is made not for the purpose of getting a finer understanding of woman’s peculiar characteristics, but only to disparage it. the 112energy which men of the present time not infrequently lack they cannot endure to recognise in women, who often possess it in high degree. in the romance countries, self-supporting working women are always looked upon as a special caste—a caste into which a man does not marry however high respect he pays, theoretically, to “les vierges fortes.”

and yet how different—and more beautiful—are the present relations between men and women in general, especially among the germanic peoples. a friendly comradeship prevails among the young men and women studying at the university, in art academies, music schools, business colleges, etc. in the north, this comradeship often continues from the primary schools, through the grades to the university, with results advantageous to both sexes. especially in the years under twenty, this comradeship has a significance which cannot be overestimated. girls, who were, earlier, confined to a narrow, uninteresting, joyless family circle, now often find in the circle of masculine and feminine comrades their share of the joy of youth without which life has no springtime. youths who formerly had known no other young women than those with whom they should never have come in contact, now learn to know soulful, pure-minded girls, and this gives them a new conception of woman. both sexes now experience together the joys of youth in such fresh and significant forms as folk-dancing, sport, etc. they have opportunity 113for stimulating interchange of ideas in a great circle, and quiet discussion with a few congenial friends. during the last twenty or thirty years, young men and young women have again begun to discover one another spiritually, discoveries which since the days of romanticism have been made only through the stained glass of literature. in the romantic period, men and women exercised reciprocally upon one another a humanising influence. a like influence again obtains at the present time, but upon a much broader basis. the men and women of romanticism formed a group bound together only by spiritual relationship, in which the women aspired to the culture of the men and shared their intellectual interests, while the men promoted the women’s “desire for men’s culture, art, knowledge, and distinction” (geluste nach der m?nner bildung, kunst, weisheit und ehre.—schleiermacher). now, young people studying in different fields exert a mutual humanising influence and thereby learn to know one another from the side of intelligence as well as from that of character and disposition. thus are dispelled certain illusions and conceptions almost forced upon them through which both sexes in the years of adolescence once regarded each other. men as well as women obtain a finer criterion for the conception of “womanliness” and of “manliness”; both discover the innumerable shadings which these conceptions conceal; both recognise that the sexes can meet not only upon the erotic 114plane, but upon a plane that is universally human; finally, both learn that the more perfect and complete human beings they become, the more they have to thank one another for it.

comprehension in erotic relations is most difficult because, there, women are far in advance of men. woman’s ideal of love, however, is becoming more and more the ideal of young men. young girls, on their side, are beginning to understand better the sexual nature of men. the whole world in which man received his culture, won his victories, suffered his defeats, is no longer terra incognita to women; they have lost the blind reverence or the blind hostility with which they formerly regarded the doings and dealings of men. men, on the other hand, are learning that the domestic labours for the comfort of the family, which they have thus far regarded as the sole duty of woman, cannot engross her whole soul, that domesticity leaves many wishes unfulfilled. so both sexes have begun, each on its own side, to build a bridge across the chasm which law and custom had dug between them. the young still ponder over the enigmatical antitheses in their natures, yet they find they have very much that is human in common with one another. in comradeship, however, that “chivalry” vanishes, which among other things consisted in the ideal that the young men had always to bear all the burdens and duties. now as a rule, the girl carries her own knapsack on excursions and pays her share of the expenses. 115but if she really needs help, the youth is quite as ready as before to grant it to her, just as she also on her part is ready to assist according to her strength: honest friendship has replaced rapturous chivalry. this friendly comradeship often satisfies the young man’s need of feminine kindness and enjoyment in those dangerous years when, as a young man said, “three fourths of the life of a youth, conscious and unconscious, is sex life.” and nothing can more effectually prevent him from degrading himself than access to a circle where in quiet and freedom he meets young girls, without an indelicate, intruding family surveillance, interfering and asking him about his “intentions.” if between two such comrades an erotic feeling finally develops, even if the wooing takes place in a laboratory instead of a romantic arbour, the possibilities always exist, in the golden haze of love, of making mistakes. but both have, however, had opportunities of seeing each other in many character-illuminating situations; they have observed each other, not only with their own eyes, but also through the more critical glasses of the comrade circle. on the other hand, it often happens that discussions and interchange of letters conjure up a congeniality which exists only in opinions and temperament, not in nature. it is fortunate when this is discovered in time. otherwise bitter conflicts may be the result, should a strong individual nature wish to mould the other after himself or after his ideal of man or woman. 116for that anyone loves the individuality of another without illusions is still very rarely the case. it now happens somewhat more frequently, since young people in comradeship learn to know mutually their ideals and dreams, as well in erotic as in universally human aspects. but if these ideals and dreams do give a hint of character, comradeship brings a true knowledge of character only when it also offers an opportunity of seeing others act; not only of hearing them speak of themselves. such analyses of one’s own soul or the soul of others in the atmosphere of tea and cigarettes, music and poetry, give the “interesting” masculine or feminine parasites opportunity to ensnare a victim, who is then intellectually or erotically, often even economically, sucked dry.

