The woman’s rights movement is more strongly organized and has penetrated
society more thoroughly in all the Germanic countries than in the Romance
countries. There are many causes for this: woman’s greater freedom of
activity in the Germanic countries; the predominance of the Protestant
religion, which does not oppose the demands of the woman’s rights movement
with the same united organization as does the Catholic Church; the more
vigorous training in self-reliance and responsibility which is customarily
given to women in Germanic-Protestant countries; the more significant
superiority in numbers of women in Germanic countries, which has forced
women to adopt business or professional callings other than domestic.[4]
The woman’s rights movement in the Germanic-Protestant countries has been
promoted by moral and economic factors.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
| Total population: | 91,972,267. |
| Women: about | 45,000,000. |
| Men: about | 47,000,000. |
The General Federation of Women’s Clubs.
The National American Woman’s Suffrage Association. |
North America is the cradle of the woman’s rights movement. It was the War
of Independence of the colonies against England (1774-1783) that matured
the woman’s rights movement. In the name of “freedom” our cause entered
the history of the world.
In these troubled times the American women had by energetic activities and
unyielding suffering entirely fulfilled their duty as citizens, and at the
Convention in Philadelphia, in 1787, they demanded as citizens the right
to vote. The Constitution of the United States was being drawn up at that
time, and by 1789 had been ratified by the thirteen states then existing.
In nine of these states (Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, New
Jersey, North and South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island) the
right to vote in municipal and state affairs had hitherto been exercised
by all “free-born citizens” or all “taxpayers” and “heads of families,”
the state constitutions being based on the principle: no taxation without
representation.
Among these “free-born citizens,” “taxpayers,” and “heads of families”
there were naturally many women who were consequently both voters and
active citizens. So woman’s right to vote in the above-named states was
practically established before 1783. Only the states of Virginia and New
York had restricted the suffrage to males in 1699 and 1777, Massachusetts
and New Hampshire following their example in 1780 and 1784.
In view of this retrograde movement American women attempted at the
Convention in Philadelphia to secure a recognition of their civil rights
through the Constitution of the whole federation of states. But the
Convention refused this request; just as before, it left the conditions of
suffrage to be determined by the individual states. To be sure, in the
draft of the Constitution the Convention in no way opposed woman’s
suffrage. But the nine states which formerly, as colonies, had practically
given women the right to vote, had in the meantime abrogated this right
through the insertion of the word “man” in their election laws, and the
first attempt of the American women to secure an expressed constitutional
recognition of their rights as citizens failed.
These proceedings gave to the woman’s rights movement of the United States
a political character from the very beginning. Since then the American
women have labored untiringly for their political emancipation. The
anti-slavery movement gave them an excellent opportunity to participate in
public affairs.
Since the women had had experience of oppression and slavery, and since
they, like negroes, were struggling for the recognition of their “human
rights,” they were amongst the most zealous opponents of “slavery,” and
belonged to the most enthusiastic defenders of “freedom” and “justice.”
Among the Quakers, who played a very prominent part in the anti-slavery
movement, man and woman had the same rights in all respects in the home
and church. When the first anti-slavery society was formed in Boston in
1832, twelve women immediately became members.
The principle of the equality of the sexes, which the Quakers held, was
opposed by the majority of the population, who held to the Puritanic
principle of woman’s subordination to man. In consequence of this
principle it was at that time considered “monstrous” that a woman should
speak from a public platform. Against Abby Kelly, who at that time was
one of the best anti-slavery speakers, a sermon was preached from the
pulpit from the text: “This Jezebel has come into the midst of us.” She
was called a “hyena”; it was related that she had been intoxicated in a
saloon, etc. When her political associate, Angelina Grimke, held an
anti-slavery meeting in Pennsylvania Hall (Philadelphia) in 1837, the hall
was set on fire, and in 1838 in the chamber of the House of
Representatives in Massachusetts a mob threatened to take her life. “The
mob howled, the press hissed, and the pulpit thundered,” thus the
proceedings were described by Lucy Stone, the woman’s rights advocate.
Even the educated classes shared the prejudice against woman. To them she
was a “human being of the second order.” The following is an illustration
of this:
In 1840 Abby Kelly was elected to a committee. She was urged, however, to
decline the election. “If you regard me as incompetent, then I shall
leave.” “Oh, no, not exactly that,” was the answer. “Well, what is it
then?” “But you are a woman....” “That is no reason; therefore I remain.”
In the same year an anti-slavery congress was held in England. A number of
American champions of the cause went to London,—among them three women,
Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Elizabeth Pease. They were
accompanied by their husbands and came as delegates of the “National
Anti-slavery Society.” Since the Congress was dominated by the English
clergy, who persisted in their belief in the “inferiority” of woman, the
three American women, being creatures without political rights, were not
permitted to perform their duties as delegates, but were directed to leave
the convention hall and to occupy places in the spectators’ gallery. But
the noble William Lloyd Garrison silently registered a protest by sitting
with the women in the gallery.
This procedure clearly indicated to the American women what their next
duty should be, and once when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
came from the gallery to the hotel Mrs. Stanton said, “The first thing
which we must do upon our return is to call a convention to discuss the
slavery of woman.”
This plan, however, was not executed till eight years later. At that time
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, on the occasion of a visit from Lucretia Mott,
summoned a number of acquaintances to her home in Seneca Falls, New York.
In giving an account of the meeting at Washington, in 1888, at the
Conference of Pioneers of the International Council of Women (see Report,
pp. 323, 324), she states that she and Lucretia Mott had drawn up the
grievances of woman under eighteen headings with the American Declaration
of Independence as a model, and that it was her wish to submit a suffrage
resolution to the meeting, but that Lucretia Mott herself refused to have
it presented.
Nevertheless, in the meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton herself, burning with
enthusiasm, introduced her resolution concerning woman’s right to vote,
and, as she reports, the resolution was adopted unanimously. A few days
later the newspaper reports appeared. “There was,” relates Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, “not a single paper from Maine to Louisiana which did not contain
our Declaration of Independence and present the matter as ludicrous. My
good father came from New York on the night train to see whether I had
lost my mind. I was overwhelmed with ridicule. A great number of women who
signed the Declaration withdrew their signatures. I felt very much
humiliated, so much the more, since I knew that I was right.... For all
that I should probably have allowed myself to be subdued if I had not soon
afterward met Susan B. Anthony, whom we call the Napoleon of our woman’s
suffrage movement.”
Susan B. Anthony, the brave old lady, who in spite of her eighty-three
years did not dread the long journey from the United States to Berlin, and
in June, 1904, attended the meetings of the International Council of Women
and the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance, was in early life a
teacher in Rochester, New York, and participated in the temperance
movement. She had assisted in securing twenty-eight thousand signatures to
a petition, providing for the regulation of the sale of alcohol, which was
presented to the New York State Legislature. Susan B. Anthony was in the
gallery during the discussion of the petition, and as she saw how one
speaker scornfully threw the petition to the floor and exclaimed, “Who is
it that demands such laws? They are only women and children...,” she vowed
to herself that she would not rest content until a woman’s signature to a
petition should have the same weight as that of a man. And she faithfully
kept her word. After a life of unceasing and unselfish work, Susan B.
Anthony died March 13, 1906, loved and esteemed by all who knew her. At
the commemoration services in 1907, twenty-four thousand dollars were
subscribed for the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Fund (to be used for woman’s
suffrage propaganda). Susan B. Anthony was honorary president of the
International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance.
It is to be noted that a number of European women (such as Ernestine Rose
of Westphalia), imbued with the ideas of the February Revolution of 1848,
were compelled to seek new homes in America. These newcomers gave an
impetus to the woman’s suffrage movement among American women. They were
greatly surprised to find that in republics also political freedom was
withheld from women.
This was strikingly impressed upon the women of the United States in 1870.
At that time the negroes, who had been emancipated in 1863, were given
political rights throughout the Union by the addition of the Fifteenth
Amendment to the Federal Constitution.[5] In this way all power of the
individual states to abridge the political rights of the negro was taken
away.
The American women felt very keenly that in the eyes of their legislators
a member of an inferior race, if only a man, should be ranked superior
to any woman, be she ever so highly educated; and they expressed their
indignation in a picture portraying the American woman and her political
associates. This represented the Indian, the idiot, the lunatic, the
criminal,—and woman. In the United States they are all without
political rights.
Since 1848 an energetic suffrage movement has been carried on by the
American women. To-day there is a “Woman’s Suffrage Society” in every
state, and all these organizations belong to a national woman’s suffrage
league. In recent years there has arisen a vigorous woman’s suffrage
movement within the numerous and influential woman’s clubs (with almost a
million members) and among college women the College Equal Suffrage
League, the movement extending even into the secondary schools. The
National Trades Union League, the American Federation of Labor, and
nineteen state Federations of Labor have declared themselves in favor of
woman’s suffrage. The leaders of the movement have now established the
fact that “the Constitution of the United States does not contain a word
or a line, which, if interpreted in the spirit of the ‘Declaration of
Independence,’ denies woman the right to vote in state and national
elections.”
The preamble to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows:
“We, the people of the United States ... do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.” Women are doubtlessly
people. All the articles of the Constitution repeat this expression. The
objects of the Constitution are:
1. The establishment of a more perfect union of the states among themselves,
2. The establishment of justice,
3. The insurance of domestic tranquillity,
4. The provision of common defense,
5. The promotion of the general welfare,
6. The securing of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
All of these six points concern and interest women as much as men.
Supplementary to this is the “Declaration of Independence.” Here are
stated as self-evident truths:
1. “That all men are created equal,”
2. “That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,”
3. “That to secure [not to grant] these rights, Governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
On this last passage the Americans comment with especial emphasis: they
say the right to vote is their right as human beings,—they possess it as
a natural right; the government cannot justly take it from them, cannot
even grant it to them justly. So long as the government does not ask the
women for their consent, it is acting illegally according to the
Declaration of Independence. For it is nowhere stated that the consent of
one half, the male half, will suffice to make a government legal.
On the basis of this declaration of principles the American women have
made it a point to oppose every individual argument against woman’s
suffrage. For this purpose they frequently use small four-page pamphlets,
which are issued as the “Political Equality Series” by the American
Woman’s Suffrage Association. They say “It is generally held that:
1. “Every woman is married, loved, and provided for.
2. “Every man stays at home every evening.
3. “Every woman has small children.
4. “All women, when they have once secured political rights, will
plunge into politics and neglect their households.”
“What is the exact state of affairs in these matters?
1. “A great many women are not married; many are widows who must
educate their children and seek a means of livelihood. Thousands have
no other home than the one they create for themselves, and they must
often support relatives in addition to themselves. Many of the
married women are neither loved, provided for, nor protected.
2. “Many men are at home so seldom in the evening that their wives
could quietly concern themselves with political matters without being
missed at all. And such men, seconded by bachelors, clamor most about
the ‘dissolution of the family’ through politics.
3. “The children do not remain small indefinitely; they grow up and
hence leave the mother. It may be true that the mother, instead of
participating in political affairs, prefers to sew flannel shirts for
the heathen, or prefers to read novels, but one ought at least to
permit her the freedom of making the choice.
4. “The right to vote will not change the nature of woman. If she
wished to leave the home as her sphere of activity, she would have
found other opportunities long ago.”
Further fears are the following: 1. The majority of women do not wish the
right to vote at all. To this we must answer that we cannot yet come to a
conclusion concerning the wish of the majority in this respect. The
petitions for woman’s suffrage always have a greater number of signatures
than any other petitions to Congress. 2. Women will use the right to vote
only to a limited extent. The statistics in Wyoming and Colorado prove
the contrary. 3. Only women “of ill repute” will vote. Thus far this has
been nowhere the case. The men guard against attracting these elements.
Moreover, the right to vote is not restricted to the men “of good repute”
either, etc., etc.
The American women can obtain the political franchise by two methods: 1.
At the hands of every individual legislature (which would occasion 52
separate legislative acts,—48 states and 4 territories). 2. Through the
adoption of a sixteenth amendment to the national Constitution by
Congress.[6] Let us consider the first method. The franchise
qualifications in the United States are generally the following: male sex,
twenty-one years of age, American citizenship (through birth, or by
naturalization after five years’ residence).
Amendments to the state constitution must be accepted by the state
legislature (consisting of the lower house and the senate),[7] and then be
accepted in a referendum vote by the (male) electorate. To secure the
adoption of such an amendment in a state legislature is no easy task. In
the first place the presentation of a woman’s suffrage bill is not
received favorably; the Republicans and Democrats struggle for control of
the legislature, the majority one way or the other never being large.
Therefore the party leaders usually consider woman’s suffrage not on the
basis of party politics. Matters are decided on the basis of
opportuneness. Especially is this the case in those states where the bill
must be passed by two successive legislatures. In this case, between the
time of the first passing of a bill and the referendum, there is a new
election, and the opponents of woman’s suffrage can defeat the adherents
of the measure at the polls before the women themselves can exercise the
right of suffrage.
Changing the national Constitution through the adoption of a sixteenth
amendment has difficulties equally great; the amendment must pass the
House of Representatives and the Senate by a two-thirds vote and then be
ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures or specially called
conventions.
To the present time only two of the Presidents of the Union have publicly
expressed themselves in favor of woman’s suffrage,—Abraham Lincoln and
Theodore Roosevelt. In 1836 Lincoln addressed an open letter to the voters
in New Salem, Illinois, in which he said: “I go for all sharing the
privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens”; and he
was in favor of “admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay
taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).” Garfield, Hayes,
and Cleveland gave their attention to the question of woman’s suffrage;
the last two supporting motions in favor of the movement. Theodore
Roosevelt, in 1899, as Assemblyman in the New York State Legislature,
spoke in favor of woman’s suffrage: “I call the attention of the Assembly
to the advantages which a general extension of woman’s right to vote must
bring about.”
In order to attain their end,—political emancipation,—the American women
use the following means of agitation: petitions, the submission of
legislative bills, meetings, demonstrations, the distribution of
pamphlets, deputations to the legislatures of the individual states and to
the Congressional House of Representatives, the organization of
workingwomen, requests to teachers and preachers to comment on patriotic
memorial days on woman’s worth, and to preach at least once during the
year in favor of woman’s suffrage.
To the present time four states of the Union have granted full municipal
and political suffrage to women (active suffrage, the right to vote;
passive suffrage, eligibility to office). The states in question are
Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho. Wyoming and Utah inaugurated woman’s
suffrage in 1869 and 1870, respectively, when they were still territories;
and in 1890 and 1895, when they were given statehood, they retained
woman’s suffrage. Colorado granted it in 1893 and Idaho in 1896. The
political emancipation of woman in the State of Washington is close at
hand,[8] in South Dakota,[9]
Oregon,[9] and Nebraska it seems assured. In
Kansas, since 1887, women have possessed active and passive suffrage in
municipal elections. In the State of Illinois they are about to secure
it.[10] All of these are western states with a new civilization and a
numerical superiority of men.
Practical experience with woman’s suffrage shows the following: everywhere
the elections have become quieter and more respectable. The wages and
salaries of women have been generally raised, partly through the
enactment of laws, such as laws regulating the salaries of women teachers,
etc., partly through the better professional and industrial organization
of workingwomen, who are now trained in political affairs. A comparison of
the salaries of women teachers having woman’s suffrage with salaries in
states not having woman’s suffrage shows the value of the ballot. The
public finances have been more economically administered, intemperance and
immorality have been more energetically combated, candidates with immoral
records have been removed from the political arena. Inasmuch as women have
full political rights in the four states named (six, including Washington
and California), they also vote for presidential electors, and thus
exercise an influence in the national presidential elections. It is the
woman with good average abilities that is most frequently the successful
candidate in political campaigns.
But as yet the number of women who devote themselves to a political life
is not large. The women in Colorado seem to have a special ability for
this. Without any consideration for party affiliations they secured the
reëlection of Judge Lindsey of the Juvenile Court. Generally speaking,
they have devoted their efforts everywhere to the protection of youth. At
the present time the establishment of a special bureau for the protection
of youth is being advocated, and a national conference to discuss the
welfare of children is to be held in Washington, D.C.[11]
Because the English anti-woman’s suffrage advocate, Mrs. Humphry Ward,
expressed the familiar fear that “the immoral vote would drown the moral
vote,” the Reverend Anna Shaw declared at the Woman’s Suffrage Congress at
London (May, 1909), that she openly challenges Mrs. Humphry Ward to
produce one convincing proof for her assertion. She herself had carefully
investigated the recent elections in Denver, Colorado, to ascertain how
many, if any, of the “immoral” women voted, and received as answer that
these women, who naturally are in a minority, generally do not vote at
all; first, because they pursue their trade under false names, secondly,
because most of them are not permanently domiciled and for both reasons
are not entered on the voting lists; these women vote only when an
influence is exerted on them from above or by persons around them.
In the State of Utah, where woman’s suffrage has existed since 1870, “the
women have quietly begun and continued without a break the exercise of
that power, which from the remotest time had been their right. They have
concerned themselves with political and economic questions, and if they
have committed any errors, these have not yet come to light. They have
been delegates to county and state conventions, they have represented the
richest and most populous electoral districts in the state legislature,
and they serve as heads of various state departments” (state treasurer,
supervisor of the poor, superintendent of education, etc.). In Colorado
(with woman’s suffrage since 1893) the women have organized clubs in all
cities, even in the lonely mining towns (Colorado is in the Rocky
Mountains), and have informed themselves in political affairs to the best
of their ability. In the capital city, Denver, a club has been formed in
which busy women can meet weekly to inform themselves on political
affairs. In Colorado parental authority over children prevails now (in
place of the exclusively paternal). In Idaho (with woman’s suffrage since
1896) the women voters exerted a strong influence against gambling. The
enfranchised women, who had a right to vote in the little town of
Caldwell, had supported a mayor who was determined to take measures
against gambling. The barkeepers, topers, gamblers, and ne’er-do-wells
were against him. The women presented the magistrate with a petition,
which was read together with the signatures. “During the reading of the
names of the unobtrusive housewives who were rarely seen beyond their own
thresholds, the countenances of the men became serious. For the first time
they seemed to grasp what it really meant for a city to have woman’s
suffrage.” The barkeepers and the gamblers got the worst of it and
disappeared from the town hall. An old municipal judge said, “When have
our mothers ever demanded anything before?”[12] In the same way the
women of Kansas have employed their municipal suffrage since 1887.
Concerning an election in which women voted, the “Women’s Rights Movement”
reports the following: “Almost all the women (about one third of the
population) in Wyoming, voted” (7000 votes out of 23,000). “In Boise,
Idaho, it was one of the quietest election days in the annals of the city.
Everywhere the women came to the polls in the early part of the day.” “In
Salt Lake City, Utah, there was no interruption of traffic, no disturbance
of any kind ... the women came alone without having their husbands
accompany them to the ballot-box during the noon-hour.”
Because of the unsatisfactory experiences which America has had with
universal suffrage[13] as such, the woman’s rights movement had suffered
also and has been retarded; but owing to the proceedings of the English
suffragettes during the past three years it has been given a new impetus.
In the state legislatures throughout the various parts of the country,
legislative bills have, during this time, been introduced; on these
occasions the women presented their demands in the so-called “hearings”
(which take place before the legislature). This took place in 1908 in
Rhode Island, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois,
South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma[14], Maine, Massachusetts, California,
Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Washington. In the latter state the House
has just passed a woman’s suffrage amendment; if the Senate passes it, the
amendment will be submitted to popular vote.[15] A very active woman’s
suffrage campaign in the State of Oregon (1906) failed, owing to the
opposition of the friends of the liquor interests and the brothels.[16] It
is both significant and gratifying that the woman’s suffrage movement is
spreading to the Eastern States; an example of this is the great
demonstration of February 22, 1909, in Boston.
The woman’s suffrage societies of the various states are formed into a
national league: the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, with about
100,000 members. The President is the Reverend Anna Shaw. This Association
has recently drawn up an enormous petition to Congress in order to secure
woman’s suffrage through federal law, and has established headquarters in
Washington, the federal capital. During eleven weeks 6000 letters and 1000
postal cards were written, and 100,000 petition-blanks were distributed.
