第26章 CHAPTER 3(1)

On the other point which is involved in the just equality of women, theiradmissibility to all the functions and occupations hitherto retained as themonopoly of the stronger sex, I should anticipate no difficulty in convincinganyone who has gone with me on the subject of the equality of women in thefamily. I believe that their disabilities elsewhere are only clung to inorder to maintain their subordination in domestic life; because the generalityof the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal. Wereit not for that, I think that almost everyone, in the existing state of opinionin politics and political economy, would admit the injustice of excludinghalf the human race from the greater number of lucrative occupations, andfrom almost all high social functions; ordaining from their birth eitherthat they are not, and cannot by any possibility become, fit for employmentswhich are legally open to the stupidest and basest of the other sex, or elsethat however fit they may be, those employments shall be interdicted to them,in order to be preserved for the exclusive benefit of males. In the lasttwo centuries, when (which was seldom the case) any reason beyond the mereexistence of the fact was thought to be required to justify the disabilitiesof women, people seldom assigned as a reason their inferior mental capacity;which, in times when there was a real trial of personal faculties (from whichall women were not excluded) in the struggles of public life, no one reallybelieved in. The reason given in those days was not women's unfitness, butthe interest of society, by which was meant the interest of men: just asthe raison d'etat, meaning the convenience of the government, and the supportof existing authority, was deemed a sufficient explanation and excuse forthe most flagitious crimes. In the present day, power holds a smoother language,and whomsoever it oppresses, always pretends to do so for their own good: accordingly, when anything is forbidden to women, it is thought necessaryto say, and desirable to believe, that they are incapable of doing it, andthat they depart from their real path of success and happiness when theyaspire to it. But to make this reason plausible (I do not say valid), thoseby whom it is urged must be prepared to carry it to a much greater lengththan anyone ventures to do in the face of present experience. It is not sufficientto maintain that women on the average are less gifted then men on the average,with certain of the higher mental faculties, or that a smaller number ofwomen than of men are fit for occupations and functions of the highest intellectualcharacter. It is necessary to maintain that no women at all are fit for them,and that the most eminent women arc inferior in mental faculties to the mostmediocre of the men on whom those functions at present devolve. For if theperformance of the function is decided either by competition, or by any modeof choice which secures regard to the public interest, there needs be noapprehension that any important employments will fall into the hands of womeninferior to average men, or to the average of their male competitors. Theonly result would be that there would be fewer women than men in such employments;a result certain to happen in any case, if only from the preference alwayslikely to be felt by the majority of women for the one vocation in whichthere is nobody to compete with them. Now, the most determined depreciatorof women will not venture to deny, that when we add the experience of recenttimes to that of ages past, women, and not a few merely, but many women,have proved themselves capable of everything, perhaps without a single exception,which is done by men, and of doing it successfully and creditably. The utmostthat can be said is, that there arc many things which none of them have succeededin doing as well as they have been done by some men -- many in which theyhave not reached the very highest rank. But there are extremely few, dependentonly on mental faculties, in which they have not attained the rank next tothe highest. Is not this enough, and much more than enough, to make it atyranny to them, and a detriment to society, that they should not be allowedto compete with men for the exercise of these functions? Is it not a meretruism to say, that such functions are often filled by men far less fit forthem than numbers of women, and who would be beaten by women in any fairfield of competition? What difference does it make that there may be mensomewhere, fully employed about other things, who may be still better qualifiedfor the things in question than these women? Does not this take place inall competitions? Is there so great a superfluity of men fit for high duties,that society can afford to reject the service of any competent person? Arewe so certain of always finding a man made to our hands for any duty or functionof social importance which falls vacant, that we lose nothing by puttinga ban upon one half of mankind, and refusing beforehand to make their facultiesavailable, however distinguished they may be? And even if we could do withoutthem, would it be consistent with justice to refuse to them their fair shareof honour and distinction, or to deny to them the equal moral right of allhuman beings to choose their occupation (short of injury to others) accordingto their own preferences, at their own risk? Nor is the injustice confinedto them: it is shared by those who are in a position to benefit by theirservices. To ordain that any kind of persons shall not be physicians, orshall not be advocates, or shall not be Members of Parliament, is to injurenot them only, but all who employ physicians or advocates, or elect Membersof Parliament, and who are deprived of the stimulating effect of greatercompetition on the exertions of the competitors, as well as restricted toa narrower range of individual choice.