but even if such an interchange of ideas really enriched all, it can be carried to excess and become deleterious to energy for work, directness, and idealism. however beneficial may be the honesty of to-day in sexual questions, the discussion of the instincts of life which has now become a commonplace is also dangerous. these discussions are fraught with the same danger to the roots of human life as is a continual digging up of the roots of a plant to see how it is growing.

the earlier a marriage can be consummated, the less is the danger of freshness being lost in this way; the greater the prospect that man and wife will grow close together, just as do the man and wife of the people, through the difficulty of the 117common struggle for existence. but if this struggle becomes easier before youth has entirely passed, then there enters often into the life of the man a crisis which the practised french call “la maladie de quarante ans”: the need of the man for a new erotic experience. while those on a lower erotic plane, to-day as at all times, seek this in transient secret alliances, it leads those on a higher level in our time to the most tragic of all separations, where the man—after decades of the most intimate life together, of the most faithful work together, of mutual understanding—drives the wife out of the home in order to bring in a young wife who has never been to him, perhaps never can be to him, a fellow fighter and helper, as the repudiated wife was, but who has for him the charm of the mystery which the maiden had for the man before the days of co?ducation, sexual discussions, comradeship, and dress-reform!

women students now escape the earlier danger of the daughter of the family, falling in love out of lack of occupation. they have not the time, often also not the means to permit themselves erotic dreams. there are among them many poor girls who dare lose no single semester, for they must hasten to earn their livelihood. moreover, such a girl knows that if she should yield to the need for tenderness, for support, that is so strong in her, the same fate could happen to her as to this or that fellow student who after a short happiness was left alone when the lover found a 118good match. and she was left behind not only in her sorrow but also in her work. and the more a yearning girl buries herself in her studies, the more science or art unlock their riches to her, the happier, more full of life she feels herself in spite of loneliness, scanty means, and shabby dress.

among women students there are also many of the cerebral type, mentioned above, women who need tenderness neither in the form of friendship nor of love; yes, who fear in both a bond for their “free individuality.” these take part in sports, discuss, jest, with their fellow men students, openhearted and unconcerned, without thinking whether they please or not. all these young girls now go about with perfect freedom; even in the romance countries, a young woman can now go alone with her bag of books or her racquet. for in circles where study has not yet exercised its freeing influence, sport has brought this about.

in america, student life, because of the early entrance of the men into the professions, becomes more a one-sided, feminine comrade life. there, the women have to develop their arts of the toilet for each other, whom they find more interesting, more worthy of pleasing than the masculine sex. even in europe, feminine comradeship in the student years is at times most intimate. for a friendship between a young girl and a young man often ends with love—on one side. or in an intimate circle a has fallen in love with b, but b with c, etc. such eventualities the wise girl will avoid 119for they can bring both suffering and obstruction to her work. with women comrades, she has, without this risk, an interchange of ideas which promotes study, deepens culture, opens up new views, and gives to all new impulses. there exists, at least at the present time, a difference between the masculine and feminine method of inquiry, of solving problems, of apprehending ideas, which results in the fact that comradeship between women cannot take the place of comradeship between men and women. it is, however, for deep and beautiful natures often impossible at the beginning of life to be capable, in a spiritual sense, of more than a single friendship with their own sex; for each new spiritual contact becomes a new and difficult problem. for such men or women a friendship with a comrade of their own sex is often the richest advantage of their student time. often a student in good circumstances finds her joy in taking care of some lonely comrades. they find at her apartments, in a friendly welcome, a few flowers and pictures, a teakettle, a fireplace, that feeling of homely warmth for which the shivering students have longed,—a longing which has often driven a lonely, impressionable youth from the dreary students’ room to “rough pleasures.” now when he leaves the little comrade circle, his sweetest memories of home, his finest dreams, vibrate in him. and the timid girl goes in the certainty that there is another girl who is concerned about her wretched fate.