To the present time only a small number of women have sought state
legislative offices; women members of city councils are rather numerous.
At the present time there is a woman representative in the legislature of
Colorado. The former governor, Mr. Alva Adams, alluded to her as “a
bright, efficient woman,” who has introduced many bills and secured their
passage. For, says the governor, “it must be a pretty miserable law which
a tactful woman cannot have enacted, since the male legislators are
usually courteous and kindly disposed, and disregard party interests in
order to accept the measure of their female colleague.” From which we
conclude that the women legislators strive especially for measures which
are for the general good.[17]
In the United States there is also an “Association Opposed to Woman’s
Suffrage.” Its chief supporters are found among the saloon-keepers, the
habitual drunkards, and the women of the upper classes. But the American
women believe “that if every prayer, every tear can be supported by the
power of the ballot, mothers will no longer shed powerless tears over the
misfortunes of their children.”[18]
The American women had to struggle not only for their rights as citizens,
but they encountered great difficulty in securing an education. At the
beginning of the nineteenth century the education of girls in the United
States was entirely neglected; the secondary as well as the higher
institutions of learning were as good as closed to them. Woman’s “physical
and intellectual inferiority” was referred to, just as with us [in
Germany]; woman’s “loss of her feminine nature” was feared, and it was
declared “that within a short time the country would be full of the wrecks
of women who had overtaxed themselves with studies.” To all these fears
the American women gave this answer: Women, you say, are foolish? God
created them so they would harmonize with man. As for the rest they
awaited developments. As early as 1821 the first institution for the
higher education of women, Troy Seminary, was founded with hopes for state
aid. In 1833, Oberlin College, the first coeducational college, was opened
with the express purpose “of giving all the privileges of higher education
to the unjustly condemned and neglected sex.” Among the first women
students was the youthful woman’s rights advocate, Lucy Stone. She wished
to learn Greek and Hebrew, for she was convinced that the Biblical
passage, “and he shall rule over thee,” had not been correctly
translated by the men. In 1865 with the founding of Vassar College, the
first woman’s college was established. To-day both sexes have the same
educational opportunities in the United States. The four oldest
universities (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins), established on
the English model, still exclude women, and do not grant them academic
degrees. However, the latter point is of comparatively minor importance
in its relation to the educational opportunities of women. Most of the
western universities are coeducational; in the East there are special
woman’s colleges. In the colleges and universities the number of women
students is a little over one-third of the number of men students, but in
the high schools the girl students outnumber the boys. The removal of all
restrictions to woman’s instruction in the secondary and higher
institutions of learning is furthering the activity of the American women
in the professions. As teachers, they are employed chiefly in the public
schools, in which they constitute 70 per cent of the total staff. So the
majority of the “freest citizens” in the world are educated by women. The
number of women teachers in the public schools is 327,151. In the higher
institutions of learning there is nothing to prevent their appointment.
Among university teachers (professors and those of lower rank) there are
about 1000 women. Their salaries are equal to those of the men, which is
not always the case in the elementary schools, since the tendency is to
restrict women to the subordinate positions.[19]
The women who teach in the woman’s colleges must, in every case, possess a
superior individuality. Thus a woman president of a college must possess
academic training in order to control her teaching force; she must
possess a deep insight into human nature in order that her educational
relations with the public may be successful; she must have a knowledge of
business in order to administer the property of her institution
satisfactorily and command the respect of the financiers of her governing
board.
Fifteen thousand American women are students in woman’s colleges, and
twenty thousand in coeducational colleges and universities. In the latter,
the women have distinguished themselves through application and ability so
that frequently they have taken all the academic honors and prizes to the
exclusion of the men. Since they can no longer be excluded on the ground
of their inferiority, their superiority is now the pretext for their
exclusion. But a suspension of coeducation in the United States is not to
be considered. The state universities, supported with public funds, are
all coeducational. The existence of non-coeducational colleges and
universities in addition to state institutions is regarded as a guarantee
of personal freedom in matters pertaining to higher education.
Since the public school system in the United States is in great part
coeducational, the exclusion of women from conferences pertaining to
school affairs and their administration would indicate that an especially
great injustice were being committed. This was indeed recognized, and
women were given the right to vote on school affairs not only in the five
woman’s suffrage states [Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, and Kansas], but
also in twenty-three other states, in which women are without political
rights in other respects. The famous deaf-blind woman, Helen Keller, was
appointed to serve on the state committee on the education of the blind.
In Boston trained nurses are employed to make visits to the homes of the
school children. An agitation is on foot to have women inspectors of
schools.
In all woman’s suffrage states special attention is devoted to educational
matters. Thus the State of Idaho appropriated $2500 for the establishment
of a lectureship in domestic science. From 1872 to 1900 the number of
women students has increased 148.7 per cent (while the number of men
students increased 60.6 per cent). Among women there are also fewer
illiterates, drunkards, and criminals; in other words, women are the more
moral and better educated part of the American population; and it is these
who are excluded from active participation in political affairs.
The number of women lawyers is estimated at one thousand; in twenty-three
states they may plead in the Supreme Court. Women lawyers have their own
professional organizations.
In Ohio, women are employed in the police service; in Pennsylvania they
are appointed as tax-collectors; in the city of Portland a woman was
appointed as inspector of markets with police power. Women justices of the
peace are as numerous as women mayors. In Oregon a woman is secretary to
the governor, for whom she acts with full authority.
In all woman’s suffrage states women act as jurors. Besides these states
only Illinois permits women to serve as jurors—and then only in a
juvenile court.
There are said to be about 2000 women journalists. Their writings are
often sensational, but in the United States sensationalism is
characteristic of the profession.
Of women preachers there are 3,500, belonging to 158 different
denominations. Among these women preachers there are also negresses. The
women study in theological seminaries, are ordained and devote themselves
either to the real calling of the ministry, social rescue work, or to the
woman’s rights propaganda, as does the excellent speaker, the Reverend
Anna Shaw. The women preachers who devote themselves to social rescue work
usually study medicine also, so that they can first secure confidence as
persons skilled in the cure of the body, and then later the cure of the
soul is less difficult.
There are 7000 women in the medical profession,—more than in any other
profession. The first women who studied medicine were American, Elizabeth
Blackwell having done so as early as 1846. Only the University of Geneva
(New York) would admit her; in 1848 she graduated there. Then she
continued her studies in Paris and London, returning in 1851 to New York,
in order to practice. Her first patients were Quakers. Elizabeth Blackwell
and her sister Emily (Blackwell) then founded in New York the “Hospital
for Indigent Women,” to which the medical schools in Boston and
Philadelphia sent their graduates to obtain practical work.[20] A large
number of women lawyers, preachers, and doctors are married. In 1900 the
total number of women in the professions (exclusive of teaching) was
16,000. In 1900, 14.3 per cent of the female population were engaged in
industries; since 1880 the number of women engaged in the professions and
industries increased 128 per cent (while that of the men increased 76 per
cent).[21]
Most of the technical schools admit women. There are fifty-three women
architects. The Woman’s Building of the World’s Exposition in Chicago
(1893) was designed by Sophia Haydn and erected under her supervision. It
is not unusual for women who are owners of business enterprises to take
technical courses. Thus Miss Jones, as her father’s heir, became, after a
careful education, manageress of her large steel works in Chicago. The
Cincinnati pottery [Rookwood], founded by women, is also managed by them.
There are five women captains of ships, four women pilots, and twenty-four
women engineers.
During twenty-five years, women have had 4000 inventions patented. The
women of the South produced fewest inventions. But in these fields women
still meet with prejudice and difficulties. In increasing numbers women
are becoming bankers, merchants, contractors, owners or managers of
factories, shareholders, stock-brokers, and commercial travelers. About
1000 women are now engaged in these occupations. As office clerks women
have stood the test well in the United States. They are esteemed for their
discretion and willingness to work. They are paid $12 to $20 a week.
According to the most recent statistics on the trades and professions
(1900) there were 1271 women bank clerks, 27,712 women bookkeepers, and
86,118 women stenographers.
In the civil service we find fewer women (they are not voters): in 1890
there were 14,692, of whom 8474 were postal, telephone, and telegraph
clerks, and 300 were police officials. In 1900, the total number of women
engaged in commerce was 503,574.
The prejudice against the women of the lower classes is still evident.
Here at the very outset there is a great difference between the wages of
men and women, the wages of the latter being from one third to one half
lower. This is caused partly by the fact that women are given the
disagreeable, tiresome, and unimportant work, which they must accept,
not being given an opportunity to do the better class of work,—frequently
because they have not learned their trade thoroughly. A further cause for
the lower wages of women is that they are working for “pocket-money” and
“incidentals,” and thus spoil the market for those who must pay their
whole living expenses with what they earn. Among the women workers of the
United States there are two classes,—the industrial class and the
amateurs. The latter make the existence of the former almost impossible.
Such a competition is unknown to men in industrial work. Mrs. v. Vorst[22]
proposes a solution—to make the industrial amateurs become special
artisans by means of a longer apprenticeship, thus relieving the
industrial slaves from injurious competition.
Office work and work in the factories enables the American women of the
middle and lower classes to satisfy their desire for independence; those
who are not obliged to provide for themselves wish at least to have money
at their disposal. That is a thoroughly sound aspiration. These girls
become factory employees and not domestic servants, (1) because work in
their own home is not paid for (the general disregard of housework drives
the women striving for independence away from the house); (2) because of
the absence of regularity in housework; (3) because the domestic servants
are not free on Sundays; (4) because they must live with the employers.
These facts are established by answer to inquiries made by Miss Jackson,
factory inspector of Wisconsin.
The women employed in the stores and factories are in general paid about
the same wages, $4 to $6 a week. A saleswoman, upon whom greater demands
are made as to dress and personal appearance, finds it more difficult to
live on these wages than would the woman employed in the factory. As
pocket-money, however, this sum is a very good remuneration, and this
explains why the girls of these classes, in imitation of the bad example
set them by the members of the upper ranks of society, manifest such an
extraordinary taste for costly clothes and expensive pleasures. In 1888,
an official inquiry showed that 95 per cent of the women laborers lived at
home; in 1891 another official inquiry showed that one third of the women
laborers earned $5 a week; two thirds from $5 to $7, and only 1.8 per cent
earned more than $12, while the men laborers earned on the average $12 to
$15 a week. Women laborers are organized as yet only to a small extent (1
per cent, while 10 per cent of the men are organized). There are separate
social-democratic organizations of women, formed through the Federation of
Labor.
The workingwomen especially will be helped by the right to vote. In the
“Political Equality Series” appears a pamphlet entitled Why does the
Working-woman need the Right to Vote? In the first place she needs the
right to vote in order to secure higher wages. Just suppose that the
members of the typographical union were to-morrow deprived of their right
to vote. Only their full political emancipation could again restore them
to their former position of prestige among the working classes. This is
exactly the case with the women, and they have not even reached the
highly-developed organization of the typographers. A politically unfree
laboring class is also unable to maintain its vocation against a laboring
class possessing political rights; if the vocation is remunerative the
unfree class will be deprived of it or be kept from it altogether. The
oppression of the workingwomen has its effect also on men through its
tendency to lower wages. Therefore at the present time the trades-unions
have recognized that to organize women is in the interests of all
workingmen, and while the women were refused organization forty years
ago, the Federation of Labor is to-day paying trades-union organizers to
induce women to become members of trades-unions. The introduction of a
low rate of wages in one branch of a trade (pursued by both men and
women) is always a menace to the branches that survive the reduction. The
number of women engaged in the industries in 1900 was 1,315,890. The
number of married women engaged in industrial pursuits is small; in 1895,
an official investigation showed that in 1067 factories 7,000 workingwomen
out of 71,000 were married. The chief industries in which women are
employed are the textile industry (cotton), laundering, the manufacture of
ready-made clothing, corsets, carpets, millinery, and fancy-goods. Women
work alongside the men in wool-spinning, in bookbinding, and in the
manufacture of shoes, mittens, tobacco, and confectionery.
The inability of workingwomen to exercise political rights makes minors of
them when compared with workingmen, and this decreases their importance as
human beings. Women cannot protect themselves against injustice, and these
things put them at a great disadvantage.
The American women became involved in a lively conflict with President
Roosevelt (otherwise favoring woman’s rights) concerning his gift to a
father and mother for bringing twenty children into the world. The women
declared in the Woman’s Journal that it is wrong to encourage an
immoderate procreation of children among a population 70 per cent of
which possesses no property.[23] Above all, this encouragement is not only
a menace to the overworked and oppressed workingwomen, but it is inhuman,
and really lowers woman to the position of a machine for bearing children.
The institution of factory inspection does not as yet exist in the whole
Union. According to the report of Mrs. v. Vorst[24] the factories and the
homes of laborers in the Southern States are extremely unsatisfactory.
Child labor is exploited there, a matter which is now being dealt with by
the National Child Labor Committee. According to this same work (the
inquiry of Mrs. v. Vorst) the living conditions in the North and Central
States are better, and the moral menaces to the young girl are
inconsiderable. The women of the property-holding classes are attempting
to do their duty toward the women of the factories and stores by founding
clubs, vacation colonies, and homes for them. Within recent years the
great department stores have appointed “social secretaries,” who look
after the weal and woe of the employees. It would be well to have such
secretaries in the factories and mills also. Since 1874 the working week
of sixty hours for women in industry and commerce has spread from
Massachusetts to almost the entire Union. Since 1890, night labor has
been prohibited by law. The working girls have been provided with seats
while at work, partly as a result of legislation and partly by the
voluntary act of the employers.
In agriculture women find a profitable field of activity. Of course they
are never field hands, but are employers and laborers in the dairy
business, in poultry farming, and in the raising of vegetables and fruit.
Women have introduced the growing of cress, cranberries, and cucumbers in
various regions, and have cultivated the famous asparagus of Oyster Bay
and the “Improved New York Strawberries.” In 1900, there were 980,025
women engaged in agriculture (as compared with 9,458,194 men). The number
of women domestic servants in the United States amounts to 2,099,165;
fifty per cent of the families dispense with servants, since they cannot
afford to pay $15 to $20 a month for a servant, or $30 for a cook.
Educated women, called visiting housekeepers, undertake the supervision of
some of the households of the better class, aided, of course, by help in
the house.
The legal status of the American women is regulated by 52 sets of laws,
corresponding to the number of states and territories. The civil code is
unfavorable to woman in most of the states. In the National Trade Union
League (New York) the Reverend Anna Shaw declared recently that in 38
states the property laws made “joint property holding” legal, as a result
of which the wife has no independent control of her personal earnings or
her personal effects, e.g. her clothes. In 38 states the wife also has
no legal authority over her children. For full particulars the reader is
referred to Volume IV of the History of Woman’s Suffrage. To an
increasing extent the women are using their right to administer their
property independently, and the men are usually proud of the business
ability and success of their wives.
A legal regulation of prostitution (such as prevailed formerly in
England and as prevails now in Germany) does not exist in the United
States. Cincinnati is the only city which in the European sense has police
control of prostitution. Public opinion has successfully resisted all
similar attempts. (Woman’s Journal, July, 1904.) The American
Commission, which went to Europe to study the regulation of prostitution,
declared that the American woman cannot be expected to sanction such an
arrangement, and that, moreover, the system had not stood the test. In the
police stations, police matrons are employed. The law protects the woman
in the street against the man and not, as in Europe, the man against the
woman.
In order to combat the double standard of morals the “Social Purity
League” was formed. The membership is composed of those men and women who
are thoroughly convinced that there is only one standard of morality for
both sexes, since they have the same obligations to their offspring.
Founded in 1886, this organization has spread since 1889 throughout the
entire Union.
The “World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union,” the second largest
international woman’s organization, originated in America. It was founded
in 1883 by Frances E. Willard (her father was Hilgard, from the
Palatinate). The Union has 300,000 members in the United States at the
present time, and 450,000 members in the whole world. In 1906 it met in
Boston. It is the determined enemy of alcohol, and gives proof of its
convictions through the work of its soldier’s and sailor’s department, its
committees on railroads, tramways, police stations, cab drivers, etc. This
Union, as well as the “Social Purity League,” is a firm advocate of
woman’s suffrage.
The emancipation of the American women is promoted through sports. If on
the one hand they appreciate an elaborate toilette, on the other hand they
recognize the advantages of bloomers, the walking skirt, and the divided
skirt. In these costumes they play basketball, polo, tennis, and take
gymnastic exercise, fence, and row. The woman’s colleges are centers of
athletic life. There the girls now play football in male costume, the
public being excluded. In all large cities there are athletic clubs for
women, some extremely sumptuous (with a hundred-dollar fee) as well as
very simple clubs for workingwomen of sedentary life.
We have seen that the legal status of women in many states is still in
need of reform. All the more instructive is the survey of laws concerning
women and children in the woman’s suffrage states, published by Mrs. C.
Waugh McCullock, a woman lawyer, of Chicago. The wife disposes of her
wages and her dowry (in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho). Men and women
receive equal pay for the same work. All professions and public offices
are open to women. Women act as jurors. They have the same right of
inheritance as men. Divorce is granted to either party under the same
circumstances. The claims of the wife and the children under age are given
a decided preference over those of creditors. Education from the
kindergarten to the university is free and is open to women. The labor of
women in mines is prohibited. The maximum working-day for women is eight
hours. All houses of correction and institutions for the protection of
women and children must have women physicians and overseers. The age of
consent is 18 years. Gambling and prostitution are prohibited. Both father
and mother exercise parental authority. The surviving husband is guardian
of the children. The sale of alcoholic liquors and tobacco to children is
prohibited. No child under 14 years of age may work in the mines.
Pornographic literature and pictures are prohibited.
In conclusion I shall take several points from the lecture which Professor
F. Laurie Poster held before the Political Equality League in Chicago,
after the women of Chicago had waged a vigorous campaign for the right to
vote in municipal affairs.
Why is the value of woman placed so low? Merely because she is more
helpless than man. Children are valued even less than women because they
surpass the women in helplessness. Only animals have less power of
defense; therefore they have the lowest value placed on them. In the
United States it has now been demonstrated that whoever possesses the
right to vote is esteemed more highly than he who does not have that
right. We see this in the woman’s suffrage states; here the women have
made provisions not only for themselves, but for the children as well, for
it is one of the fundamental instincts of woman to protect her little
ones. In most of the states of the Union, however, women can help directly
neither themselves nor their children. That women should be forced to
struggle for these ends against the opposition of man is one of the most
unfortunate phases of the whole movement.
When woman became property, a possession, the overestimation of her sexual
value began. Her sex was her weapon, and her capabilities became stunted.
This over emphasis of the sexual causes a great part of the most flagrant
evils among civilized peoples. To-day we have reached a stage where we
despise him who sells his vote. Unfortunately it is still permitted to
sell one’s sex. In this roundabout way woman attains most of the good
things in life. Her economic successes depend almost entirely on the
resources of the man to whom she belongs. Both sexes suffer as a result of
this attitude of society. Woman’s uncertain feeling, that she must
concentrate her interests and responsibilities in the one who provides for
the family, has created exceedingly peculiar customs and a wholly absurd
code of honor for both man and woman. Thereby woman is directed to a
roundabout way for everything she wishes to obtain. Whatever she wishes
for herself must appear as a domestic virtue, if possible as a sacrifice
for the family. Man thinks it very natural that he should do what he
desires, that he should pursue his pleasures and gratify his passions, for
he is indeed the one who possesses authority and does not need first to
stamp his wishes as virtues. But it seems just as natural to him that the
women of the family should be endowed with a double portion of piety,
economy and willingness to make sacrifices,—virtues in which he is so
lacking. Women are created especially for that. By nature they are better,
and indeed they make great efforts to cover the faults of the offending
one and forgivingly accept him again. In fact they do it gladly; it gives
them pleasure, and man certainly does not wish to deprive them of the
opportunity for such great joys. Therefore man is instantly at hand to
warn woman when she shows any inclination toward adopting “masculine”
habits. But he certainly would be more conscientious and more moral if
woman no longer assumed these virtues vicariously for him. Woman must make
her demands of man. For that she must be free.[25]
AUSTRALIA[26]
| Total population: | 4,555,662. |
| Women: | 2,166,318. |
| Men: | 2,389,344. |
An association of women’s clubs in each of five colonies.
