CHAPTER XII
THE PROFESSIONAL WOMAN
A far greater number of professions are open to women to–day than was the case half a century ago. Less than fifty years ago the medical profession was entirely a masculine monoply. Only since 1868 has it been possible for a woman to practise as a chemist. So recently as the year 1890 there were more men teachers in the country than women teachers. Now it is well known to be quite the reverse, that the women are in an overwhelming majority in the teaching profession.
The causes of this development are apparent. Every day the competition for a livelihood becomes keener, the task of keeping up anything like a respectable appearance, more of a struggle. A competency secured through good fortune or hard work might take to itself wings and fly, so uncertain a thing is wealth to–day. Only a comparatively small number of men can afford to keep a number of daughters in idleness. And the uncertainty of their wealth makes the wise amongst these provide for their girls in the most sensible way possible, by giving them a liberal education and insisting on their choosing some profession or other employment.
The girls themselves are becoming more sensible. There was a time when it was considered outrageous on the part of any girl to want to earn her living. Only common people did that kind of thing! Only the very poor soiled their hands! A mother who allowed her girls to teach or paint or sing for a living, was considered to be lacking in a sense of duty and dignity. Her acquaintances ceased to call on her. She became a social outcast. Now it is considered to be something of a disgrace (except by the few stupid survivors of a past age) if a girl can find no employment, either useful or ornamental, with which to occupy her time and talents. The girls themselves are demanding that they shall be allowed to do something. They prefer to know that they are keeping themselves and not burdening those who have already done so much for them. The knowledge helps their self-respect. In addition, they know they will not be quite helpless if an unhappy marriage should ever leave them stranded. Co-operative housekeeping, too, has given them much additional time. They would be wretched creatures if they had nothing whatever to do. The necessity and benefit of having women in these professions is becoming more and more evident as time passes, and is increasingly acknowledged by a grateful public. It was not always so, as the pioneers amongst women can amply testify. The first women-doctors had to endure insults and outrages which it would beggar language to describe. There are at the present time four hundred women physicians in England. And the tendency will be in the direction of their increase.
It is fitting that this should be so. Far more women than men have to apply for medical aid, not because they are weaker, naturally, than men, nor because of their function of child-bearing, but because they are the sufferers from numberless so-called women’s complaints, which are the effects of some form of masculine abuse. Dr. Nicholls has said in one of his works: “The diseases peculiar to women are so many and of such frequent occurrence and such severity, that half the time of the medical profession is devoted to their care, and more than half its revenues depend upon them. We have libraries of books upon them, special professorships in our medical colleges, and hosts of doctors who give them their exclusive attention. The books and the professors are all at fault. They have no knowledge of the causes or nature of these diseases and no idea of their proper treatment. Women are everywhere outraged and abused. When the full chapter of woman’s wrongs and sufferings is written, the world will be horrified at the hideous spectacle.”
Is it not fitting that, about these things, women should consult an educated and sympathetic sister, who shall not only heal them, but tell them where the wrong is, teach them how to avoid the wrong, and command them not to bring up their daughters in the ghastly innocence and gross ignorance which have helped in their own undoing.
Under a Socialist régime every profession will be open to women as to men. Assuming that there will be lawyers under Socialism (and there will probably be a few, with special or departmental knowledge in matters appertaining to the law, who will act in that capacity with modesty and without covetousness!) women will act as lawyers. In France there are women practitioners at present. Not so in England yet. But even this monopoly of the male sex will vanish before the onrush of rebellious women. To look after the interests of their own sex, it is necessary.
It is frequently argued by the opponents of woman suffrage that women are privileged in many matters of law. This may be true; but these privileges are insults if there is no political liberty. Women do not want special protection if they can have the protection of the vote. They do not want a kind and indulgent owner; but a helpful comrade and brother.
That the law has been, and is, in very many ways grossly unjust to women is actually true also. Only since the year 1840 had the mother any right whatever to her own children. "The sacred rights of the father" are still unduly emphasised by an English court. Not until 1886 was the widow recognised as the rightful guardian of her own children. Only for the last thirty or forty years have a woman’s earnings been recognised as her own property. As recently as 1882 did the property of a married woman become her own. And much remains to be done to secure fair treatment for women by the law.
Teaching of very young children will probably become a feminine monopoly in a Socialist State, not by reason of any legislation, but because it will be recognised that women are the persons best fitted to train little children. The Socialist mothers will take charge of the very early years. After, say, six or seven years have passed, the children will go into the elementary schools, where they will be fed, taught to work and play, drill and dance, sing and sleep, and live their happy lives under the kind eyes of sympathetic women, the State's kindly teachers, who will co-operate with the parents in trying to develop in the little ones all the perfections of character of which they may be capable.
When Socialism arrives it will be possible for the taunt to cease that no woman has written a book or painted a picture or composed a work of outstanding genius. Opportunity and encouragement, two things which are scarcely offered to her now, will be freely given to her then.
In acting, singing, public speaking, lecturing, debating, and elocution she will appear, if so she chooses. She will not be shut out of the pulpit, nor from the professorial chair. The only qualification required will be fitness, and the power to adorn the particular sphere in which she places herself. Not that she will be commanded by the authorities to withdraw from her profession if her abilities are not of the best; but a Socialist audience will want the best singing, the best playing, the best acting, the best public speaking, the best reciting, the best lecturing, and the finest exhortation that can be given, and a second-rate professional may find herself without an audience.
Truly, in the time that is to come it will behove men to be less ignorant lest the advancing host of unconquerable women put them openly to shame.