120in such a quiet as also in a more lively comrade life both sexes learn to know not only each other but also different classes and, in certain european universities, the several nations. it is not unusual for nine or ten races to be found represented in one small group of comrades. life thus becomes everywhere enriched by strong manifestations or fine shades of congeniality; spiritual attractions and repulsions cross one another; inspiring or restraining impressions radiate in all directions. it would be quite as impossible to estimate the fructifying influence of such a friendly intercourse as to measure the life which comes into existence on a spring day filled with the sigh of the wind, the fluttering of butterflies, and humming of bees.

in such a circle of comrades, devotion and capacity for sacrifice are past belief, especially in the nation where “the girls wear short hair and the young men long hair,” as a wag characterised the young russians studying abroad. that a couple of russian girls, for a whole winter, possessed together but a single pair of shoes and so could never go out at the same time, is one of the innumerable small and great expressions of the feeling of solidarity among the poorest students of the university.

when the comrade life assumed the form exclusively of coffee-house visits, then the women had to revolt against it. but they often, alas, allowed themselves to be carried with the stream. because the coffee-house life at first really gave a certain polish to the intelligence, it could for a short 121time have its justification. but when a blade is worn out, the artist of life should cease grinding; if on the contrary he allows the grindstone to go on continually, then at last he has only the haft in his hand. formerly, it was only the young men but now even the girls wear out thus their weapons or tools before they ever use them seriously.

the darkest side of co?ducational life has been that women could demonstrate their equal capability with men in no other way than by the same courses and examinations as those of the men. the eagerness of women to prove their like proficiency with men in study and in sport has often had disastrous physical results. these are continually becoming more infrequent, thanks to the decreasing prudery in regard to the sexual functions and to the increasing hygienic conscience. the intellectual results, however, continue to exist and are disastrous alike for both sexes; but because of the ambition and conscientiousness of girls, perhaps still more disastrous for them. the examinations which they pass are often dearly bought. this was not noticed in the beginning, when a woman doctor was still looked at with wonder as a noteworthy product of culture, and regarded herself also with wonder. truly she had sacrificed to grinding and cramming for examinations a multitude of youthful joys, but she had, as was thought, won in this way much greater values. this, however, is not always really the case. 122ethically, the conscientious girl is certainly above the boy who, not infrequently in the unconscious instinct of self-preservation, idles away his time. but the mental strength of the latter may frequently be better preserved in any determined direction. girls, conscientious and zealous in their work, have filled their heads full of lessons to which the coming examination and not their own choice has urged them. what is thus crammed in is not assimilated and consequently has not promoted spiritual or mental growth. but it has taken up room and has thereby impaired the intellectual freedom of motion and compelled the natural individuality to compress itself so that it is long before the space conditions in the brain permit it to extend again—in case it is not simply choked by all the chaotic mass that has been absorbed. how many young girls have come to the university or to the art academy full of thirst for knowledge and energy for work! but after a few years they feel the disgust of surfeit, unless they have found a teacher who has been to them a leader to the essentials in science or in art. then their joy in study could really be as rich as they had once dreamed it—yes, as perhaps even their grandmothers had dreamed it when they had to content themselves with their little text-books written for “girls.” many young girls maintain to-day, through some teacher or some masculine comrade, that spiritual development which only an exceptional relationship between a father and 123daughter, a brother and sister, could give in earlier times.