The Australian Women’s Political Association, embracing six colonies. |
It is a rare thing for Europeans to have a definite conception of the
Australian Commonwealth. This is the more to be regretted since this
federation of republics is among the countries that have made the greatest
progress in the woman’s rights movement. In no other part of the world has
such a radical change in the status of woman been effected in so short a
time and with such comparatively insignificant struggles.
Till 1840, Australia had been a penal colony. Since then,—after the
discovery of the first gold fields,—a multitude of fortune-seekers,
gold-miners, and adventurers joined the population of deported convicts.
The good middle-class element for a long time remained in the minority.
Certainly nobody would have believed that there existed at that time in
Australia all the conditions necessary for the growth of a flourishing and
highly civilized commonwealth. Nevertheless, such was the case. There were
formed seven democratic states, whose people were not bound by any
traditionalism or excessive fondness for time-honored, inherited customs;
these people wished to have elbowroom and were determined to establish
themselves on their own soil in their own way. This all took place the
more easily since England gave the growing commonwealth in general an
exceedingly free hand, and because the inhabitants were by nature
independent. Australia was colonized by those who, having come into
conflict with the laws of the old world, found their sphere of life narrow
and restricted.
Because Australia to-day has only about five million inhabitants, the
country is confronted only in a limited way with the problem of dealing
with congested masses of people, a condition which is favorable to all
social experimentation. Those in authority believe they can direct and
eventually mold the development of the Commonwealth.
Sixty-five per cent of the population are Protestant; the Germanic element
predominates. The women constitute not quite 50 per cent of the
population. Thus in many respects the Australian colonies possess
conditions similar to those prevailing in the western states of the
American Union, and the results of the woman’s rights movement are in both
regions approximately the same. Mrs. M. Donohue, one of the delegates from
Australia, declared at the London Woman’s Suffrage Congress that her
country had brought about “the greatest happiness for the greatest
number.”
Naturally, the Australian governments had originally a series of material
problems to solve, real problems of existence, as, for example, to find a
satisfactory agricultural policy in a predominantly farming and
cattle-raising country. When the economic basis of the country seemed
sufficiently secure, the intellectual interests were given attention. A
country which never had slavery or a feudal regime, a Salic Law, or a Code
Napoleon; a country which has no divine right of kings, and is not
oppressed with militarism; a country which judges a man by his personal
ability and esteems him for what he is, such a country certainly could not
tolerate the dogma of woman’s inferiority. Between 1871 and 1880, the
school systems of the various colonies were regulated by a series of laws.
Elementary instruction, which is free and obligatory, is given in public
schools to children of both sexes between the ages of five and fifteen,
but in most cases the sexes are segregated. In the public schools of the
whole continent about 20,000 teachers are employed (9,000 men and 11,000
women). The men predominate in the leading well-paid positions. The
secondary school system (as in England) is composed largely of private
schools, and is to a great extent in the hands of the Protestant
denominations and the Catholic orders. The governments subsidize these
institutions. Girls and boys enjoy the same educational opportunities in
the schools, part of which are coeducational.
The four Australian universities—Sidney (New South Wales), Melbourne
(Victoria), Adelaide (South Australia), and Aukland (New Zealand)—are
to-day open to women, who can secure all academic degrees granted by the
philosophical, law, and medical faculties.[27]
The number of students in the universities is as follows: in Sidney, 1054
(of whom 142 are women); in New Zealand University, 1332 (of whom 369 are
women); in Melbourne, 853 (of whom 128 are women). The total number of
students in Adelaide and Hobart is 626 and 62 respectively, but the number
of women students is not given. The educational problem is thus solved for
the Australian woman in a favorable manner: she has equal and full
privileges in the universities.
What are the conditions in the occupations? “All occupations are open to
women,” is stated in a report which I have used.[28] But that is not
entirely correct. Women are teachers, but they are not lecturers and
professors in the universities. As preachers they are admitted only among
the Nonconformists. There are women doctors and dentists, and in four
colonies (New Zealand, Tasmania, West Australia, and Victoria) women are
permitted to practice law, but they are confronted with a certain popular
prejudice when they attempt to enter medicine, law, technical science, and
a teaching career in the universities. The state employs women in the
elementary schools; in the postal and telegraph service; as registrars
(permitting them to perform marriage ceremonies); and as factory
inspectors. But the salaries and wages in Australia are not always the
same for both sexes. Thus, for example, in South Australia the male head
masters of the public schools draw salaries of 110 to 450 pounds sterling,
while the women draw 80 to 156 pounds sterling. Since school affairs are
not affairs under the control of the Commonwealth, the federal law (equal
wages for equal work) cannot be applied in this particular. In
Tasmania[29] (where the women have voted since 1903) women are teachers in
the public schools, employees in the postal, telegraph, and telephone
systems, supervisors of health in the public schools, and assistants to
the quarantine and sanitary boards; they are registrars in the parishes,
superintendents of hospitals, asylums, prisons, etc. Public offices in the
army, the navy, and the church alone remain closed to them.
It is to be noted here that Mrs. Dobson, of Tasmania, was the official
representative of the Australian government at the International Woman’s
Suffrage Congress held in Amsterdam in 1908.
The official yearbook of the Australian Federation gives the following
industrial statistics for 1901: state and municipal office holders, 41,235
women (69,399 men); domestic servants, 150,201 women (50,335 men);
commerce, 34,514 women (188,144 men); transportation, 3429 women (118,730
men); industry, 75,570 women (350,596 men); agriculture and forestry,
fisheries, and mining, 38,944 women (494,163 men). In all fields, with the
exception of domestic service, the men are in a numerical superiority;
therefore the matrimonial opportunities of the Australian woman are
favorable. For every 100 girls 105.99 boys were born in 1906; the
statistics for 1906 showed a greater number of marriages than ever before
(30,410). The difference in the ages of the married men and women is 4.5
years on the average; the number of children per family is about 4 (3.77).
Five Australian colonies (New Zealand, Victoria, Queensland, South
Australia, and New South Wales) have enacted the following laws for the
protection of workingwomen:
1. Maximum working time—48 hours a week.
2. The prohibition of night work (except in Queensland).
3. Higher wages for overtime.
The eight-hour day is necessitated throughout Australia by the climate.
The other provisions are perhaps not stringently enforced. Children under
thirteen years cannot be employed in the factories. Socialistic
regulations, such as fixing the minimum wages in certain industries, and
the establishment of obligatory courts of arbitration, have been
instituted in several colonies (Victoria, New South Wales, etc.).
In the beginning the English Common Law regulated the legal status of the
Australian women. During the past fifty years this law has undergone many
modifications. Each colony acted independently in the matter, and
therefore there is no longer uniformity. In all cases separate ownership
of property is legal. However, joint parental authority is legally
established only in New Zealand. The divorce laws are prejudicial to women
in almost all respects.
In the field of legislation the influence of woman’s suffrage has already
made itself definitely felt. Each colony has its state legislature which
consists of a Lower House and a Senate. Every Australian who is twenty-one
years old is a voter in both state and municipal elections. (There is a
property qualification only for those voting for the Senate.) In 1869 the
woman’s suffrage movement began in Australia (in Victoria). The right to
vote in school and municipal affairs was given to women as a matter of
course.[30] The right to vote in state affairs was granted to women first
in New Zealand in 1893, in South Australia in 1895, in West Australia in
1899, in New South Wales in 1903, in Queensland in 1905, and in Victoria
in 1908.
When the six Australian colonies (excluding New Zealand) formed themselves
into a federation in 1900, an Australian Federal Parliament was
established. The women of all of the six colonies voted for the
parliamentary officers on an equality with men. Here was a curious
thing—the women of the four conservative colonies voted for the members
of the Federal Parliament but could not vote for the state legislature.
On the basis of the documents dealing with Victoria I shall give a more
detailed account of the history of woman’s suffrage in this colony. The
greatest statesman of Victoria, George Higinbotham, in 1873 introduced the
first woman’s suffrage bill before Parliament. This met with no success. A
number of similar attempts were made until 1884. In this year there was
founded the first “Woman’s Suffrage Society” in Victoria. The movement
then spread rapidly, and in 1891 thirty thousand women petitioned
Parliament for the suffrage in state affairs. For the time being this
attempt likewise met with failure. But the political organization of the
women was strengthened through the formation of the “United Council for
Woman’s Suffrage.” Every year after 1895 this Council gave advice to the
Lower House concerning the framing of woman’s suffrage bills, and thus
enlarged its influence. Hitherto the passing of the suffrage bill had been
prevented by the opposition of the Upper House (which was not chosen by
universal suffrage). On November 18, 1908, the bill was finally passed by
the House of Obstruction, and thus the women, who had worked for the
suffrage, were finally emancipated. Since 1893, the year of the
emancipation of women in New Zealand, the opponents of woman’s suffrage
put off the women with the request to wait and see how the plan worked in
New Zealand; in 1896 the women were asked to wait and see how the plan
worked in New South Wales; in 1902 they were asked to see how woman’s
suffrage worked in the federal elections. In 1908 it was possible to
secure only 3500 signatures against woman’s suffrage.
In New Zealand the women have exercised active suffrage since 1893. There
also, the gloomiest predictions were made when this “unprecedented”
measure was adopted. There were, of course, women opponents of woman’s
suffrage. Such, for example, was Mrs. Seddon, the wife of the Prime
Minister of New Zealand. She said: “It seemed to me that the women ought
to remain away from the tumult and riotous scenes of the polling booths.
But I gave up this view. With us, the women benefited the suffrage and the
suffrage benefited the women. The elections have taken place more quietly
and women have indicated a lively interest in public affairs.
“Woman’s suffrage has not caused family dissensions. It has frequently
happened that whole families have voted for the same candidate. In other
cases different members of one family voted for different candidates. But
this has not disturbed domestic tranquillity, for nowhere have family
feuds been engendered by one member or another of the family boasting of
the success of his candidate. The fear that the women would vote largely
for Conservative candidates, through the influence of the clergy, was not
realized. Already the women have twice contributed to the reëlection of a
Liberal minister. Neither the Protestant nor the Catholic clergy
endeavored to influence the votes of the women anywhere.” The Countess
Wachtmeister, a Californian traveling in Australia, confirms this opinion,
“Thanks to woman’s suffrage the respectable elements that formerly often
remained away from the political arena have now again stepped to the
front; they have presented successful candidates, and have begun to play
an important part in the political life of the country.”
Since women have exercised the right to vote in New Zealand the following
legal reforms have been enacted:
1. Divorces are granted to the wife and to the husband upon the same grounds.
2. The husband can no longer deprive the wife and children of their inheritances by means of a will.
3. The conditions of suffrage in municipal elections were made the same for both women and men.
4. The saloons are closed on election days.
5. Women are admitted to the practice of law.
6. The age of consent for girls was raised to 17.
Similar reforms were enacted in South Australia. There Mrs. Mary Lee is
the leader in the woman’s suffrage movement, and founder of the “Women’s
Suffrage Society.” When the woman’s suffrage bill was passed in 1895 the
Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Instruction, and the Lord Mayor
gave Mrs. Lee an impressive reception in the town hall; they thanked her
for the untiring efforts which she had devoted to the cause, and the Prime
Minister said, “Mrs. Lee is the originator of the greatest reforms in the
constitutional history of Australia.” What enlightened views the ministers
in the antipodal countries do have! Are they really our antiscians to such
a degree?
Since 1896, the following reforms have been effected by the South
Australian Parliament:
1. A modification of the marriage law (the husband must provide for
the wife and children if his brutality leads to a divorce). An
enlargement of woman’s sphere in the business world. Separate property rights.
2. Greater strength was given to the law compelling the father of illicit children to fulfill his pecuniary duties.
3. A severer penalty for trafficking in girls.
4. The increasing of the age of consent to 17.
5. Improved laws providing for the care of dependent children.
6. A maximum working week of 52 hours for children engaged in industry.
7. Laws suppressing pornography.
8. Laws prohibiting the sale of liquor and tobacco to children.
9. Women were appointed to the positions of inspectors of schools, prisons, hospitals, etc.
In West Australia, where women have voted since 1899, the women were
admitted to the practice of law; the age of consent was raised to 17
years; and the conditions on which divorce are granted were made the same
for man and woman. In Europe people still question the practical value of
woman’s suffrage.
Following the establishment of woman’s suffrage in New South Wales and
Tasmania, juvenile courts were introduced; New South Wales adopted a very
stringent law regulating the sale of liquor (local option; no barmaids
under 21 years could be employed; the sale of liquors to children under 14
years was prohibited).
Since women have voted in the elections for the Federal Parliament they
have formed the Australian Woman’s Political Association. The President is
Miss Vida Goldstein, of Victoria. To the Association belong woman’s
suffrage leagues, woman’s trade-unions, temperance societies, woman’s
church clubs, and other organizations. For the present the women will not
ally themselves with any of the existing parties, since the principles of
none of them correspond exactly to the programme which the women have set
up. The “Political Equality League” is satisfactory in one respect (equal
rights for both sexes), but goes too far in its socialistic demands.
The women have succeeded in having federal laws enacted providing that all
state employees be paid the same wages for the same work, and that the
legal provisions for naturalization permit woman to retain her right of
self-government and her individuality. The government will propose a
federal law securing uniformity in the marriage laws (laws in regard to
marriage, property, divorce, and parental authority).
In all the Australian colonies women have active suffrage, but not in all
cases the passive. Wherever they possess the latter they have laid little
claim to it:
1. because a part of the capable women believe they can work more
effectively and achieve more if they are not attached to a political party;
2. because the established party programmes very frequently embody the demands of the women;
3. because for this reason the political parties expect no special
advantage from the women, and it is difficult to secure the support
of the great party papers for the women candidates;
4. because the Australian elections also cost money, and the capable women are not always well-to-do.
In 1903, Miss Vida Goldstein announced her candidature for the Federal
Parliament and was defeated. In the federal elections of 1906 on an
average 58.36 per cent of the registered men and 43.30 per cent of the
registered women voted (against 53.09 and 30.96 per cent in 1903).
In two pamphlets,—Woman’s Suffrage in New Zealand, and Woman’s
Suffrage in Australia,[31]—the leading men of the youngest region of the
world have given their written testimony on the practical workings of
woman’s suffrage. These men are prime ministers of the colonies, public
prosecutors, the ministers of the various state departments, members of
the lower houses in the parliaments, high dignitaries of the Church, the
editors of large political newspapers. They all make the most favorable
statements concerning woman’s suffrage.
“The women have demanded nothing unreasonable from their representatives,
and have always placed themselves on the side of clean politics and clean
politicians.” “Woman’s suffrage has brought about neither the millennium
nor pandemonium,” and the New Zealanders do not understand why it is that
in other countries people “can still become agitated over anything so
inherently reasonable as woman’s suffrage.”
All who wish to have the right to participate in a discussion on woman’s
suffrage must first study these two books of testimonials. A mere
knowledge of these facts will cause much insipid discussion to cease in
public meetings.
From the French consul in Dantzig, Count Jouffroy d’Abbans, one familiar
with Australian conditions, I learned the following isolated facts
concerning woman’s suffrage. It has a salutary influence throughout. Women
show a lively interest in political and municipal questions; for the sake
of their political rights they neglect their “specifically feminine”
duties so little that they come to the parliamentary sessions with
knitting, embroidery, and sewing. They also engage in these feminine
activities while attending the night sessions. On election days there is
certainly often a cold dinner or supper. But that occurs on washing days,
too, and no one has yet wished to deny women the privilege of doing the
washing. It is safe to say that the Australian woman’s rights movement
will not fail because of this obstacle.
GREAT BRITAIN
| Total population: | 41,605,220. |
| Women: | 21,441,911. |
| Men: | 20,163,309. |
English Federation of Women’s Clubs.
Woman’s Suffrage League. |
“England is the storm center of our movement,” declared the President of
the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance in the Amsterdam Congress.
This was the conviction of the Congress, which therefore resolved to hold
the next International Woman’s Suffrage Congress in London (in April,
1909). The fact is undisputed that the English suffragettes—whether one
favors or opposes their actions—have made Great Britain the center of the
modern woman’s rights movement. England is a European country, an old
country with rigid traditions, which, nevertheless, are the freest
political traditions that we have in Europe to-day. For fifty years the
English women have struggled for the right to vote. In spite of the fact
that their country has neither Salic Law nor continental militarism (two
of the greatest obstacles to all woman’s rights movements), the English
women have not as yet attained their ends. This is an indication of the
tenacity of the prejudices against women in the countries of older
civilizations.
The opposition offered to the political emancipation of women in England
is all the more remarkable since the English women were able to exercise
the right to vote on an equality with men in national elections till 1832,
and in municipal elections till 1835.[32] To that time we find the same
conditions prevailing in England as prevailed in the nine American
commonwealths previous to 1783. This parity of circumstances is explained
by the English principle of representation: no taxation without
representation. In 1832 and 1835, however, the English women, who as
taxpayers were qualified to vote, had the right to vote in national and
municipal affairs taken from them; for the word “persons” the expression
“male persons” was substituted in the election law. When this
disfranchisement took place none of those concerned cried out against it.
For two hundred years the women had made no use worth mentioning of the
right to vote. But a part of the women, especially those of the liberal
and cultured circles, saw the significance of this retrograde step.
The political struggles of general concern during the following period
(such as the antislavery movement and the anticorn-law movement) furnished
these women an opportunity to educate themselves in political affairs,
and, like the American women of that time, they in many cases learned
their political ABC by means of the same questions. Such men as Cobden,
Pease, Biggs, Knight, and others were the advance guard of the political
women in England. The earliest pamphlet on women’s suffrage preserved to
us appeared in 1847. It is a small leaflet and says among other things,
“As long as both sexes and all parties are not given a just
representation, good government is impossible” (which is a paraphrase of
the American principle—every just government derives its powers from the
consent of the governed). The contrary view had been stated in the
Encyclopædia Britannica as early as 1842 by the father of John Stuart
Mill: “It is self-evident that all persons whose interests are identical
with those of a different class are excluded from political representation
without injury.” Certainly from such an arrangement the “representatives”
will suffer no injury. That select group of intellectual women who trained
themselves politically during the antislavery movement and the struggle
for free trade consisted of the mothers, the sisters, and daughters of
liberal politicians and academically trained men. Many of these women were
themselves students and teachers. No antagonism ever existed in England
between the woman’s suffrage movement and the movement favoring the
education of woman.
Such were the conditions in 1866. A new election law was to be introduced
in Parliament; a new class of men was to be granted the right of suffrage
by the lowering of the property qualification. The women decided to
present a petition to the House of Commons requesting the right to vote in
national elections. The women had decided to act thus publicly because of
the presence of John Stuart Mill in the House of Commons, and because of
an utterance of Disraeli’s, “In a country in which a woman can be ruler,
peer, church trustee, owner of estates, and guardian of the poor, I do not
see in the name of what principle the right to vote can be withheld from
her.” Four petitions (one signed by 1499 women, one by 1605 taxpaying
women, and two more signed by 3559 and 3000 men and women) were sent to
the House of Commons; and on May 20, 1867, John Stuart Mill, after he had
presented the petitions, moved that the right to vote be given to the
qualified women taxpayers. His motion was rejected by a vote of 196 to 73.
Thereupon there were formed for systematic propaganda, woman’s suffrage
societies in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, and Bristol; these
cities are still the center of the movement. The new election law gave
women a further advantage—the expression male person was replaced with
the generic word “man.”[33] Since an Act of Parliament (13 and 14 Vict.,
c. 21) declares that in all laws the masculine expression also includes
the feminine, unless the contrary is expressly stated, the friends of
woman’s suffrage believed they could interpret this expression in favor of
women. The attempt to do this was now made. A number of qualified women
demanded that they be registered with the voters; they were determined to
have recourse to the law if the government commission refused to register
their votes. At this time the first public meeting of women in England was
held in the famous “Free Trade Hall” in Manchester. But the courts and the
Supreme Court interpreted the law against the women,—“they are
disqualified neither intellectually nor morally, but legally.” Then a
methodical propaganda by means of public meetings was begun; the first
victory was won as early as 1869,—the women taxpayers were given the
right to vote in municipal affairs in England, Scotland, and Wales.