when men and women can study together, then the relationship later between masculine and feminine fellow-workmen will, as a rule, be better than when the sexes work independently in the student days. it is true masculine competitors still have recourse to the weapon of spreading reports of the incapacity of their feminine competitors—at times honestly convinced of it themselves. the same weapon is of course turned also against masculine competitors. yet there it is a question of the individual, while in regard to women, the sex is often the only proof the man thinks he need assign for the inferiority of their work. it can be said, however, upon the whole, that the relationship between men and women professional colleagues exhibits the same good side as the common student life, although naturally to a lesser degree. the joint work does not often leave much time for significant interchange of ideas, and after working hours each usually longs for new faces. the influence of joint labour is often limited to the refining effect that the presence of one sex exercises upon the other. small services are mutually rendered and each worker learns also to respect the achievements of the other; or one is provoked because the work which should have been dispatched by the other now falls to his share!

if the woman performs the same work as the 124man, then she is often indignant because she must do it for smaller compensation than he. all too easily, the feminists forget that this injustice is equalised if a man who wishes to establish a family cannot obtain a post which he seeks because a woman retains it who can be satisfied with a smaller wage since she remains in her parents’ home. for this disparity, raising bitterness on both sides, there is no remedy under the present economic system. feminists can demand the same compensation, but working women will not obtain it so long as the supply of workers is to the demand as one hundred to one in the professional occupations to which women flock. in vain underpaid women will call to the agitators of the woman movement, “help us to obtain endurable conditions of life.” the only honest answer is, “help one another, just as the working men have helped one another, by union and solidarity!”

the competition of the sexes in the labour field is only indirectly connected with the woman movement; it is a part of the social question and will therefore only be touched upon here.

the hostility which the competition between the sexes has evoked is a factor in the social war; and if—by reason of this competition—marriage decreases, then such competition is a form of social danger. if the cause is sought in the woman movement, then the question is begged completely, because the women with sufficient income to be able to live at home without industrial work, after 125the loss of a husband or a father, are constantly becoming more rare. there is the additional fact that in many positions where man and woman have equal salary, the woman is preferred because of her greater honesty and faithfulness to duty. further it must be emphasised that, even in middle-class vocations, women with increasing frequency earn their whole livelihood, not merely a supplementary remuneration, when if they did not thus work they would be a burden to some man and so perhaps prevent him from marrying. many of these women would wish nothing better than to enjoy the warmth of “the domestic hearth” to which men in theory relegate them; but since no man offers this warmth, they must at least be allowed to procure fuel for their lonely hearth fire.

when men declare that “the only duty which has life value for a woman is to be man’s helpmeet,” then they ought not to forget that this task is more and more rarely assigned to a woman, because men prefer to do without her aid, and even find a richer life in bachelorhood than in marriage. they should not dare to forget also that a great number of men disinclined or disqualified for work compel their sisters, daughters, wives, to undertake the task of family provider, and these women also must forego being, “in the quiet of the home, man’s helpmeet.”

however weak the feminist logic often may be, it is not so weak as the anti-feminist logic of man. masculine vacuity has found there an arena where it performs the most incredible gymnastics. the 126hysteria of literary fanatics, the crude lordly instincts of the mediocre man, the irritation of the masculine good-for-nothing at the increasing ability of women, the rage, confounding cause and effect, over the competition of women—these are some of the reasons for the present antagonism between men and women. the deepest reason is this: the more woman is compelled to maintain the struggle for existence under the same social conditions as those under which men have been thus far compelled to struggle, the more she loses that character by which she gives happiness to man and receives it from him. a diminished erotic attraction is frequently the result, not of the work of women, but of their work under such conditions that the drudging, worn-out women comrades finally appear to their masculine colleagues only as “sexless ants.” sometimes they really exhibit that obliteration of all characteristic marks of sex which meunier has indicated to us in his woman miner, a great thought-inspiring work of art.

many a woman of the present time, deeply feminine, suffers under this compulsory neutralising of her womanly being. others again consider this a path to complete humanity.

but the complete personality is only that man or woman who has cultivated and exercised the strength which he or she as a human being possessed without having neutralised thereby the characteristic of sex. it is tragic when nature 127herself creates deviations from normal sexuality, but criminal when the ideas of the time weaken sound instincts and inculcate unsound ones. it is not woman nature but the denatured woman who is beginning to grow through the ultra-feminism which looks down upon woman’s normal sexual duty as only a low, animal function.

that sound men abominate this tendency is justifiable. on the other hand, it is unwarrantable to confuse a variation of feminism with the woman movement in its entirety, a movement which includes in itself a great earnest desire to work for the welfare of both mothers and children. as a manifestation of womanliness in its most complete, perfect form, many men still elect the woman whose entire life-content consists in the cult of her own beauty, a cult whose attendant phenomenon is the ?sthetic culture which raises the temple about the altar. under this perfect and apparently inspired form there is, however, rarely anything to be found of that which the man seeks: the longing and the power of true womanhood to give happiness by erotic and motherly devotion. such women, like those cerebral women engrossed by their studies and their work, allow a real love to pass them by; men are only sacrificial servants of the cult, and the high priest is chosen not upon the ground of motives of feeling. this type is said to be more common in america than in europe. but it existed thousands of years ago on the tiber as well as on the nile. that 128cleopatra in the language of feminism now speaks of the “right of the personality,” and means thereby her right to represent no other value in life than that of the white peacock and the black orchid—the value of rarity—that does not make her a “product of the woman movement.”

but certain men characterise a woman thus, if they have been deceived in her: a psychology which equals in value that of the feminist when she speaks of man as the “oppressor,” the “corrupter,”—without noting that the world is full of poor men corrupted or tormented by women! amid such mutual accusations, just or unjust—whereby gifted men maintain generalisations about “woman’s” being which are quite as ingenuous as those which silly women propose about “man’s” being—the sexes, in the days of the woman movement, have been almost as much alienated from each other as drawn together. the estrangement has taken place in the erotic field and through labour competition; the reconciliation has been effected—leaving out co?ducation—by common industry and the social activity of both sexes.

the middle-class women of europe have still so little share in the control of production that one cannot determine whether or not they have even awakened to the understanding that the fundamental condition of a universal life-enhancing issue of the woman movement must be new social conditions. one cannot yet predicate anything at all in regard to their desires to promote 129more humane labour conditions and a more just distribution of profit. under the system now prevailing they must, like men, either conform to it or be destroyed economically. it is even so in public offices and similar fields of labour. just as so many young men do, at the beginning of their career, a great number of women attempt to abolish the abuses and mitigate the formalism. but they meet such obstacles that, like the young men, they are obliged to abandon the effort; or they are compelled to give up the position whereby they win their scanty bread.

in this way, principally, the work of women in the sphere of charitable activity has given to men the opportunity for a correct valuation of the social working power of woman. men have then in a wider sphere than that of the family circle, so often overlooked by them, learned to appreciate feminine enthusiasm and capacity for organisation, energy and devotion, initiative and endurance. innumerable men—from the soldiers up, who in the hospitals of the crimea literally kissed florence nightingale’s shadow on the floor of the hospital ward—have learned in the last half century that life has become more kindly for them since social motherliness has obtained for itself a certain elbow-room. the more women lose their present fear of appearing, in co?peration with men, “womanly” impulsive, savage in face of injustice and cruelty, the more will they signify in that joint work where, at least to-day, they still 130have a more fortunate hand—the hand of the mother.

and since a single fact is more convincing than a thousand words, so the facts gained in the social activity of woman have won, in later years, many men supporters of woman suffrage. the arguments derived from abstract right—however obvious they may be for every tax-paying, law-abiding woman—go to the rear to make way for the argument of “social utility.”

not only women themselves but men also refer now to what women have accomplished when they are allowed to work in the service of society; they point to the reforms which were retarded or bungled because women had no immediate influence there where appropriations were granted and laws were enacted.

especially significant for the reconciliation of the sexes is the joint social work of young people. the temperance cause or the education of the masses or socialism now brings together a host of young men and girls, who learn thereby that the social as well as the private life of labour gains in strength and wealth if men and women participate in it together.