Between 1870 and 1884, the political organization of the women was
strengthened; the women of the aristocracy (Lady Amberly, Lady Anne
Gore-Langton, and others) were won over to the cause of woman’s suffrage.
A “Central Committee for Woman’s Suffrage” was formed, and a number of
excellent women speakers (Biggs, Maclaren, Becker, Fawcett, Craigen,
Kingsley, Tod, and others) spoke throughout the country. A further success
was achieved when the Parliament of the Isle of Man[34] (House of Keys)
gave qualified women the right to vote.
In 1884, the property qualification was again reduced through a new
election law; the friends of woman’s suffrage took advantage of this
opportunity to present a motion in Parliament favoring woman’s suffrage,
in support of which the following statements were made: “Two million men,
many of whom are ignorant and uneducated, and possess only a small plot of
ground, are to be given political rights. On what principle is the same
right withheld from 300,000 women who are educated and who are
landowners?” This motion was lost also. In 1885 the English women, in
order to make their influence felt in political affairs, formed the
“Primrose League,” which supported the Conservative candidates in the
election campaigns; and in 1887 was formed the “Women’s Liberal
Federation,” which supported the Liberals in a similar manner. The next
attempt to secure woman’s suffrage was made in 1897, but it was
unsuccessful. During the Boer War woman’s suffrage receded into the
background, and not until March 14, 1904, was a woman’s suffrage bill
again introduced; this bill did not become law. At that time the woman’s
suffrage movement was lifeless, and in a thoroughly hopeless condition.
All the usual means of propaganda had been exhausted,—meetings,
petitions, and personal work during campaigns made no impressions either
on the members of Parliament, the government, or on public opinion. It was
no longer possible to educe arguments against the right of qualified
women to vote (it was not a question of universal suffrage, but, just as
in the case of the men, it was a matter of granting the franchise to women
holding property in their own name and earning their own living).
Governments, however, wish to be coerced into granting the franchise,
and the representatives of the woman’s suffrage movement were not
determined enough to exercise the necessary coercion. Therefore, the
National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies transferred the leadership of
the movement to the National Women’s Social and Political Union, whose
members are known by the name of suffragettes. This transference of
leadership took place during the autumn of 1905.
The suffragettes then adopted militant tactics, making the government
their point of attack. This was a good stroke, for since 1905 England has
had a Liberal Cabinet, and several of the ministers and over 400 of the
600 members of the House of Commons have declared themselves as friends of
woman’s suffrage. “Then why don’t you grant us our political freedom?”
asked the suffragettes.
The women are heads of families, they pay rent and taxes, just as the men.
All their conditions of livelihood are as dependent upon the laws as are
those of the men. A liberal government and liberal members of
Parliament ought to be liberal towards women and grant them the suffrage.
Many of these ministers and many members of Parliament owe their political
careers, their election, and their influence to the practical campaign
activities of women or to the woman’s suffrage movement, which they
supported in order to enlarge their political influence. They have made
use of the woman’s suffrage movement and now wish to do nothing in return.
The fate of all woman’s suffrage bills introduced since 1870 (13 in
number) proves that it is hopeless to have such bills introduced by
private members. Women must turn their hopes to a bill introduced by the
government. The present Liberal government needs only to treat the matter
seriously; then a woman’s suffrage bill will be passed.
But the government has not treated the matter seriously; hence the
suffragettes have declared war. It is their determination to fight every
ministry which is not kindly disposed toward the suffrage movement.
The struggle is carried on by the following means: organization of
societies; meetings throughout the country; street parades and open air
meetings (especially significant are those of June 13 and 21, 1908); the
employment of first-class speakers, who make concise, clear, ingenious,
and stirring speeches; the raising of large sums of money (20,000 pounds,
i.e. $100,000 annually; there is a reserve fund of 50,000 pounds, i.e.
$250,000); the publication of a well-managed periodical, Votes for
Women.[35]
The leaders are Mrs. and Miss Pankhurst, Mrs. Drummond, Annie Kenney, Mr.
and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence. These and the most determined of their
associates undertake to send deputations to the Liberal Prime Minister,
Mr. Asquith, and to ask the question in all public meetings in which
members of the Cabinet speak,—when will you give women the right to vote?
The deputations go to Parliament because women, as taxpayers, have the
right to speak to the Prime Minister, who continually receives
deputations of men. Since the Prime Minister does not wish to grant women
the right to vote, the deputations of women are prevented from entering
the Houses of Parliament by strong squads of police, both mounted and on
foot; and if the women do not desist from their attempt to make known to
the Prime Minister the resolutions of their meeting, they are arrested for
the disturbance of the peace, the interruption of traffic, or the
instigation of tumult and riot; they are arraigned in the police court
and are sentenced to imprisonment in the ordinary prisons. The Liberal
government stubbornly refuses to regard these women as political offenders
and to punish them as such.
The woman’s suffrage advocates, who ask the Cabinet members questions in
public meetings, direct their questions to both friends and opponents of
woman’s suffrage. For, they inquire, of what use are our friends to us if
they do nothing for us? The members of the English Cabinet have a joint
responsibility for their political programme. If the friends of woman’s
suffrage treat the matter seriously, they must either convert their
colleagues or resign. As long as they do not do that, they are merely
playing with woman’s suffrage and the women think it necessary to “heckle”
them. The women who ask the questions are often ejected from the meetings
in a very rough way.[36]
The suffragettes give the government conclusive proof of their political
power when they oppose Liberal candidates at all by-elections and
contribute to the defeat of the candidates or cause a reduction of their
votes. To the present this has occurred in fourteen cases. It is due to
the success of these tactics that the whole world is to-day speaking about
woman’s suffrage, which has become a burning political question in
England. All along the people and the press are giving greater support to
the suffragettes who have the courage to brave the horrors of the London
prison, and there become acquainted with the distress of the poor, the
destitute, and the helpless.
During the last three or four years of the activity of the suffragettes a
great number of woman’s suffrage organizations were founded: The Woman’s
Freedom League (Mrs. Despard), The Men’s League for Woman’s Suffrage, The
Artists’ Suffrage League, The Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise
Association, The Actresses’ Franchise League, The Writers’ League, etc.
Scotland and Ireland have their own woman’s suffrage associations.
In opposition there have been formed the National Women’s Antisuffrage
Association and a Men’s League for Opposing Woman’s Suffrage (those are
supported chiefly by the aristocratic circles). They declare that woman
does not need the right to vote since she exercises an “enormous indirect
influence”; that woman does not wish the right to vote; that her
subordination is based on natural law since brute force rules the world;
woman’s suffrage would result in England’s destruction, if a majority of
women voters (England has a majority of women) were permitted to decide
questions concerning the army and navy.
The leader of the suffragettes, Mrs. Fawcett, recently established the
fact that the newly formed Association has a considerably smaller number
of prominent names among its members than the organization formed two
years ago, which soon came to an inglorious end. She emphasized the fact
that the two important women, who at that time still favored the
antisuffrage movement,—Mrs. Louise Creighton and Mrs. Sidney Webb,—have
since gone over to the suffrage advocates. On the occasion of Mrs.
Fawcett’s public debate with Mrs. Humphry Ward, the leader of the
antisuffragists (in February, 1909), it happened that 235 of those present
favored woman’s suffrage and 74 were opposed.
The argument against the brute force statement was treated in three
excellent articles in Votes for Women under the title “The Physical
Force Fallacy.”[37] The most influential of the English women, together
with the women in the industries, the students of both sexes, the
workingwomen,—in short, the intellectual and professional women are in
favor of the suffragettes; and the woman’s suffrage advocates have “the
spiritual certainty” that moves mountains. Let no one believe that the
appeals made on the streets, the parades of the women as sandwich-men, or
the noisy publicity of their tactics are gladly indulged in by the women.
These actions are entirely opposed to woman’s nature. But the women have
recognized that these tactics are necessary and they act accordingly
because it is their duty. Such movements have always been successful.
Women do not possess the right to vote in parliamentary elections; but, if
taxpayers, they can vote in municipal affairs in the whole of Great
Britain and Ireland. The married women of England and Wales have a
restricted right of suffrage, however: they are “persons” and therefore
voters in parochial elections, in the election of poor-law administrators,
and of urban and rural district councillors; but they are not regarded as
“persons” and are not voters in elections for the borough and county
councils. In one single case, in the County of London, by the law of 1900,
married women were given almost the same rights as those exercised by
married women in Scotland and Ireland.[38] The right of single or married
women to hold office (passive suffrage)[39] has prevailed in England and
Wales since 1869 in respect to the offices of guardians of the poor,
overseers, waywardens, churchwardens,—and since 1870 (Education Act) in
respect to school boards.[40] At the very first school elections women
were elected, which induced women to have themselves presented also as
candidates for the offices of poor-law administrators. In 1875 the first
unmarried woman was elected to that office, the first married woman in
1881. In the discharge of their duties in both classes of offices the
women have acted admirably. Nevertheless, the reactionary Education Act of
June, 1903, took away from the women the right to hold office as members
of school boards in the County of London. They can still secure
administrative offices by governmental appointment, but no longer by an
election. In 1888 were created the county councils for England and Wales;
the county councils were at the same time organs for the self-governing
municipalities. Since this law, like those of 1869 and 1870, did not
specially exclude women from the right to hold office, two women, Mrs.
Cobden and Lady Sandhurst, presented themselves as candidates for the
office of county councillors of London. They were elected. Thereupon Mrs.
Beresford-Hope, whom Lady Sandhurst had defeated, contested the legality
of the election. In 1889, the Court of Appeals declared that women were
eligible to public office only when this is expressly stated.[41] This
decision of the Court, which was in conflict with the English
Constitution, also brought about the loss of the right of the women of
Scotland and Ireland to hold office as county councillors.
As a result of this judicial decision, when the new Local Self-government
Act for England and Wales was enacted (1894), it was necessary expressly
to state the eligibility of women (unmarried and married) to hold the
minor local offices (parish, urban, rural district councillors, poor-law
guardians, etc.). Article 22, however (in spite of historical precedents),
excluded women from the office of justice of the peace. In 1894 the same
thing occurred in Scotland, and in 1898 in Ireland.
In 1899, the attempt to secure the eligibility of women to the
metropolitan borough councils (for London only)[42] failed, owing to the
opposition of the House of Lords.
The law of 1907,[43] known as the Qualification of Women Act, grants
unmarried women the right to hold office in the borough and county
councils (councillor, alderman, mayor). Married women have this right only
in the County of London; elsewhere they can merely vote for these
officers.[44] On the occasion of the first elections under this act twelve
women presented themselves as candidates; six were elected (one as mayor);
hitherto the women had been elected only in small places, and then owing
to exceptional circumstances. Whoever investigates the struggle of the
women to secure their rights in the local government and studies the
attitude of the men toward these exceedingly just demands will comprehend
the exasperating circumstances under which the women are to-day struggling
for the right to vote in the English parliamentary elections. In questions
of power and of gaining a livelihood [Macht- und Brotfragen] the
nobility of man can really not be depended upon.
The woman’s suffrage movement has led to the consummation of a number of
legal reforms: the property laws now legalize the separation of the
property of husband and wife[45]; in the United Kingdom the wife
administers her own property and disposes of it, and has full control over
her earnings. The remainder of the laws regulating marriage are still
rather rigorous,—in England at least; the wife has no hereditary right
to her husband’s property. If she economizes in the administration of the
household, the savings belong to the husband. The wife cannot demand any
pay in money for performing her domestic duties; the mere expenses of
maintenance are sufficient remuneration, etc. In normal cases the father
alone has authority over the children. It is made very difficult for a
woman to secure a divorce, etc.[46]
The women that have labored so untiringly in political affairs have very
naturally made it a point to promote the educational opportunities of
their sex. Since 1870, the elementary school system has been regulated by
the school boards, which have introduced obligatory public instruction. In
these institutions the boys and girls are segregated (except in the rural
districts). On an average there is one male teacher to every three women
teachers in these institutions. The secondary schools are private, as in
Australia. Hence it was not necessary for the English women to wrest every
concession from a reluctant government (as was the case in Germany); but
private initiative, combined with the devotion of private individuals,
made possible in a few years the full reorganization of England’s
institutions of learning for girls. This reorganization began in 1868 and
led to the following results: the establishment of higher institutions of
learning in all English cities (these are called girls’ public day
schools, most of them being day schools. They are governed by committees
consisting of the founders, the principals, and the qualified advisers).
Latin and mathematics are obligatory studies in the curriculum. The
schools are in close relationship with Oxford and Cambridge universities,
the universities inspecting the schools and supervising the various
examinations (including the examinations of the students upon leaving the
schools). In England these schools are for girls only; in Scotland, girls
attend similar schools which are coeducational. The number of women
teachers is estimated at 8000.
Admission to the universities was secured with difficulty by the women. At
first a number of women requested the privilege of attending lectures in
the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Since these universities are
resident colleges, it was necessary to provide boarding places for women.
This was done in 1869 and 1870 in both places, through the work of Miss
Emily Davies and Miss Anna Clough. Both of these beginnings developed into
the women’s colleges of Girton and Newnham. Since then, St. Margaret’s
Hall, Somersville Hall, and Holloway College have been established for
women. These institutions correspond to the German philosophical faculties
[the colleges of literature and liberal arts in the United States]. An
entrance examination is necessary for admission. The course of study is
three years. The final examination, called “tripos,” embraces three
subjects; it corresponds to the German Oberlehrerexamen,—examinations
given to candidates for the position of teachers in the Gymnasiums, the
Realgymnasiums, Oberrealgymnasiums, etc. Theology, medicine, and law
cannot be studied in these woman’s colleges (any more than in the American
woman’s colleges). Part of the teachers live in the woman’s college
buildings; part of them belong to the faculties of Oxford and Cambridge.
The former are women tutors and professors.
The English colleges for women are maintained by private funds. Many women
not wishing to take the “tripos” examination or to become teachers attend
the university to acquire a higher education. Others prepare themselves
for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, or Doctor of
Philosophy. These examinations are accepted by Oxford and Cambridge
universities, but the women are not granted the corresponding titles,
because the use of such titles would make the women Fellows of the
University, which would entitle them to the use of the university gardens
and parks, and to live in one of the colleges. All other universities in
England, Scotland, and Ireland, with the exception of Trinity College,
Dublin, admit women to all departments, accepting their examinations and
granting them academic degrees.
The women’s colleges are centers of sport,—incidentally they possess
their own fire department. To arouse an interest in political affairs and
to develop facility in speaking, debating clubs have been organized. More
than 1300 women have graduated from Cambridge, and more than 1200 from the
University of London. When Mary Putnam wished to study medicine in 1868,
she had to go to Paris. Jex Blake, who attempted the same thing in
Edinburgh in 1869, was driven out by the students. She went to London and
was there at first given instruction by the noble Dr. Anstie. As early as
1870 there was formed in London a special School of Medicine for women, to
which a hospital for women was later attached, being directed and
supported entirely by women physicians. To-day, 553 women doctors are
practicing in Great Britain. Of these 538 have expressed themselves in
favor of, and 15 against, woman’s suffrage. In England, women were first
permitted to take the public examination in dental surgery as late as
1908; while the Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Irish Royal Colleges of Surgeons
had admitted them long before. Women can study law in England, but as yet
they have not been admitted to the bar. If this privilege were granted to
women, they would have to affiliate with the London lawyers’ associations,
such as the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Gray’s Inn, etc.
Members of these organizations must several times a month attend the
dinners or banquets of the lawyers. These corporate customs of the English
Bar are said to exclude women from the legal profession just as similar
customs have excluded them from tutorships and professorships in Oxford
and Cambridge.
In spite of this, Miss Cave recently sought admission to Gray’s Inn, but
was refused because she was a woman. She appealed her case to the Lords
of Appeal in Ordinary, but they declared that they had no jurisdiction;
the matter will be pursued further. The first woman preacher in England, a
native of Germany, Miss v. Petzold, studied theology in Germany and
graduated there. After her trial sermon in Leicester she was elected in
preference to her male competitors. Later she accepted a call to Chicago.
The Congregationalists have four women preachers; the Salvation Army over
3000. Except in those callings where personal ability is determinative,
the salaries of English women are lower than those of the men. The women
have a large field for their efforts in the public schools (where there
are three women teachers to one man teacher). In the secondary schools for
girls, instruction and control are entirely in the hands of women; their
salaries are quite sufficient (the minimum being 100 pounds sterling,
about $500). As we have seen, the higher institutions of learning also
offer the women well-paid positions (the tutors being paid $2000, with
board and lodging; the principals $2500).
The well-paid civil offices are reserved for the men. Although there are
more women teachers and more female students in the schools than males,
there are 244 male inspectors of public schools and 18 women inspectors;
the male inspector-general is paid 1000 pounds sterling annually, the
woman inspector-general 500 pounds. In the secondary schools there are 20
male inspectors and 3 women inspectors with annual salaries of 400 to 800
pounds, and 300 pounds respectively. The women teachers of the elementary
schools (of whom there are approximately 111,000) draw on an average two
thirds the salary of the men teachers, though they have the same training
and do the same amount of work.
In spite of the fact that there are two million women engaged in industry,
there are 900 male factory inspectors and hardly 60 female factory
inspectors. Here again the men are paid 1000 pounds and the women only 500
pounds a year. In the postal and telegraph service the same injustice
exists: the men begin with a minimum wage of 20 shillings a week, while
the women are paid 14 shillings; the men increase their salaries to 62
shillings a week; the women to 30 shillings. The male telegraph operator
begins with 18 shillings and is finally given 65 shillings a week; the
woman telegraph operator begins with 16 and reaches 40 shillings. The male
clerks of the second division of the civil service are paid 250 pounds and
the women 100 annually. In 1908, the number of women employees in the
postal and telegraph service of Great Britain was 13,259; the number of
women supernumeraries, 30,476: total number, 43,735. The highest positions
(heads of departments, staff officers) have been attained by 4 women and
by 178 men.
In recent years many new callings have been opened to women living in the
cities. They are engaged in the manufacture of confectionery. Prominent
and wealthy women have established businesses of their own, in which fine
confections are produced,—in many cases by destitute, nervous, and
overworked women music teachers. Women are active as bookbinders,
stockbrokers, bills of exchange agents, auditors, teachers of domestic
economy, instructors in gymnastics, ladies’ guides, wardrobe dealers (the
costly robes of the women of fashion are sold on commission through
agents), paperers and decorators, etc.
The Woman’s Institute[47] has published a complete handbook on the
occupations of women. This book does not omit the occupation of explorer,
in which Mrs. French Sheldon has distinguished herself (by exploration in
the interior of Africa). In London, the number of women engaged in
gainful pursuits is naturally very large, many of the women being alone in
the world. The women journalists and authoresses in London have been
numerous enough to organize a club of their own,—the Writers’ Club, in
the Strand. The number of women employed in commercial houses is very
large,—450,000. The weekly wages, especially the wages of the saleswomen
in the shops, are often quite moderate, 20 to 25 shillings where
exceptional demands are made as to attractive dress and appearance. The
women have organized the Shop Assistants’ Union. For women with this
weekly wage the securing of good rooms and board at a reasonable price is
a vital question. There are three apartment houses for workingwomen,—the
Sloane Garden Houses, and the apartments for women in Chenies Street and
in York Street. Women teachers, designers, artists, bookkeepers, cashiers,
secretaries and stenographers obtain room and board here at varying rates.
There are bedrooms (with two beds) for 4½ to 5 shillings a week for
each person, furnished rooms for 10 to 14 shillings. The dining room is a
restaurant. Only the evening meal, dinner (served from 6 to 7), is served
to all at once. This meal costs 10 pence (20 cents). In Chenies Street
living expenses are somewhat higher: 6 pence for breakfast, 9 pence for
luncheon, 1 shilling for dinner; which is about 55 cents a day for board.
For suites of two to four rooms $15 to $30 a month is charged. The
Alexandra House in Kensington offers women artists similar privileges;
the Brabanzon House (under the protection of the Countess of Meath)
accommodates employees of the shops only. Since the English women
are—fortunately—independent in spirit, these institutions lack the
scholastic, monastic, or tutelary characteristics that are unfortunately
found in many similar institutions on the continent.