the men who fear political life for woman are, however, right. just as this life has injured the best qualities in the manhood of many men, so will it impair the womanhood of many women. neither the spiritual personality of woman nor 131of man, nor even their secondary physical sex characteristics can withstand the influences of their private milieu, of their private labour conditions. why should women better resist the influences of the public life? when the man is compelled, in political work for the state, to neglect in the highest degree the foundation of the state—the home—how should women be able to do otherwise than the same thing? the political work of both can benefit the home in general but their own home must always suffer for it, for a time at least. women will learn, as so many men have already learned, that the fresh enthusiasm, the unexhausted optimism with which they entered the political life soon vanish before party pressure, general prejudice, opportunism, and the demands of compromise. and just as now so many men for these reasons withdraw from parliament, many women will do likewise when they learn that what they can accomplish there with the characteristics peculiar to them, is so insignificant that it does not compensate for the injury which ensues because these characteristics are missing in the home.

if the eligibility of woman is really to benefit society, then the right of resignation must be unconditioned for mothers, and they themselves must understand that the parliamentary mandate is incompatible with motherhood so long as the children are still in the home; in like manner during the same period, the franchise of the mother of a 132family must not result in rushing into electioneering. the ballot in and of itself does not injure the fineness of a woman’s hand any more than a cooking receipt.

because woman’s motherhood must be preserved, if she is to bring to the social organism a really new factor, so she must always continue to be found and to work in private life, in order to be, meanwhile, useful in public life. the genius of social reform which women will develop can complement that of man only if this genius is of a new order; if it originates thoughts which bring new points of view to the social problems, wills which seek new means, souls which aspire to new ends. women could, if they received their full civic right before they lost their intuitive and instinctive power through masculinisation, effect the progress of culture as, for example, the entrance of the germans influenced the antique world.

the sooner woman receives her political franchise, the more, on the whole, can be expected from it. the generation which has now fought the fight for suffrage is wholly conscious of the reforms that await woman for their final realisation. and this generation of women would introduce into the political life a new, fresh current. in any event, we can hope to secure from women new impulses and better organisation in political life, as has already been the case in social life. 133but every new generation of parliamentary women, who together with the men have been “politically trained,” would have—as long as the present economic conditions obtain—continually greater economic interests to advocate “parliamentarily,” and would also for other reasons evince the same parliamentary maladies as the men evince now. and as little as evil men lose their evil characteristics because of the franchise, quite as little will bad women lose theirs. the entrance of women into politics cannot therefore—as certain feminists maintain—signify the victory of the noble over the ignoble. but it signifies a great increase in noble as well as ignoble powers hitherto inactive in political life, which in the wider sphere that they there maintain oppose one another, now conquering, now yielding. men and women together, however, will be able to enact more humane laws than men alone can enact. questions concerning women and children can be treated with deeper seriousness by men and women together than is now the case. men and women together will consider the social life from more significant points of view than can one sex alone. government consisting of men and women together will be more profound than heretofore. no one who has observed the effects of masculine and feminine co?peration in fields already mentioned can doubt this. who can deny that with the civic right of woman her feeling of social responsibility will increase and that her horizon will widen? and 134therewith her value as wife and mother of men will also increase? but she will increase in value for the men closely connected with her as well as in social respects. the woman of earlier times, for all of whom society might go to pieces if only her home and family prospered, was only in a restricted sense man’s help. in certain great crises she usually betrayed him simply because she wholly lacked the social feeling.

obviously, the female member of parliament cannot confine herself solely to questions which concern the protection of the weaker and the education of the new race. the more women concentrate upon the cause of justice against power, and of public spirit against self-interest, the more advantageous it will be for her herself and for the public life. but concentration is, unfortunately, exactly what modern parliamentarism does not promote; what it does promote is disintegration.

woman has, however, where she has entered into parliamentary life as elector and eligible, shown thus far exactly this tendency toward concentration. she has worked for moral, temperance, and hygienic questions; for questions concerning schools and education of the masses; for mother and child protection; reform of marriage laws, and kindred subjects. what thinking man can maintain that all this does not belong to “woman’s sphere” or can say that these and similar social interests have been sufficiently attended to by an exclusively masculine government? 135already the opposite danger appears in certain social spheres: an exclusively “feminine government.”

in the present forms of public life, however, much feminine power will without doubt be wasted. only when man, upon a higher plane, has created a new kind of representation “of the people,” where professional interests in every sphere are represented, can the highest vocation of woman—motherhood—come into its rights.

it belongs to the necessary course of historical development that women also go through the stage of party-power politics in order together with man to reach the stage of social politics and finally that of culture politics.

but women cannot wait until this development has been attained; they must accomplish it together with man. just as the best masculine powers sooner or later must be concentrated to transform increasingly untenable parliamentary conditions, so the best feminine powers will also work in the same direction, especially if the will becomes intense in mothers not only to awaken in their children the social spirit, but also to create for them better social conditions.

in later years, the movement for the suffrage of woman has not only filled the world with suffrage societies but the agitation has even achieved popular representation in eighteen european countries, in the legislative assemblies of a number of american states, in australasia, in 136legislative assemblies in canada and in the philippines. in iceland as well as in italy, in japan as in south africa, the movement is in progress, and whoever thinks it will not attain its goal is politically blind.

when anti-feminist men prophesy that men will love their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters less when pitted against them as political opponents or competitors, they prophesy certainly in many cases the truth. politics have already estranged fathers from sons, brothers from brothers. but this demonstrates only either that the personal feelings were weaker than the political passions or that these latter have destroyed the attributes which made the personality lovable. but if men are really able to love and women remain lovable, even as political personalities, then a man will not cease to love a woman, even if she votes for a different congressional candidate! such prophecies have not been verified in other spheres from which men sought to intimidate women by similar warnings. for woman retains her power over man. if she retains her womanly charm, created out of peace, harmony, and kindness. not that of which a woman speaks, not that for which she works, determines man’s feeling and conduct; but how she does it. a woman may charm a man by a political speech, and drive him away by her table talk. a poor working woman can, without a word, induce the same man to give her his seat in a street car who the next minute can be brutal 137to an assuming and incapable fellow workwoman. in a word, what a woman makes of her rights and what they make of her—that alone determines the measure of veneration, sympathy, love, which she may expect from a man.

that women have lost their equilibrium cannot be denied. how could it be otherwise? not only have they in the last half century experienced, together with man, naturalism and the new romantic movement, neo-kantianism, the higher criticism, bismarck and bebel, darwin and spencer, wagner and nietzsche, ibsen and tolstoi, haeckel and von hartmann, and still many, many more, but they themselves in dizzy haste have been hurled out of their position in society, protected by the family, which they had occupied for centuries. it is obvious that at the present moment the spiritual mobility of women must be greater than their harmony; that the raw culture material which they possess must be richer than that which they can utilise; their life experiences more significant than their art of life. the modern woman must appear for the present less symmetrical, more uncertain, than man’s ideal woman in earlier times. but enduring cultural progress cannot be measured by comparison with the ideal figures of the poetry or of the life of earlier times. it must be estimated according to the average type in a certain period. and the average woman of our time is, in the fullest significance of the word, more full of vitality and adaptability, more individually 138developed, more beneficial socially, than the average woman of fifty years ago. with the freedom of movement the social feeling has increased; with the participation in universal human culture, the richness of content: the spiritual life has become more complex, and the possibilities of expression of this new soul-life, more numerous.

but since the average man, in the meantime, has undergone no comparable development, he is estranged, has lost his bearings, and consequently repudiates a movement which, directly and indirectly, makes such great demands for the development of his own higher spiritual qualities. heretofore men could force women to endure undue interference, and so have deprived them of the education wherein the possible consequences of action are considered at the same time with the thought of the action. but the woman movement has now raised a partition between the sexes such as is found in the aquarium where it becomes necessary to teach the pike to allow the carp, also, to live: every time the pike makes a dash at the carp he strikes his head against the obstruction, until the motive of repression becomes so strong that the glass wall can be taken away and both carp and pike live together in peace.