Very few of the English women have become industrial entrepreneurs.
However, they have directed their attention to agriculture as a means of
earning a livelihood and have organized agricultural schools for women.
Here the women engage especially in poultry raising, vegetable and fruit
growing, which in England are very lucrative; England annually imports 41
million pounds’ worth of milk, eggs, poultry, vegetables, and fruits. The
councils of London, Berkshire, Essex, and Kent counties support the
Horticultural College for women in Swanley, Kent, which was founded
privately by wealthy and influential persons. In England 100,000 women are
engaged in agriculture. The demand for trained women gardeners to-day
still exceeds the supply. Trained women gardeners are frequently engaged
for a long term of years to teach untrained gardeners. Women are employed
in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew and in Edinburgh. Holloway College
has a woman gardener. In 1898 a model farm for women was founded by Lady
Warwick in Reading. The institution began with twelve women students, who
cultivated two acres of land. Within a year the number of students was
quadrupled; and then eleven acres were cultivated instead of two.
The woman that wishes to learn stock feeding and dairying is sent to a
special farm. The course requires two years. The Agricultural Association
for Women, founded by Lady Warwick, aids the women agriculturists and
finds positions for the pupils. In Great Britain there are eight public
schools in which women can learn agriculture and gardening. Many county
councils have established courses in gardening, to which women are
admitted.
Agriculture is encouraged in England because the migration from the
country to the city has increased extraordinarily. Agriculture is
restricted in favor of stock raising, which gives employment to fewer
laborers than agriculture. In spite of the great increase in population,
the number of agriculturists has steadily decreased since 1851. On the
other hand, the industrial population (and it is predominantly urban) has
increased significantly. Every industrialization means a pauperization to
a certain extent. It produces the army of unskilled laborers, the victims
of the sweating system, who in a destitute condition are left to eke out
their wretched existence in the “East Ends” of the large cities. There is
no corresponding misery in the country districts. A marked
industrialization therefore causes a degree of general pauperism such as
is unknown in the agricultural regions of western Europe. The pursuit of
gardening among women has a social-political significance. The English
laboring population is estimated at 4,000,000 people, among whom the
trade-union movement has made considerable progress. The English
trade-union statistics of 1904 show 148 trade-unions having women members.
There are all together 125,094 female members, i.e. 6.7 per cent of all
organized laborers. The greatest number of these are in the textile
industries (almost 100,000). The total number of women laborers in this
industry is 800,000.
| |
Men
(SHIL. A WEEK) |
Women
(SHIL. A WEEK) |
| Cotton Industry |
29.6 |
18.8 |
| Woolen Industry |
26.1 |
13.1 |
| Lace Industry |
39.6 |
13.5 |
| Woven Goods Industry |
31.5 |
14.3 |
| Linen Industry |
22.4 |
10.9 |
| Jute Industry |
21.7 |
13.5[48] |
In the textile industry, in which women are better organized than
elsewhere (there being 96,000), there existed in 1906 the preceding
difference between the wages of men and women (see table, p. 84).
The organization of women laborers was first advocated by Mrs. Paterson
and Miss Simcox at the trade-union congress held in Glasgow in 1875. But
this organization is confronted with the same difficulties as exist
elsewhere: the women believe that they are engaged in non-domestic work
only temporarily; therefore they are interested in the improvement of
labor only to a slight degree, and in addition are burdened with
housework; while the male laborer is free when the factory closes. In
almost all industries women are paid lower wages than men,—partly because
those who are poorly equipped are given the lower grades of work and are
not given an opportunity to do the more difficult work; partly, too,
because they are women, i.e. people of the second order. Weekly wages of
5 to 7 shillings are common. Naturally, the workingwoman who is all alone
in the world cannot exist on such a sum. In one industry only the women
are given the same pay as the men for doing the same work,—this is the
textile industry in Lancashire. Since 1847 this industry has been
protected by a law prohibiting night work for women. In this industry men
and women laborers are organized in the same trade-union. The standard of
living of the whole body of workers is very high. There can be no doubt
that the legislation for the protection of the laborers of this industry,
in which the exploitation of women and children had been carried to the
extreme previous to 1847, has caused the raising of the general standard
of living. Without the intervention of law, exploitation would have been
pursued further in this industry. So the English women have before them an
example of the salutary effect of legislation for the protection of the
laborers in the textile industries. Nevertheless, there is in England a
faction among the woman’s rights advocates which vigorously resists every
movement for the protection of women laborers; it has organized itself
into the “League for Freedom of Labor Defense.” It acts on the principle
that every law for the protection of women laborers signifies an
unjustifiable tutelage; that the workingwomen should defend themselves
through the organization of trade-unions; that the laws for the protection
of women laborers decrease women’s opportunities for work and drive them
from their positions, which are filled by men (who can work at night).
These fears are based purely on theory. In practice they are realized only
in entirely isolated cases. The truth is that legislation for the
protection of women laborers (prohibition of night work and the fixing of
a maximum number of work hours a day) is entirely favorable to an
overwhelming majority of workingwomen. It protects them against a degree
of exploitation that they could not resist unaided because the majority
of them are not organized, and have no power to organize themselves; they
will secure this power only through laws protecting women laborers. A
comparative international study of laws for the protection of women
laborers, published by the Belgian department of labor,[49] shows that the
number of women laborers has nowhere decreased, and that wages have not
declined as a result.
Concerning this point Mrs. Sidney Webb says: “In most cases women cannot
be replaced by men, either because the men are not sufficiently dextrous
or because their labor is too expensive. What employer will pay a man 20
to 30 shillings a week when a woman can accomplish just as much for 5 to
12 shillings a week?” We shall return to this subject in discussing
France.
Those women that are members of trade-unions persistently demand the right
to vote; many of them intimate that through this right they expect to
secure an increase in wages. Naturally the wishes of women laborers
possessing the franchise will be considered very differently from the
wishes of those not possessing this right. Proof of this has been given
by the American woman’s suffrage states. Previous to the debates on
woman’s suffrage in Parliament in 1904, a deputation of workingwomen from
the potteries in Staffordshire presented the members of Parliament from
that district with a petition having 4000 signatures, requesting the
introduction of a woman’s suffrage bill, so that women might not continue
to be excluded from all well-paid positions on account of their political
inferiority. On this occasion the Hon. Mr. A. L. Emmott (member of
Parliament from the Oldham district) declared that the salary of the women
employees in the postal savings banks had been reduced from 65 pounds
(with an annual increase of 3 pounds) to 55 pounds (with an annual
increase of 2 pounds, 10 shillings). This would have been impossible if
women had had the right to vote. Domestic servants are as yet organized
only to a small extent, but they are well trained; they number 1,331,000.
In none of the Anglo-Saxon countries of the world is there a schism
between the woman’s rights movements of the middle class and the
Social-Democrats, such as is found in Germany. In each of the Anglo-Saxon
countries there is a Socialist, and even an Anarchist party, but these
parties do not antagonize the woman’s rights movement. The republican
constitutions in America,—the more democratic institutions of
society,—in general moderate the acute opposition. The absence of
historical obstacles has a conciliating influence everywhere in these
countries. In England, where history, monarchy, and traditional class
antagonism seem to give socialism favorable conditions of growth,
socialism has for a long time been hampered by the trade-unions. In other
words, the English workingmen, the first to organize in Europe, had
already improved their condition greatly when the socialistic propaganda
commenced in England. In their trade-unions they confined themselves to
the economic field; they avoided mixing economics with politics; they
worked with both parties, they steered clear of class hatred, and it was
difficult to influence them with the speculative ultimate aims of social
democracy. It has been only in the last decade that social-democracy has
made any progress in England; therefore in the woman’s rights movement
middle-class women and workingwomen work together peaceably.
Of all the women in Europe the English women first became conscious of
their duty toward the lower classes. In this atmosphere,—clubs and homes
for working girls, and the London “College for Working
Women,”—institutions such as we on the continent know only in isolated
cases flourished readily. These institutions devote their attention to the
girls of the lower ranks of society.
The oldest club is the “Soho Club and Home for Working Girls” in Soho
Square, London, founded in 1880 by the Hon. Maude Stanley. It is open from
seven in the morning to ten at night and also on Sunday. Tea can be
obtained for 2½ pence (5 cents), and dinner for 6½ pence (13 cents).
The admission fee is 1 shilling, the annual dues are 8 shillings. The
members have a library at their disposal, and they publish a club
magazine, The London Girls’ Club Union Magazine. Members of such clubs
(including those outside London) have formed themselves into a union. The
members of the committee—composed of wealthy and influential
women—concern themselves personally with the affairs of the clubs, giving
not only their money, but their time and influence. The “College for
Working Women” has existed in Fitzroy Square for more than 25 years. Here
are taught English, French, history, geography, drawing, arithmetic,
reading, writing, singing, cooking, sewing, wood turning, and other
subjects. The quarterly fee is 1 shilling (for use of the library,
attending lectures, etc.), the fees for the courses range from 1 shilling
and 3 pence to 2 shillings and 6 pence (31 to 62 cents) quarterly. A
commission gives examinations. The institution grants scholarships and
gives prizes. The number of such clubs in the whole of Great Britain is
estimated at 800.
The English woman is developing a considerable activity in the
sociological field. Florence Nightingale, who organized a regular hospital
service on the field of battle during the Crimean War (1854), upon her
return to England took steps to secure the training of educated women for
the nursing profession, in which the English nurse has been the model. The
most important Training College for nurses not connected with religious
orders is in Henrietta Street, in London. Still this distinguished
profession, which is represented in the International Red Cross Society,
has not yet attained state registration of nurses,—i.e. an officially
prescribed course of study concluding with a state examination.
The English midwives are vehemently complaining because the new Midwives
Act will be deliberated on by a commission having no midwife as a member.
The superintendent of the London Institute for Midwives has protested
against this on behalf of 26,000 midwives.
Another woman, Octavia Hill, participated in the official inquiry of the
living conditions of the London East End, which led to a systematic
campaign against the slums. This work is at present continued in London by
31 or more women sanitary officers. They supplement the work of the
factory inspectors, since they inspect the conditions under which women
home-workers live. In the whole country there are more than 80 such women
sanitary officers.
The home-workers are mostly women. Half of the 900,000 or more English
women engaged in the manufacture of ready-made clothing are permitted to
work at home. Their wages are wretchedly low. The government, which pays
the men of the Woolwich Arsenal trade-union wages, is one of the worst
exploiters of women (who do not have the right to vote); in the Army
Clothing Works the government employs women either directly or indirectly
(as home-workers through sweaters).[50]
The urgent need of widening woman’s field of labor and improving her
conditions of labor is clearly stated in a lecture which Miss B. L.
Hutchins delivered before the Royal Statistical Society. According to the
census of 1901 there were 1,070,000 more women than men in Great Britain.
In 1901, of every 1000 persons 516 were women (in 1841, only 511 were
women). The longevity of women is higher than that of men (47.77 to
44.13). When the old age pensions were introduced, 135 women to every 100
men applied for aid. Only half of the adult women (5,700,000) are provided
for through marriage, and then only for 20 to 30 years of their lives.
Previous to marriage, and afterward, most of the women are dependent on
their own work for a living. Because English women know from experience
that their conditions of labor can be improved only through the exercise
of the suffrage, they have adopted their “militant tactics.”
In the field of poor-relief England again has taken the lead, inasmuch as
she has permitted women to fill honorary posts in the municipal
administration of the poor-law. At the present time 1162 women are engaged
in this work, 147 of whom are rural district councillors.
The chief reform efforts of the women were directed to the care of
children and to the workhouses, through which channels private aid reaches
the recipient. Still, among 22,000 guardians of the poor the number of
women hardly reaches 1000. The old prejudice against women asserted itself
even in this field. A “Society for Promoting the Return of Women as
Poor-law Guardians” is endeavoring to hasten reform.[51]
The Englishman has the valuable characteristic of forming organizations
that strive to achieve very definite, though often temporary, ends, thus
giving private initiative great flexibility. Such an organization, with a
limited purpose, is the “Woman’s Coöperative Gild,” founded in 1883. Its
purpose is to promote the coöperative movement (as far as consumption is
concerned) among women, and to show them their enormous social and
economic power as consumers. Women are the chief purchasers, as they
purchase the housekeeping supplies. It is to their interest to purchase
through the coöperative associations that exclude the middlemen, and at
the end of the year pay a dividend to the members of the associations.
These associations can exercise an important social influence inasmuch as
they create model conditions of labor for their employees (short working
day, high wages, early closing of the shops, no work on Sundays or
holidays, opportunity to sit down during working hours, insurance against
sickness, old age insurance, sanitary conditions of labor, etc.). The Gild
organizes women into coöperative societies, and by theoretical as well as
practical studies informs the women of the advantages of the coöperative
system. The movement to-day numbers 26,000 members.
In England a marked increase in the use of alcoholic liquors among women
was noticed; whereupon legal and medical measures were taken to curb the
evil. The most effective measure would be an attack on the drunkenness of
the husband, which destroys the home.
The official report of the first English school for mothers, located in
St. Pancras, London, has just appeared. This report shows that the
experiment has been entirely successful. Of all measures to decrease the
death rate among children, the establishment of schools for mothers is the
best. During the course of instruction the young married women were
recommended to organize mothers’ clubs in order to secure the necessaries
of life more cheaply. The school for mothers also attempts to give the
young mothers nourishing meals, which can be furnished for the low sum of
2¾ pence (about 6 cents).
In the field of morals English women have achieved a success which might
well excite the envy of other countries; viz. the repeal of the law of
1869 concerning the state regulation of prostitution. The law had hardly
been accepted by an accidental majority when public opinion, under the
leadership of members of Parliament, doctors, and preachers, protested
against the measure. Nothing made such an impression as the public
appearance of a woman on behalf of the repeal of this measure concerning
women. In spite of all scorn, all feigned and frequently malicious
pretensions not to comprehend her, in spite of all attempts, frequently
brutal, to browbeat her,—Josephine Butler from 1870 to 1886 unswervingly
supported the view that the regulation was to be condemned from the legal,
sanitary, and moral viewpoint. Through the tireless work of Mrs. Butler
and her faithful associates, Parliament in 1886 repealed the act providing
for the regulation of prostitution. Since 1875, Mrs. Butler has organized
internationally the struggle against the official regulation of
prostitution. On December 30, 1906, death came to the noble woman.
Conditions in England are an evidence of how much more difficult it is for
the woman’s rights movement to make progress in old countries than in
new. Traditions are deeply rooted, customs are firmly established, the
whole weight of the past is blocking the wheels of progress. In countries
with older civilization the woman’s question is entirely a question of
force.[52]
CANADA
| Total population: | 5,372,600. |
| Women: | 2,619,578. |
| Men: | 2,751,473. |
Canadian Federation of Women’s Clubs.
Canadian Woman’s Suffrage Association. |
Politically Canada belongs to England, geographically it is a part of
North America. The Canadian women take a keen interest in the woman’s
rights movement of the United States, which is setting them an excellent
example. The last congress of the “International Council of Women” met in
Toronto, Canada, under the presidency of Lady Aberdeen, the present
president and the wife of the former governor-general of Canada. Canada is
a large, young, agricultural country with large families and primitive
needs. Therefore the progress of the woman’s rights movement is less
marked in Canada than in the United States and England. Throughout Canada
the workingwoman is paid less than the workingman, partly because she is
more poorly trained, partly because she is kept in subordinate positions,
partly because, in order to find work at all, she must offer her services
for less money. Even when teaching, or doing piecework, woman is paid less
than man. In Canada there is as yet no political woman’s rights movement
strong enough to rectify this injustice by means of organizations and laws
as has been done in Australia. As yet there are no women preachers in
Canada. Women lawyers are confronted both with popular prejudice and legal
obstacles. The study and practice of medicine is made very difficult for
women, especially in Quebec and Montreal. In New Brunswick and Ontario as
well as in the northwest provinces there is a more liberal attitude toward
women’s pursuit of higher education. No Canadian university excludes women
entirely, but not a few of the higher institutions of learning refuse
women admission to certain courses and refuse to grant certain degrees.
The prevailing property laws in the eastern part of Canada legalize joint
property holding (and we know what that means for woman); in the western
part there is separation of property rights or at least separate control
over earnings, the wife having full control of her wages. The male
Canadian, when twenty-one years old, becomes a voter and has full
political rights.[53] But the Canadian woman has only restricted suffrage
rights. Unmarried women that are taxpayers exercise only active suffrage
in municipal and school elections. Each province has its own laws
regulating these conditions of suffrage.
The Copenhagen Congress (1906) of the International Woman’s Suffrage
Alliance promoted the cause of woman’s suffrage in Canada very
considerably. At a public meeting in which the Canadian delegate, Mrs.
MacDonald Denison, gave a report of the work of the International
Congress, a resolution favoring woman’s suffrage was adopted, and this was
used very effectively in propaganda. This propaganda was carried on among
women’s clubs, students’ clubs, debating clubs, etc. The intellectual
élite is to-day in favor of woman’s suffrage. In 1907 the Canadian Woman’s
Suffrage Association, supported by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union,
the Women Teachers, the Medical Alumnæ, the Progressive Thought
Association, the Toronto Local Council of Women, and the Progressive Club,
sent a delegation to the Mayor and Council of the city of Toronto to
express their support of a resolution which the Council had drawn up
favoring the right of married women to vote in municipal elections. Thus
supported, the resolution was presented to the authorized commission, but
here it was weakened by an amendment (granting the suffrage only to
married women owning property). The author of this amendment, a member
of the Toronto City Council, received his reward for this kindness to the
women in the form of a defeat at the next election.
Organizations favoring woman’s suffrage have been founded throughout the
country (Halifax, Nova Scotia; St. John, New Brunswick). Woman’s suffrage
advocates speak in mass meetings and in men’s clubs, etc.[54]
A demand for woman’s suffrage, made by the Woman’s Christian Temperance
Union, was answered evasively by the Prime Minister, Sir Wilfred
Laurier,—the provincial parliaments must take the matter up first, then
the Dominion Parliament can consider it. In the spring of 1909 the City
Council of Toronto sent a petition favoring woman’s suffrage to the
Canadian Parliament, and at the same time 1000 woman’s suffrage advocates
called on the Prime Minister. The 1909 Congress of the International
Woman’s Suffrage Alliance will undoubtedly help the Canadian woman’s
suffrage movement.
SOUTH AFRICA
| Natal and Cape Colony[55] |
| Total population: | 1,830,063. |
| Transvaal |
| Total population: | 1,354,200. |
| Woman’s Suffrage Association for all three countries. |
In South Africa, Natal was the leader in the woman’s rights movement. In
1902, through the work of Mr. and Mrs. Ancketill, the Woman’s Equal
Suffrage League was organized, which endeavored primarily to interest and
educate its members. Later, in 1904, public propaganda was begun. In June
a petition was presented to the Lower House by Mr. Ancketill. When he
presented the matter in the form of a motion, it was not put to a vote,
owing to the newness of the subject. The agricultural population opposes
woman’s suffrage; the urban population favors it. The woman’s rights
movement is made difficult in South Africa by the following circumstances:
An enervating climate “that makes people languidly content with things as
they are.” The lack of educated and independent women (women teachers are
state employees); the lack of a numerous class of workingwomen; difficult
housekeeping, owing to the untrustworthiness of the natives as domestic
servants; the peculiar position of men as taxpayers (men only pay a poll
tax) and as arms bearers (all men must serve in the army).[56]
In Cape Colony similar conditions prevail. The Women’s Enfranchisement
League was formed in 1907; and in July, 1907, there took place the first
woman’s suffrage debate in Parliament. The woman’s suffrage societies of
Natal, Cape Colony, and the Transvaal have formed an association and have
joined the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance. In Natal and Cape
Colony women taxpayers exercise the right to vote in municipal affairs.
The regulation of the suffrage qualifications for the Federal Parliament
is being considered. The South African delegates in London (1909)
expressed the fear that women would not be given the federal suffrage.
THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES
| Sweden |
| Total population: | 5,377,713. |
| Women: | 2,751,257. |
| Men: | 2,626,456. |
| |
| Finland |
| Total population: | 2,712,562. |
| Women: | 1,370,480. |
| Men: | 1,342,082. |
|
| Norway |
| Total population: | 2,240,860. |
| Women: | 1,155,169. |
| Men: | 1,085,691. |
| |
| Denmark |
| Total population: | 2,588,919. |
| Women: | 1,331,154. |
| Men: | 1,257,765. |
Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark will be grouped together since they
are so closely connected by race and culture; repetition will thereby be
avoided, and clearness promoted.
All four countries have the advantage of having a population largely
agricultural,—a population scattered in small groups. Clearly, the
problem of dealing with congested masses of people is here absent.
Everywhere there is an eagerness for education. The educational average is
high. The position of woman is one of freedom, for here have been kept
alive the old Germanic traditions which we [the Germans] know only from
reading Cæsar or Tacitus. An external factor in hastening the solution of
the question of woman’s rights was the very unusual numerical superiority
of women. The foreign wars, which took the majority of the men away from
home for long periods of time,—first in the Middle Ages, and then again
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,—and the fact that the
Scandinavian countries themselves were afflicted with wars only to a small
extent, explain the freedom of the Scandinavian women. Like the English
women, they had for centuries not known the significance of war for woman.
In the absence of the men, women continued the transaction of business and
industrial enterprises. In the name of the feudal law and as heads of
families they administered affairs, exercising rights that were elsewhere
denied to women.
SWEDEN
| Total population: | 5,377,213. |
| Women: | 2,751,257. |
| Men: | 2,626,456. |
Swedish Association of Women’s Clubs.
Woman’s Suffrage Society. |
In Sweden the woman’s rights movement is closely connected with that of
the United States. The founder of the Swedish woman’s rights movement was
Frederika Bremer, who in 1845 visited the United States, studying the
conditions of the women there. Upon her return she encouraged the Swedish
women through her novel Hertha to emancipate themselves. This took place
in 1856. The government, being unable to disregard the free traditions of
the past, was thoroughly in favor of the demands of the woman’s rights
movement. As early as 1700, women owning property exercised the right of
voting in the election of ministers. In 1843 this right had been extended
to all women taxpayers. In 1845 the daughter’s right of inheritance had
been made equal to that of the son’s. In 1853 was begun the custom of
appointing women teachers in the small rural schools; in 1859 women were
admitted as teachers in all public institutions of learning. Since 1861
women have been eligible as dentists, regimental surgeons, and organists
(but not as preachers). In 1862 every unmarried woman or widow over
twenty-one years of age, and paying a tax of 500 crowns (about $135), was
granted active suffrage in municipal affairs. The municipal electors,
inasmuch as they elect the members of the Landsthing (county council)
and the members of the town councils, exercise a political influence, for
the members of the Landsthing and the town councils elect the members of
the two Chambers of the Riksdag, the national legislative body. On
February 10, 1909, all taxpaying women (unmarried, widowed, and married)
were granted the passive suffrage (except for the office of county
councillor). Here is a curious fact,—married women that do not possess
the right to vote in municipal affairs can still hold office!
In 1866 the art academies were opened to women, in 1870, the universities;
later women were permitted to enter the postal and telegraph service. In
peculiar contrast to these reforms are the old regulations concerning the
guardianship of women,[57] which has been especially supported by the
nobility and conservatives, and has been used chiefly to maintain the
subordination of married women.
Against this condition the “Association to Advocate the Right of Married
Women to Possess Property” has struggled since 1873. It secured, in 1874,
the right of women to make a marriage contract providing for the
separation of property.[58] This association now undertook the political
education of the women voters in municipal elections; hitherto they had
made little use of their right to vote (in 1887, of 62,362 women having
the right to vote only 4844 voted). Thanks to the propaganda of this
association, participation in elections is to-day quite general. The
introduction of coeducation in the secondary schools is also due to the
activity of this association, supported by Professor Wallis, who had
investigated coeducation in the United States. But in the field of
secondary education there is still much to be done for Swedish
women,—their salaries as teachers are lower than those of men; in
matters of advancement and pensions women are discriminated against,
though they are expected to possess professional training and ability
equal to that of the men.
In 1889 the Baroness of Adlersparre succeeded, through untiring
propaganda, in securing for women admission to school and poor-law
administration. To the baroness is due also the revival of needlework as
an applied art, as well as the revival of agricultural instruction for
women. All of these ideas she had expressed since 1859 in her magazine
For the Home (Fürs Heim).
Since 1884 the center of the Swedish woman’s rights movement has been the
“Frederika Bremer League,” founded by the Baroness of Adlersparre. This is
a sort of “Woman’s Institute,” and undertakes inquiries, collects data,
secures employment, organizes members of trades and professions, fixes
minimum wages, organizes petitions, gives advice, offers leadership, gives
stipends; in short, in various ways it centralizes the Swedish Women’s
rights movement. In 1896 the “Association to Advocate the Right of Married
Women to Possess Property” affiliated with the “Frederika Bremer League.”
The following are the facts concerning the work of educated women in
Sweden: The number of elementary school teachers is about double that of
the men (in 1899 there were 9950 women as compared with 5322 men). The
salaries of the women are everywhere lower than those of the men. In 1908
there were 12,000 women teachers in the elementary schools, their annual
salary being 1400 crowns ($375) or more.
There are 35 women doctors in Sweden, most of whom practice in Stockholm.
The Swedish midwives are well trained. Nursing is a respected calling for
educated women; also kinesiatrics (hygienic gymnastics), the latter being
lucrative as well.
The first woman Doctor of Philosophy was Ellen Fries, who received the
degree in 1883. Sonja Kowalewska was a professor in mathematics in the
free University of Stockholm. Ellen Key is also a teacher, her field being
sociology.
In Sweden there are two women university lecturers; one in law, the other
in physics. As yet there are no women lawyers and preachers. The
legislative act of February, 1909, which secures for women their
appointment in all state institutions (educational, scientific,
artistic, and industrial), will greatly improve woman’s professional
prospects.
Sweden is not a land of large manufactories; hence there is no problem
arising from the presence of large masses of industrial laborers. Since
1865 the wages of the agricultural laborers have risen 85 per cent for
women and 65 per cent for men. There are 242,914 women engaged in
agriculture, 57,053 in industry,—3400 of the latter being organized.
There are 15,376 women employed in commerce; they are throughout paid
lower wages than the men (400 to 1200 crowns, i.e. $107 to $321).
The organization of the workingwomen is not connected with the woman’s
rights movement; it is affiliated with the workingmen’s movement. In this
field Ellen Key has been quite active as a national educator. She is a
supporter of the laws for the protection of women laborers, and on this
point she has frequently met opposition among the woman’s rights advocates
of Sweden (an opposition similar to that offered by the English Federation
for Freedom of Labor Defense). In 1907 an exposition of home-work was held
in Stockholm, similar to the German expositions.
The right to vote in national elections[59] in Sweden is exercised by
landowners and taxpayers; however, only by men. Therefore there is a
Swedish National Woman’s Suffrage Society, which in recent years has grown
very considerably, having over 10,000 members. In the autumn of 1906 a
delegation from the society was received by the Prime Minister and the
King, who, however, could hold out no promise of a government measure
favoring woman’s suffrage. The society then tried to influence the
Parliament with an enormous petition having 142,188 signatures. This
petition was presented February 6, 1907.
In 1906 and 1907 the Labor party and the Liberal party inserted woman’s
suffrage into their platforms and presented bills favoring the measure.
Twice (in 1907 and 1908) Parliament rejected the clause providing for
woman’s suffrage. On February 13, 1909, the Swedish males were granted
universal suffrage (active and passive) in national elections; at the same
time Parliament tried to appease the women by granting them the passive
suffrage in municipal elections. In the spring of 1909 the bill concerning
woman’s right to vote in national elections (Staaf Bill) was accepted by
the Constitutional Commission by a vote of 11 to 9; the Lower House also
accepted it, but it was rejected by the Upper House.
The political successes of the Norwegian women have a stimulating effect
on Sweden.
Prohibition has influential advocates in Sweden, and supporters in
Parliament. At the request of the Swedish women’s clubs, police matrons
were appointed to coöperate with the police regulating prostitution in
Stockholm, Helsingborg, Trelleborg, and Malmö. At the present time a
commission is considering future plans for police regulation of
prostitution in Sweden.
In Sweden, where there are about half a million organized adherents to
the cause of temperance, there are 77 daily papers that consistently print
matter pertaining to temperance. Not only these 77 papers, most of whose
editors are Good Templars, but at least 13 other dailies refuse all
advertisements of alcoholic liquors.[60] In Norway, where similar
conditions prevail, there are a quarter of a million temperance advocates,
and about 40 daily papers that favor the cause.
FINLAND
| Total population: | 2,712,562. |
| Women: | 1,370,480. |
| Men: | 1,342,082. |
No league of Finnish women’s clubs.
No woman’s suffrage league. |
The discussion of the Finnish woman’s rights movement will follow that of
Sweden, for Finland was till 1809 politically a part of Sweden; the
cultural tie still exists.
In Finland also, the woman’s rights movement is of literary
origin,—Adelaide Enrooth and Frederika Runeburg preached the gospel of
woman’s emancipation to an intellectual élite. Through the influence of
Björnson, Ibsen, and Strindberg the discussion of the “social lie”
(Gesellschaftslüge) became general. In the eighties of the last
century, the ideas and criticisms were turned into deeds and reforms.
Above all a thorough education for woman was demanded. Since 1883,
coeducational schools have been established through private funds in all
cities of the country. These institutions have received state aid since
1891. They are secondary schools, having the curriculums of German
Realschulen and Gymnasiums.[61] Not only is the student body composed
of boys and girls, but the direction and instruction in these schools
are divided equally between women and men; thereby the predominance of
the men is counteracted. Even before the establishment of these schools
women had privately prepared themselves for the Abiturientenexamen
(examinations taken when leaving the secondary schools), and had entered
the University of Helsingfors. In 1870 the first woman entered the
University; in 1873 the second; in 1885 two more followed. To-day, 478
women are registered in Helsingfors. Most of these women are devoting
themselves to the teaching profession, which is more favorable to women in
Finland than in Sweden. The first woman doctor, Rosina Hickel, has been
practicing in Helsingfors since 1879. The number of women doctors has
since risen to 20.
In Finland any reputable person can plead before the court; but there are
no professional women lawyers and no women preachers. However, there are
women architects and women factory inspectors. Since 1864, women have been
employed in the postal service; since 1869, in the telegraph service and
in the railway offices. Here they draw the same salary as the men, when
acting in the same capacity. Commercial callings have been opened to
women, and there is a demand for women as office clerks.
The statistical yearbook for Finland does not give separate statistics
concerning workingwomen. The total number of laborers in 1906 was 113,578.
Perhaps one tenth of these were women,—engaged chiefly in the textile and
paper industries, and in the manufacture of provisions and ready-made
clothing. There are few married women engaged in industrial work. Women
are admitted to membership in the trade-unions.
In a monograph on women engaged in the ready-made clothing industry[62]
are found the following facts (established by official investigation of
621 establishments employing 3205 women laborers): 97.7 per cent of the
women were unmarried, and 2.3 per cent married; the minimum wages were 10
cents a day; the maximum, $1.50; the women laborers living with their
parents or relatives numbered 1358; the sanitary conditions were bad.
Home industry in Finland (as well as in Sweden and Norway) has recently
shown a striking growth. It was on the point of succumbing to the cheap
factory products. In order to perpetuate the industry, schools for
housewives were established in connection with the public high schools in
the rural districts. In these schools were taught, in addition to domestic
science and agriculture, various domestic handicrafts that offered the
women a pleasant and useful activity during the long winters. Not being
carried on intensively, these handicrafts could never lead to exploitation
and overwork.
In 1864 the guardianship of men over unmarried women was abolished.
Married women are still under the guardianship of their husbands. Since
1889, the wife has been able to secure a separation of property by means
of a contract. She has control of her earnings when joint property holding
prevails. The unmarried women taxpayers and landowners have been voters in
municipal elections since 1865. In the rural districts they have also had
the right to hold local administrative offices. Just as in Sweden, they
have the right to participate in the election of ministers; and since 1891
and 1893 they have had active and passive suffrage in regard to school
boards and poor-law administration.
Taking advantage of the collapse of Russia in the Far East, Finland—in
May, 1906—established universal active and passive suffrage for all male
and female citizens over twenty-four years of age. She was the first
European country to take this step. On March 15, 1907, the Finnish women
exercised for the first time the right of suffrage in state elections.
Nineteen women were elected to the Parliament (comprising 200
representatives). The women belonged to all parties, but most of them were
adherents of the Old-Finnish party (having 6 representatives) and of the
Socialist party (having 9 representatives). Ten of the women
representatives were either married or were widows. They belonged quite as
much to the cultured, property-owning class as to the masses. This
Parliament was dissolved in April, 1908. In the new elections of July, 25
women were elected as representatives. Here again most of the elected
women belonged to the Old-Finnish party (with 6 representatives) and to
the Socialists (with 13 representatives). Nine of the women
representatives are married. Of the husbands of these women one is a
doctor, one a clergyman, one a workingman, two are farmers, etc. Of the
unmarried women representatives six are teachers, two are tailors, two are
editors of women’s newspapers, four are traveling lecturers, one is a
factory inspector, and there is one Doctor of Philosophy.
In both parliaments the women presented numerous measures, some of general
concern, others bearing on woman’s rights.[63] Some of the measures
provided for: the improvement of the legal status of illicit children,
parental authority, the protection of maternity, the abolition of the
husband’s guardianship over the wife, the better protection of children,
the protection of the woman on the street, the abolition of the regulation
of prostitution, and the raising of the age of consent.
This list of measures indicates that the Finnish laws regulating marriage
are still antiquated, and that the political emancipation of woman did not
immediately effect her release from legal bondage. One of the Finnish
woman’s advocates said, “Our short experience has taught us that we may
still have a hard fight for equal rights.”
Not only the antiquated marriage laws are inconsistent with the national
political rights of women; in the municipal election laws, too, woman is
treated unjustly. Married women do not exercise the right of suffrage, and
widows and unmarried women possess the passive suffrage only in the
election of poor-law administrators and school boards. Two woman’s
suffrage organizations—Unionen and Finsk Kvinnoforening—have
existed since 1906; they have no party affiliations. Two new woman’s
suffrage societies—Swenska Kinnoforbundet and Naitlütto
(Young-Finnish)—are party organizations.
The bill concerning the abolition of the official regulation of
prostitution has meanwhile become law, replacing the former
unsatisfactory, and for Finland, exceptional law. The law corresponding to
the English Vagrancy Act (supplement to paragraph 45 of the Finnish Civil
Code) provides that “whoever accosts a woman in public places for immoral
purposes shall pay a fine of $50.”
On October 31, 1907, the manufacture, importation, sale, or storing of
alcoholic liquors in any form whatever was prohibited by law. In recent
years the Finnish woman temperance lecturer, Trigg Helenius, has carried
on a successful international propaganda.
External and internal difficulties have to the present made impossible the
formation of Finnish women’s clubs and a federation of the women voters.
NORWAY
| Total population: | 2,240,860. |
| Women: | 1,155,169. |
| Men: | 1,085,691. |
League of Norwegian Women’s Clubs.
Woman’s Suffrage Association. |
In recent years the Norwegian woman’s rights movement has made marked
progress. Just as in the other Scandinavian countries, women were freed as
early as the middle of the nineteenth century from the most burdensome
legal restrictions by a liberal majority in Parliament. In 1854 the
daughters were given the same right of inheritance as the sons, and male
guardianship for unmarried women was abolished. However, the real woman’s
rights movement, like that of Sweden and Finland, began in the eighties of
the last century. Aasta Hansteen, Clara Collett, Björnson, and Ibsen had
prepared public opinion for the emancipation of women. Like Frederika
Bremer, Aasta Hansteen had emigrated to America owing to the prejudices of
her countrymen; and, again like Frederika Bremer, she returned to her
native land and could rejoice over the progress of the movement which she
had instigated. In 1884 the Norwegian Woman’s League was founded. It has
since 1886 published a semimonthly woman’s suffrage magazine, Nylaende.
In 1887 the Norwegian woman’s rights movement won the same victory that
Mrs. Butler had won in England in 1886: the official regulation of
prostitution was abolished (neither in Sweden nor in Denmark has a similar
reform been secured thus far). As early as 1882 several university
faculties had admitted women, and in 1884 women were given the legal
right to secure an academic training, and they were declared eligible to
receive all scholarships and all academic degrees. In 1904 a law was
enacted admitting women to a number of public offices. Paragraph 12 of the
Constitution excludes them from the office of minister in the Cabinet;
they are excluded from consulships on international grounds, from military
offices by the nature of the offices, and from the theological field
through the backwardness of the Norwegian clergy. But they were admitted
to the teaching and legal professions, and to some of the administrative
departments of the government. The law made no discrimination between
married and unmarried women. It is believed that the women can decide best
for themselves whether or not they can combine the work of an
administrative office with their domestic duties.
Hitherto the teaching profession had presented difficulties for women.
Fewer women than men were appointed; the women were given the subordinate
positions and paid lower salaries. The women had energetically protested
against these conditions since the passing of the law of 1904; in 1908
they succeeded in having the magistrate of Christiania raise the initial
salary of women teachers in the elementary schools from 900 crowns ($241)
to 1100 crowns ($295), and the maximum salary from 1500 crowns ($402) to
1700 crowns ($455). In Christiania the women also demanded that women
teachers be given the position of head master; there were many women in
the profession,—2900 in the elementary schools, and 736 in the secondary
schools.
The women shop assistants’ trade-union in an open meeting in Christiania
has demanded equal pay for equal work.
By a law passed in May, 1908, women employees in the postal service were
given the same pay as the men employees. As a result of this the women
telegraph operators, supported by the Norwegian Woman’s Suffrage
Association, drew up a petition requesting the same concession as was made
the women postal employees, and presented the petition to the government
and the Storthing. This movement favoring an increase of wages was
strongly supported by the woman’s suffrage movement.
The women taxpayers (including married women) have possessed active and
passive suffrage in municipal affairs since 1901. The property
qualification requires that a tax of 300 crowns ($80) must be paid in the
rural districts, and 400 crowns ($107) in cities. In 1902 women exercised
the suffrage in municipal affairs for the first time; in Christiania 6
women were elected to municipal offices.
The Norwegian League of Women’s Clubs and the woman’s suffrage
associations protested to the government and to the Parliament because
suffrage in the national elections had been withheld from the women. The
separation of Sweden and Norway (1906), which concerned the women greatly,
but in which they could exercise no voice, was a striking proof of woman’s
powerlessness in civil affairs. Hence the Norwegian Woman’s Suffrage
League instituted a woman’s ballot, in which 19,000 votes were cast in
favor of separation, none being cast against it.
In 1907 six election bills favorable to woman’s suffrage were presented to
the Storthing; and June 10, 1907, women taxpayers were granted active and
passive suffrage in municipal elections (affecting about 300,000 women;
200,000 are still not enfranchised). This right of suffrage is accorded to
married women. The next general elections will take place in 1909.
Since the Norwegian men have active and passive suffrage in parliamentary
elections, the women also made their demands to the Storthing. The
Ministry resolved, in pursuance of this demand, to present the Storthing
with the requisite constitutional amendment (Article 52). The Storthing
requested that before the next municipal elections (1910) the Ministry
present a satisfactory bill providing for woman’s suffrage in municipal
elections. At the present time 142 women are city councilors (122 in the
cities). In the autumn of 1909 women will for the first time participate
in the parliamentary elections.
At two congresses of the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance
(Amsterdam, in 1908; and London, in 1909), Norway was officially
represented by the wife of the Minister of State, Qvam.
The emancipation of women legally and in the professions had preceded
their political emancipation. Norwegian women first practiced as dentists
in 1872; since 1884, women have been druggists and have practiced
medicine. They practice in all large cities. There are 38 women engaged as
physicians for the courts, as school physicians, as university assistants
in museums and laboratories, and as sanitary officers. Since 1904 there
have been two women lawyers. Cand. jur. Elisa Sam was the first woman to
profit by this reform. The first woman university professor was Mrs.
Matilda Schjott in Christiania; to-day there are three such professors.
There are 37 women architects. In 1888 married women were given the right
to make marriage contracts providing for separate property holding. Even
where there is joint property holding, the wife controls her earnings.
In Norway the law protects the illegitimate mother and her child better
than elsewhere. The Norwegian law regards and punishes as accomplices in
infanticide all those that drive a woman to such a step,—the illicit
father, the parents, the guardians, and employers, who desert a woman in
such circumstances and put her out into the street. Since 1891, women have
been eligible to hold office as poor-law administrators; since 1899 they
can be members of school boards. The number of workingwomen is 67,000. Of
these 2000 are organized.
DENMARK
| Total population: | 2,588,919. |
| Women: | 1,331,154. |
| Men: | 1,257,765. |
Federation of Danish Women’s Clubs.
Woman’s Suffrage League. |
The origin of the woman’s rights movement in Denmark is also literary,—to
Frederika Bremer in Sweden, Aasta Hansteen and Clara Collett in Norway,
must be added as emancipators, Mathilda Fibiger and Pauline Worm in
Denmark. The writings of both of these women in favor of
emancipation,—“Clara Raphael’s Letters” and “Sensible People,”—date back
as far as 1848; they were inspired by the liberal ideas prevailing in
Germany previous to the “March Revolution.” An organized woman’s rights
movement did not come into being until twenty-five years later. A liberal
parliamentary majority in Denmark abolished, in 1857, male guardianship
over unmarried women; and in 1859 established the equal inheritance
rights of daughters, thus following the example of Sweden and Norway. It
was necessary first to secure the support of public opinion through a
literary discussion of woman’s rights. This was carried on between 1868
and 1880 by Georg Brandes, who translated John Stuart Mill’s The
Subjection of Women, and by Björnson and Ibsen. In 1871 Representative
Bajer and his wife organized the first woman’s rights society, the “Danish
Woman’s Club,” which rapidly spread throughout Denmark. At first the Club
endeavored to secure a more thorough education for women, and therefore
labored for the improvement of the girls’ high schools, and for the
institution of coeducational schools. In 1876 it secured the admission of
women to the University of Copenhagen.
In the teaching profession women are employed in greater numbers, and are
better paid than in Sweden at the present time. There are 3003 women
elementary school teachers and 2240 women teachers in the high schools. As
yet there are no women lecturers or professors in the university.[64]
Since 1860, women have filled subordinate positions in the postal and
telegraph services, and since 1889 they have also filled the higher
positions; there are in all 1500 women employees. The subordinate
positions in the national and local administrations are to a certain
extent open to them. The number of women engaged in industrial pursuits is
47,617; the number of domestic servants, 89,000. The domestic servants are
organized only to a limited extent (800 being organized). The women in the
industries are better organized,—chiefly in the same trade-unions as the
men. In 1899 the women comprised one fifth of the total number of
organized laborers; since then this proportion has increased considerably.
The average wages of the women domestic servants are 20 crowns ($5.36) a
month; the average wages of the workingwomen are from 2 to 2.5 crowns (53
to 67 cents) a day.
Since 1880 the wife can secure separate property holding rights through a
marriage contract. Where joint property holding prevails, the wife
controls her own earnings and savings. In 1888 municipal suffrage was
demanded by the “Danish Woman’s Club,” but the Rigsdag rejected the
measure. Since then the question has occupied much attention. In 1906 the
Congress of the Woman’s International Suffrage Alliance performed
excellent propaganda work. New woman’s suffrage societies were organized,
and the older societies were enlarged.[65] In the meantime the bill
concerning municipal suffrage was being sent from one House to the other.
Finally, on February 26, 1908, it was adopted by the Upper House, on April
14 by the Lower House, and on April 20 signed by the King. All taxpayers,
twenty-five years of age, were permitted to vote. All classes of
women—widows, unmarried, and married women—were enfranchised. They have
active and passive suffrage. In March, 1909, they exercised both rights
for the first time. The participation in the election was general; six
women were elected in Copenhagen. The women are now demanding the suffrage
in national affairs. Immediately after the victory of 1908 the Woman’s
Suffrage League organized strong demonstrations in forty cities in favor
of this demand.
Here it must be mentioned that the women in Iceland were granted, in the
autumn of 1907, active and passive suffrage in municipal affairs. In
January, 1908, they participated in the elections for the first time. In
Reikiavik, the capital, 2850 people voted, 1220 of whom were women. Four
women were elected to the city council, one polling the highest number of
votes. In 1909, the Icelandic Woman’s Suffrage League joined the
International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance. A number of Icelandic woman’s
suffrage societies in Canada have affiliated with the Canadian Woman’s
Suffrage League.
On March 30, 1906, official regulation of prostitution was abolished in
Denmark; but a new law of similar character was enacted providing for
stringent measures.
THE NETHERLANDS
| Total population: | 5,673,237. |
| Women: | 2,583,535. |
| Men | 2,520,602. |
Federation of the Netherlands Women’s Clubs.
Woman’s Suffrage League. |
Although women are in a numerical superiority in the Netherlands, it is
much less difficult for them to find non-domestic employment than it is
for the German women, for instance. The Netherlands has large colonies and
therefore a good market for its male workers. The educated Dutchman is
kindly disposed toward the woman’s rights movement, and in the educated
circles the wife really enjoys rights equal to those of the husband, which
is less frequently the case among the lower classes. The marriage laws are
based on the Code Napoleon, which, however, was considerably altered in
1838. The guardianship of the husband over the wife still prevails.
According to paragraph 160 of the Civil Code the husband controls the
personal property that the wife acquires; but he administers her real
estate only with the wife’s consent. According to paragraph 163 of the
Civil Code the wife cannot give away, sell, mortgage, or acquire anything
independently. She can do those things only with her husband’s written
consent. No marriage contract can annul this requirement; but the wife
can stipulate the independent control of her income. According to
paragraph 1637 of the Civil Code the wife is permitted to control for the
benefit of the family the money that she earns while fulfilling a labor
contract. Affiliation cases, it is true, are recognized by law, but under
considerable restrictions.
The first sign of the woman’s rights movement manifested itself in the
Netherlands in 1846. At that time a woman appeared in public for the first
time as a speaker. She was the Countess Mahrenholtz-Bülow, who introduced
kindergartens (Fröbelsystem) into the Netherlands.
In 1857 elementary education was made compulsory in the Netherlands. At
that time this instruction was free, undenominational, and under the
control of the state; but in 1889 it was partly given over into
denominational and private hands. The secondary schools for girls are
partly municipal, partly private. Most of the elementary schools are
coeducational; in the secondary schools the sexes are segregated; in the
higher institutions of learning coeducation prevails, the right of girls
to attend being granted as a matter of course. Girls were admitted to the
high schools also without any opposition. These measures were due to
Minister Thorbecke. Thirty years ago the first woman registered at the
University of Leyden. Women study and are granted degrees in all
departments of the universities of Leyden, Utrecht, Gröningen, and
Amsterdam. In the elementary, secondary, and higher institutions of
learning, there are fewer women teachers than men, and the salary of the
women teachers is lower. Women are now being appointed as science teachers
in boys’ schools also. The government is planning measures opposed to
having married women as teachers and as employees in the postal service.
The women’s clubs are vigorously protesting against this. Women serve as
examination commissioners and as members of school boards, though in small
numbers. The city school boards rely almost entirely upon women for
supervising the instruction in needlework. Since 1904 two women were
appointed as state school inspectors, with salaries only sufficient for
maintenance.
In the Netherlands there are 20 women doctors (31 including those in the
colonies), 57 women druggists, 5 women lawyers, and one woman lecturer in
the University of Gröningen. There are three women preachers in the
Liberal “League of Protestants.” Since 1899 4 women have been factory
inspectors; 2, prison superintendents; 2, superintendents of rural
schools. Thirty-four are in the courts for the protection of wards. Women
participate in the care of the poor and the care of dependent children.
The care of dependent children is in the hands of a national society, Pro
juventute, which aided in securing juvenile courts in the Netherlands.
Especially useful in the education and support of workingwomen has been
the Tessel Benefit Society (Tessel Schadeverein), which is national in
its organization.
It will be well to state here that the appointment of women factory
inspectors was secured in a rather original manner. In 1898 a national
exhibition of commodities produced by women was held in the Hague. In a
conspicuous place the women placed an empty picture frame with this
inscription: “The Women Inspectors of all These Commodities Produced by
Women.” This hastened results.
The shop assistants of both sexes organized themselves conjointly in
Amsterdam in 1898. There are two organizations of domestic servants. The
Dutch woman’s rights advocates proved by investigation that for the same
work the workingwomen—because they were women—were paid 50 per cent less
than men. The “Workingwomen’s Information Bureau,” which was made into a
permanent institution as a result of the exhibition of 1898, has been
concerning itself with the protection of workingwomen and with their
organization. The women organizers belong to the middle class. The
Socialist party in the Netherlands has been organizing workingwomen into
trade-unions. In this the party has encountered the same difficulties as
exist elsewhere; to the present time it can point only to small successes.
Two of the Socialist woman’s rights advocates are Henrietta Roland and
Roosje Vos. Henrietta Roland is of middle-class parentage, being the
daughter of a lawyer; she is the wife of an artist of repute. Roosje Vos,
on the contrary, comes from the lower classes. Both of these women played
an important part in the strike of 1903. They organized the “United
Garment Workers’ Union.”
In spite of the fact that a woman can be ruler of the Netherlands, the
Dutch women possess only an insignificant right of suffrage. In the dike
associations they have a right to vote if they are taxpayers or own
property adjoining the dikes. In June, 1908, the Lutheran Synod gave women
the same right to vote in church affairs as the men possess. The
Evangelical Synod, on the other hand, rejected a similar measure as well
as one providing for the ordaining of women preachers. An attempt to
secure municipal suffrage for women failed, and resulted in the enactment
of reactionary laws.
In 1883 Dr. Aletta Jacobs (the first woman doctor in the Netherlands),
acting on the advice of the well-known jurist—and later Minister—van
Houten, requested an Amsterdam magistrate to enter her name on the list of
municipal electors. As a taxpayer she was entitled to this right. At the
same time she requested Parliament to grant her the suffrage in national
elections. Both requests were summarily refused. In order to make such
requests impossible in the future, parliament inserted the word “male” in
the election law.[66] These occurrences aroused in the Dutch women an
interest in political affairs; and in 1894 they organized a “Woman’s
Suffrage Society,” which soon spread to all parts of the country. The
Liberals, Radicals, Liberal Democrats, and Socialists admitted women
members to their political clubs and frequently consulted the women
concerning the selection of candidates. The clubs of the Conservative and
Clerical parties have refused to admit women. At the general meeting in
1906 a part of the members of the “Woman’s Suffrage Society” separated
from the organization and formed the “Woman’s Suffrage League” (the Bond
voor Vrouwenkiesrecht,—the older organization was called Vereeniging
voor Vrouenkiesrecht). Both carry on an energetic propaganda in the
entire country, the older organization being the more radical. In 1908 the
older organization made all necessary preparations for the Amsterdam
Congress of the Woman’s Suffrage Alliance, which resulted in a large
increase in its membership (from 3500 to 6000), and resulted, furthermore,
in the founding of a Men’s League for Woman’s Suffrage (modeled after the
English organization). The question of woman’s suffrage has aroused a
lively interest throughout the Netherlands; even the Bond increased its
membership during the winter of 1908 and 1909 from 1500 to 3500.
In September, 1908, there were two great demonstrations in the Hague in
favor of universal suffrage for both men and women. The right to vote in
Holland is based on the payment of a property tax or ground rent;
therefore numerous proposals in favor of widening the suffrage had been
made previously. When a liberal ministry came into power in 1905, it
undertook a reform of the suffrage laws; in 1907 the Committee on the
Constitution, by a vote of six out of seven, recommended that Parliament
grant active and passive suffrage to men and women. But with the fall of
the Liberal ministry fell the hope of having this measure enacted, for
there is nothing to be expected from the present government, composed of
Catholic and Protestant Conservatives. As has already been stated,
propaganda is in the meantime being carried on with increasing vigor, and
in Java a woman’s suffrage society has also been organized. A noted
jurist, who is a member of the Dutch Bond voor Vrouwenkiesrecht, has
just issued a pamphlet in which he proves the necessity of granting
woman’s suffrage: “Man makes the laws. Wherever the interests of the
unmarried or the married woman are in conflict with the interests of man,
the rights of the woman will be set aside. This is injurious to man,
woman, and child, and it blocks progress. The remedy is to be found only
in woman’s suffrage. The granting of woman’s suffrage is an urgent demand
of justice.”
SWITZERLAND[67]
| Total population: | 3,313,817. |
| Women: about | 1,700,000. |
| Men: about | 1,616,000. |
Federation of Swiss Women’s Clubs.
Woman’s Suffrage League. |
Switzerland’s existence and welfare depend on the harmony of the German,
the French, and the Italian elements of the population. Switzerland is
accustomed to considering three racial elements; out of three different
demands it produces one acceptable compromise. Naturally the Swiss woman’s
rights movement has steadily developed in the most peaceful manner. No
literary manifesto, no declaration of principles of freedom is at the root
of this movement. It is supported by public opinion, which is gradually
being educated to the level of the demands of the movement. The woman’s
rights movement began in Switzerland as late as 1880; in 1885 the Swiss
woman’s club movement was started. The Federation of Women’s Clubs is made
up of cantonal women’s clubs in Zurich, Berne, Geneva, St. Gallen, Basel,
Lausanne, Neuchâtel, and in other cities, as well as of intercantonal
clubs, such as the “Swiss Public Utility Woman’s Club” (Schweizer
Gemeinnütziger Verein), “la Fraternité,” the “Intercantonal Committee of
Federated Women,” etc. Recently a Catholic woman’s league was formed.
Since 50 per cent of the Swiss women remain unmarried, the woman’s rights
movement is a social necessity. In the field of education the authorities
have been favorable to women in every way. In nine cantons the elementary
schools are coeducational. There are public institutions for higher
learning for girls in all cities. In German Switzerland (Zurich,
Winterthur, St. Gallen, Berne) girls are admitted to the higher
institutions of learning for boys, or they can prepare themselves in the
girls’ schools for the examination required for entrance to the
universities (Matura). There are 18 seminaries that admit girls only;
the seminaries in Küssnacht, Rorshach, and Croie are coeducational.
Women teachers are not appointed in the elementary schools of the cantons
of Glarus and Appenzell-Outer-Rhodes. On the other hand in the cantons of
Geneva, Neuchâtel, and Ticino 59 to 66 per cent of the teachers in the
elementary schools are women. They are given lower salaries than the men.
The canton of Zurich pays (by law) equal wages to its men and women
teachers, but the additional salary paid by the municipalities and rural
districts to the men teachers is greater than that paid to the women. In
its elementary schools the canton of Vaud employs 500 women teachers, some
of whom are married. The Swiss universities have been open to women since
the early sixties of the nineteenth century. As in France, the native
women use this right far less than foreign women, especially Russians and
Germans. The total number of women studying in the Swiss universities is
about 700. Most of the Swiss women that have studied in the universities
enter the teaching profession. Women are frequently employed as teachers
in high schools, as clerks, and as librarians. Sometimes these positions
are filled by foreign women.
The first woman lecturer in a university in which German is the language
used has been employed in Berne since 1898. She is Dr. Anna Tumarkin, a
native Russian, having the right to teach in universities æsthetics and
the history of modern philosophy. In 1909 she was appointed professor. In
each of the universities of Zurich, Berne, and Geneva, a woman has been
appointed as university lecturer. Women doctors practice in all of the
larger cities. There are twelve in Zurich. The city council of Zurich has
decided to furnish free assistance to women during confinement, and to
establish a municipal maternity hospital. In Zurich there has been
established for women a hospital entirely under the control of women; the
chief physician is Frau Dr. Heim. The practice of law has been open to
women in the canton of Zurich since 1899, and in the canton of Geneva
since 1904. Miss Anna Mackenroth, Dr. jur., a native German, was the
first Swiss woman lawyer. Miss Nelly Favre was the second. Miss Dr.
Brüstlein was refused admission to the bar in Berne. Miss Favre was the
first woman to plead before the Federal Court in Berne, the capital. As
yet there are no women preachers in Switzerland. In Lausanne there is a
woman engineer. In the field of technical schools for Swiss women, much
remains to be done. The commercial education of women is also neglected by
the state, while the professional training of men is everywhere promoted.
Women are employed in the postal and telegraph service. The Swiss hotel
system offers remunerative positions and thoroughly respectable callings
to women of good family. In 1900 the number of women laborers was 233,912;
they are engaged chiefly in the textile and ready-made clothing
industries, in lacemaking, cabinetmaking, and the manufacture of food
products, pottery, perfumes, watches and clocks, jewelry, embroidery, and
brushes.[68] Owing to French influence, laws for the protection of women
laborers are opposed, especially in Geneva. The inspection of factories is
largely in the hands of men. Home industry is a blessing in certain
regions, a curse in others. This depends on the intensity of the work and
on the degree of industrialism. The trade-union movement is still very
weak among women laborers. According to the canton the movement has a
purely economic or a socialist-political character. Only a few
organizations of workingwomen belong to the Swiss Federation of Women’s
Clubs. Since 1891 the men’s trade-unions have admitted women. The first
women factory inspectors were appointed in 1908. According to the census
of August 9, 1905, 92,136 persons in Switzerland are engaged in home
industry; this number is 28.3 per cent of the total number of persons
(325,022) engaged in these industries. The foremost of the home
industries is the manufacture of embroidery, engaging a total of 65,595
persons, of whom 53.5 per cent work at home. The next important home
industries are silk-cloth weaving, engaging 12,478 persons (41 per cent of
the total employed); watch making, engaging 12,071 persons in home
industry (or 23.7 per cent of the total); silk-ribbon weaving, engaging
7557 persons (or 51.9 per cent of the total). The highest percentage of
home workers is found among the straw plaiters (78.8 per cent); then
follow the military uniform tailors (60.1 per cent), the embroidery makers
(53.5 per cent), the wood carvers and ivory carvers (52 per cent), the
silk-ribbon weavers (51.9 per cent), and the ready-made clothing workers
(49.3 per cent). The International Association for Labor Legislation, as
everybody knows, is trying to ascertain whether an international
regulation of labor conditions is possible in the embroidery-making
industry. The statistics just given indicate the importance of this
investigation for Switzerland. The statistics of the home industries of
Switzerland will be found in the ninth issue of the second volume of the
Swiss Statistical Review (Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Statistik).
The new Swiss law for the protection of women laborers has produced a
number of genuine improvements for the workingwomen. A maximum working
day of 10 hours and a working week of 60 hours have been established.
Women can work overtime not more than 60 days a year; they are then paid
at least 25 per cent extra. The most significant innovation is the legal
regulation of vacations. Every laborer that is not doing piecework or
being paid by the hour must, after one year of continuous service for the
same firm, be granted six consecutive days of vacation with full pay;
after two years of continuous service for the same firm the laborer must
be given eight days; after three years of service ten days; and after the
fourth year twelve days annually. A violation of this law renders the
offending employer liable to a fine of 200 to 300 francs ($40 to $60).
In 1912 a new civil code will come into force. Its composition has been
influenced by the German Civil Code. The government, however, regarded the
“Swiss Federation of Women’s Clubs” as the representative of the women,
and charged a member of the code commission to put himself into
communication with the executive committee of the Federation and to
express the wishes of the Federation at the deliberations of the
committee. This is better than nothing, but still insufficient. When the
civil code had been adopted, every male elector was given a copy; the
women’s clubs secured copies only after prolonged effort.
The property laws in the new Swiss Civil Code provide for joint property
holding,—not separation of property rights. However, even with joint
property holding the wife’s earnings and savings belong to her (a
provision which the German cantons opposed). On the other hand,
affiliation cases are admissible (the French cantons opposed them). The
wife has the full status of a legal person before the law and full civil
ability, and shares parental authority with the father. French
Switzerland (through the influence of the Code Napoleon) opposes the
pecuniary responsibility of the illegal father toward the mother and
child. Official regulation of prostitution has been abolished in all the
cantons except Geneva; several years ago a measure to introduce it again
was rejected by the people of the Canton Zurich by a vote of 40,000 to
18,000. Geneva is the headquarters of the International Federation for the
Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prostitution. In 1909 the
abolition of the official regulation of prostitution was again demanded in
the city council.
By a vote of the people the Canton Vaud accepted a measure prohibiting the
manufacture, storage, and sale of absinthe.
Recently the Swiss women have presented a petition requesting that an
illicit mother be granted the right to call herself “Frau” and use this
designation (Mrs.) before her name. The benevolent purpose of this
movement is self-evident. Through this measure the illicit mother is
placed in a position enabling her openly to devote herself to the rearing
of her child. With this purpose in view, not less than 10,000 women have
signed a petition to the Swiss Federal Council, requesting that a law be
enacted compelling registrars to use the title “Frau” (Mrs.) when
requested to do so by the person concerned. Thirty-four women’s clubs have
collectively declared in favor of this petition.
Women exercise the right of municipal suffrage only in those localities
whose male population is absent at work during a large part of the year
(as in Russia). Women can be elected as members of school boards and as
poor-law administrators in the Canton Zurich; as members of school boards
in the Canton Neuchâtel. The question of granting women the right to vote
in church affairs has long been advocated in the Canton Geneva by the
Reverend Thomas Müller, a member of the Consistory of the National
Protestant Church, and by Herr Locher, Chief of the Department of Public
Instruction of the Canton Zurich. In the Canton Geneva, where there is
separation of church and state, agitation in favor of the reform is being
carried on. The women in the Canton Vaud have exercised the right to vote
in the Église libre since 1899, and in the Église nationale since
1908. Since 1909, women have exercised the right to vote in the Église
évangélique libre of Geneva. The woman’s suffrage movement was really
started by the renowned Professor Hilty, of Berne, who declared himself
(in the Swiss Year Book of 1897) in favor of woman’s suffrage. The first
society concerning itself exclusively with woman’s suffrage originated in
Geneva (Association pour le suffrage feminin). Later other organizations
were formed in Lausanne, Chaux de Fonds, Neuenburg, and Olten. The Woman’s
Reading Circle of Berne had, since 1906, demanded political rights for
women, and the Zurich Society for the Reform of Education for Girls had
worked in favor of woman’s suffrage. On May 12, 1908, these seven
societies organized themselves into the National Woman’s Suffrage League,
and in June affiliated with the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance.
The Report of the International Woman’s Suffrage Congress, Amsterdam,
1908, explains in a very lucid manner the political backwardness of the
Swiss women: Switzerland regards itself as the model democracy; time has
been required to make it clear that politically the women of this model
state still have everything to achieve. The meeting of the Committee of
the International Council of Women in Geneva (September, 1908)
accomplished much for the movement.
The Swiss Woman’s Public Utility Association, which had refused to join
the Swiss Federation of Women’s Clubs because the Federation concerned
itself with political affairs (the Public Utility Association wishing to
restrict itself to public utilities only), was given this instructive
answer by Professor Hilty: “Public utility and politics are not mutually
exclusive; an educated woman that wishes to make a living without
troubling herself about politics is incomprehensible to me. The women
ought to take Carlyle’s words to heart: ‘We are not here to submit to
everything, but also to oppose, carefully to watch, and to win.’”
GERMANY
| Total population: | 61,720,529. |
| Women: | 31,259,429. |
| Men: | 30,461,100. |
German Federation of Women’s Clubs.
Woman’s Suffrage League. |
In no European country has the woman’s rights movement been confronted
with more unfavorable conditions; nowhere has it been more persistently
opposed. In recent times the women of no other country have lived through
conditions of war such as the German women underwent during the Thirty
Years’ War and from 1807 to 1812. Such violence leaves a deep imprint on
the character of a nation.
Moreover, it has been the fate of no other civilized nation to owe its
political existence to a war triumphantly fought out in less than one
generation. Every war, every accentuation and promotion of militarism is a
weakening of the forces of civilization and of woman’s influence. “German
masculinity is still so young,” I once heard somebody say.
A reinforcement of the woman’s rights movement by a large Liberal majority
in the national assemblies, such as we find in England, France, and Italy,
is not to be thought of in Germany. The theories of the rights of man and
of citizens were never applied by German Liberalism to woman in a broad
sense, and the Socialist party is not yet in the majority. The political
training of the German man has in many respects not yet been extended to
include the principles of the American Declaration of Independence or the
French Declaration of the Rights of Man; his respect for individual
liberty has not yet been developed as in England; therefore he is much
harder to win over to the cause of “woman’s rights.”
Hence the struggle against the official regulation of prostitution has
been left chiefly to the German women; whereas in England and in France
the physicians, lawyers, and members of Parliament have been the chief
supporters of abolition. I am reminded also of the inexpressibly long and
difficult struggle that we women had to carry on in order to secure the
admission of women to the universities; the establishment of high schools
for girls; and the improvement of the opportunities given to women
teachers. In no other country were women teachers for girls wronged to
such an extent as in Germany. The results of the last industrial census
(1907) give to the demands of the woman’s rights movement an invaluable
support: Germany has nine and a half million married women, i.e. only
one half of all adult women (over 18 years of age) are married. In
Germany, too, marriage is not a lifelong “means of support” for woman, or
a “means of support” for the whole number of women. Therefore the demands
of woman for a complete professional and industrial training and freedom
to choose her calling appear in the history of our time with a tremendous
weight, a weight that the founders of the movement hardly anticipated.
The German woman’s rights movement originated during the troublous times
immediately preceding the Revolution of 1848. The founders—Augusta
Schmidt, Louise Otto-Peters, Henrietta Goldschmidt, Ottilie v. Steyber,
Lina Morgenstern—were “forty-eighters”; they believed in the right of
woman to an education, to work, and to choose her calling, and as a
citizen to participate directly in public life. Only the first three of
these demands are contained in the programme of the “German General
Woman’s Club” (founded in 1865 by four of these women, natives of Leipzig,
on the anniversary of the battle of Leipzig). At that time woman’s right
to vote was put aside as something utopian. The founders of the woman’s
rights movement, however, from the very first included in their programme
the question of women industrial laborers, and attacked the question in a
practical way by organizing a society for the education of workingwomen.
The energies of the middle-class women were at this time very naturally
absorbed by their own affairs. They suffered want, material as well as
intellectual. Therefore it was a matter of securing a livelihood for
middle-class women no longer provided for at home. This was the first duty
of a woman’s rights movement originating with the middle class.
Of special service in the field of education and the liberal
professions[69] were the efforts of Augusta Schmidt, Henrietta
Goldschmidt, Marie Loeper-Housselle, Helena Lang, Maria Lischnewska, and
Mrs. Kettler. Kindergartens were established; also courses for the
instruction of adult women, for women principals of high schools, for
women in the Gymnasiums and Realgymnasiums. Moreover, the admission of
women to the universities was secured; the General Association of German
Women Teachers was founded, also the Prussian Association of Women Public
School Teachers, and high schools for girls. The Prussian law of 1908 for
the reform of girls’ high schools (providing for the education of girls
over 12 years,—Realgymnasiums or Gymnasiums for girls from 12 to 16
years, women’s colleges for women from 16 to 18 years) was enacted under
pressure from the German woman’s rights movement. Both the state and city
must now do more for the education of girls. The academically trained
women teachers in the high schools are given consideration when the
appointments of principals and teachers for the advanced classes are made.
The women teachers have organized themselves and are demanding salaries
equal to those of the men teachers. At the present time girls are admitted
to the boys’ schools (Gymnasiums, Realgymnasiums, etc.) in Baden,
Hessen, the Imperial Provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, Oldenburg, and
Wurttemberg. The German Federation of Women’s Clubs and the convention of
the delegates of the Rhenish cities and towns have made the same demands
for Prussia.
The Prussian Association of Women Public School Teachers is demanding that
women teachers be appointed as principals, and is resisting with all its
power the threatened injustice to women in the adjustment of salaries. The
universities in Baden and Wurttemberg were the first to admit women; then
followed the universities in Hessen, Bavaria, Saxony, the Imperial
Provinces, and finally,—in 1908,—Prussia. The number of women enrolled
in Berlin University is 400.
About 50 women doctors are practicing in Germany; as yet there are no
women preachers, but there are 5 women lawyers, one of whom in 1908
pleaded the case of an indicted youth before the Altona juvenile court.
Although there are only a few women lawyers in Germany, women are now
permitted to act as counsel for the defendant, there being 60 such women
counselors in Bavaria. Recently (1908) even Bavaria refused women
admission to the civil service.
In the autumn there was appointed the first woman lecturer in a higher
institution of learning,—this taking place in the Mannheim School of
Commerce. Within the last five years many new callings have been opened to
women: they are librarians (of municipal, club, and private libraries) and
have organized themselves into the Association of Women Librarians; they
are assistants in laboratories, clinics, and hospitals; they make
scientific drawings, and some have specialized in microscopic drawing;
during the season for the manufacture of beet sugar, women are employed as
chemists in the sugar factories; there is a woman architect in Berlin, and
a woman engineer in Hamburg. Women factory inspectors have performed
satisfactory service in all the states of the Empire. But the future field
of work for the German women is the sociological field. State, municipal,
and private aid is demanded by the prevailing destitution. At the present
time women work in the sociological field without pay. In the future much
of this work must be performed by the professional sociological women
workers. In about 100 cities women are guardians of the poor. There are
103 women superintendents of orphan asylums; women are sought by the
authorities as guardians. Women’s coöperation as members of school
committees and deputations promotes the organized woman’s rights movement.
The first woman inspector of dwellings has been appointed in Hessen.
Nurses are demanding that state examinations be made requisite for those
wishing to become nurses; some cities of Germany have appointed women as
nurses for infant children. In Hessen and Ostmark [the eastern part of
Prussia], women are district administrators. There is an especially great
demand for women to care for dependent children and to work in the
juvenile courts; this will lead to the appointment of paid probation
officers. In southern Germany, women police matrons are employed; in
Prussia there are women doctors employed in the police courts. There are
also women school physicians. Since 1908, trained women have entered the
midwives’ profession.
When the German General Woman’s Club was formed in 1865, there was no
German Empire; Berlin had not yet become the capital of the Empire. But
since Berlin has become the seat of the Imperial Parliament, Berlin very
naturally has become the center of the woman’s rights movement. This
occurred through the establishment of the magazine Frauenwohl [Woman’s
Welfare] in 1888, by Mrs. Cauer. In this manner the younger and more
radical woman’s rights movement was begun. The women that organized the
movement had interested themselves in the educational field. The radicals
now entered the sociological and political fields. Women making radical
demands allied themselves with Mrs. Cauer; they befriended her, and
coöperated with her. This is an undisputed fact, though some of these
women later left Mrs. Cauer and allied themselves with either the
“Conservatives” or the “Socialists.”
In the organization of trade-unions for women not exclusively of the
middle class, Minna Cauer led the way. In 1889, with the aid of Mr. Julius
Meyer and Mr. Silberstein, she organized the “Commercial and Industrial
Benevolent Society for Women Employees.” The society has now 24,000
members. State insurance for private employees is now (1909) a question of
the day.
Jeannette Schwerin founded the information bureau of the Ethical Culture
Society, which furnished girls and women assistants for social work. At
the same time Jeannette Schwerin demanded that women be permitted to act
as poor-law guardians. The agitation in public meetings and legislative
assemblies against the Civil Code was instituted by Dr. Anita Augsburg and
Mrs. Stritt.
The opposition to state regulation of prostitution was begun by the
“radical” Hanna Bieber-Böhm and Anna Pappritz. Lily v. Gikycki was the
first to speak publicly concerning the civic duty of women. The Woman’s
Suffrage Society was organized in 1901 by Mrs. Cauer, Dr. Augsburg, Miss
Heymann, and Dr. Schirmacher.
In 1894 the radical section of the “German Federation of Women’s Clubs”
proposed that women’s trade-unions be admitted to the Federation. This
radical section had often given offense to the “Conservatives”—in the
Federation, for instance—by the proposal of this measure; but the
radicals in this way have stimulated the movement. As early as 1904 the
Berlin Congress of the International Council of Women had shown that the
Federation, being composed chiefly of conservative elements, should adopt
in its programme all the demands of the radicals, including woman’s
suffrage. The differences between the Radicals and the Conservatives are
differences of personality rather than of principles. The radicals move to
the time of allegro; the conservatives to the time of andante. In all
public movements there is usually the same antagonism; it occurred also in
the English and the American woman’s rights movements.
In no other country (with the exception of Belgium and Hungary) is the
schism between the woman’s rights movement of the middle class and the
woman’s rights movement of the Socialists so marked as in Germany. At the
International Woman’s Congress of 1896 (which was held through the
influence of Mrs. Lina Morgenstern and Mrs. Cauer) two Social Democrats,
Lily Braun and Clara Zetkin, declared that they never would coöperate with
the middle-class women. This attitude of the Social Democrats is the
result of historical circumstances. The law against the German Socialists
has increased their antagonism to the middle class. Nevertheless, this
harsh statement by Lily Braun and Clara Zetkin was unnecessary. It has
just been stated that the founders of the German woman’s rights movement
had included the demands of the workingwomen in their programme, and that
the Radicals (by whom the congress of 1896 had been called, and who for
years had been engaged in politics and in the organization of
trade-unions) had in 1894 demanded the admission of women’s labor
organizations to the Federation of Women’s Clubs. Hence an alignment of
the two movements would have been exceedingly fortunate. However, a part
of the Socialists, laying stress on ultimate aims, regard “class hatred”
as their chief means of agitation, and are therefore on principle opposed
to any peaceful coöperation with the middle class. A part of the women
Socialist leaders are devoting themselves to the organization of
workingwomen,—a task that is as difficult in Germany as elsewhere. Almost
everywhere in Germany women laborers are paid less than men laborers. The
average daily wage is 2 marks (50 cents), but there are many workingwomen
that receive less. In the ready-made clothing industry there are weekly
wages of 6 to 9 marks ($1.50 to $2.25). At the last congress of home
workers, held at Berlin, further evidence of starvation in the home
industries was educed. But for these wages the German woman’s rights
movement is not to be held responsible.
In the social-political field the woman’s rights advocates hold many
advanced views. Almost without exception they are advocating legislation
for the protection of the workingwomen; they have stimulated the
organization of the “Home-workers’ Association” in Berlin; they urged the
workingwomen to seek admission to the Hirsch-Duncker Trades Unions (the
German national association of trade-unions); they have established a
magazine for workingwomen, and have organized a league for the
consideration of the interests of workingwomen. In 1907 Germany had
137,000 organized workingwomen and female domestic servants.[70] Most of
these belong to the socialistic trade-unions. The maximum workday for
women is fixed at ten hours. The protection of maternity is promoted by
the state as well as by women’s clubs.
Peculiar to Germany is the denominational schism in the woman’s rights
movement. The precedent for this was established by the “German
Evangelical Woman’s League,” founded in 1899, with Paula Müller, of
Hanover, as President. The organization of the League was due to the
feeling that “it is a sin to witness with indifference how women that wish
to know nothing of Biblical Christianity represent all the German women.”
The organization opposes equality of rights between man and woman; but in
1908 it joined the Federation of Women’s Clubs. In 1903 a “Catholic
Woman’s League” was formed, but it has not joined the Federation. There
has also been formed a “Society of Jewish Women.” We representatives of
the interdenominational woman’s rights movement deplore this
denominational disunion. These organizations are important because they
make accessible groups of people that otherwise could not be reached by us.
Another characteristic of the German woman’s rights movement is its
extensive and thorough organization. The smallest cities are to-day
visited by women speakers. Our “unity of spirit,”—praised so frequently,
and now and then ridiculed,—is our chief power in the midst of specially
difficult conditions in which we must work. With tenacity and patience we
have slowly overcome unusual difficulties,—to the present without any
help worth mentioning from the men.
In the Civil Code of 1900 the most important demands of the women were not
given just consideration. To be sure, woman is legally competent, but the
property laws make joint property holding legal (wives control their
earnings and savings), and the mother has no parental authority. Relative
to the impending revision of the criminal law, the women made their
demands as early as 1908 in a general meeting of the Federation of Women’s
Clubs, when a three days’ discussion took place. Since 1897 the women have
progressed considerably in their knowledge of law. The German women
strongly advocate the establishment of juvenile courts such as the United
States are now introducing. The Federation also demands that women be
permitted to act as magistrates, jurors, lawyers, and judges.
In the struggle against official regulation of prostitution the women were
supported in the Prussian Landtag by Deputy Münsterberg, of Dantzig.
Prussia established a more humane regulation of prostitution, but as yet
has not appointed the extraparliamentary commission for the study of the
control of prostitution, a measure that was demanded by the women. The
most significant recent event is the admission of women to political
organizations and meetings by the Imperial Law of May 15, 1908. Thereby
the German women were admitted to political life. The Woman’s Suffrage
Society—founded in 1902, and in 1904 converted into a League—was able
previous to 1908 to expand only in the South German states (excluding
Bavaria). By this Imperial Law the northern states of the Empire were
opened, and a National Woman’s Suffrage Society was formed in Prussia, in
Bavaria, and in Mecklenburg. As early as 1906, after the dissolution of
the Reichstag, the women took an active part in the campaign, a right
granted them by the Vereinsrecht (Law of Association). In Prussia,
Saxony, and Oldenburg the women worked for universal suffrage for women in
Landtag elections. Since 1908 the political woman’s rights movement has
been of first importance in Germany. As the women taxpayers in a number of
states can exercise municipal suffrage by proxy, and the women owners of
large estates in Saxony and Prussia can exercise the suffrage in elections
for the Diet of the Circle (Kreistag) by proxy, an effort is being made
to attract these women to the cause of woman’s suffrage.
In 1908 the Protestant women of the Imperial Provinces (Alsace and
Lorraine) were granted the right to vote in church elections, a right that
had been granted to the women of the German congregations in Paris as
early as 1907[71].
LUXEMBURG
| Total population: | 246,455. |
| Women: | 120,235. |
| Men: | 126,220. |
No federation of women’s clubs.
No woman’s suffrage league. |
The woman’s rights movement in Luxemburg originated in December, 1905,
with the organization of the “Society for Women’s Interests” (Verein für
Fraueninteressen), which has worked admirably. The society has 300
members, and is in good financial condition. Throughout the country it is
now carrying on successful propaganda in the interest of higher education
for girls and in the interest of women in the industries. In Luxemburg,
after girls have graduated from a convent, they have no further
educational facilities. The society has established a department for
legal protection, and an employment agency; it has published an inquiry
into the living conditions in the capital.
In the capital city there is a woman member of the poor-law commission;
ten women are guardians of the poor; one woman is a school commissioner;
and there is a woman inspector of the municipal hospital. The society is
well supported by the liberal elements of the government and the public.
Its chief object must be the establishment of a secular school that will
prepare women for entrance to the universities.
GERMAN AUSTRIA
| Total population: about | 7,000,000. |
| Women: about | 3,750,000. |
| Men: about | 3,250,000. |
Federation of Austrian Women’s Clubs.
No woman’s suffrage league. |
The Austrian woman’s rights movement is based primarily on economic
conditions. More than 50 per cent of the women in Austria are engaged in
non-domestic callings. This percentage is a strong argument against the
theory that woman’s sphere is merely domestic. Unfortunately this
non-domestic service of the Austrian women is seldom very remunerative.
Austria itself is a country of low wages. This condition is due to a
continuous influx of Slavic workers, to large agricultural provinces, to
the tenacious survivals of feudalism, etc. Therefore women’s wages and
salaries are lower than in western Europe, and low living expenses do not
prevail everywhere (Vienna is one of the most expensive cities to live
in). The “Women’s Industrial School Society,” founded in 1851, attempted
to raise the industrial ability of the girls of the middle class. In
accordance with the views of the time, needlework was taught. Free schools
for the instruction of adults were established in Vienna. The economic
misery following the war of 1866 led to the organization of the “Woman’s
Industrial Society,” which enlarged woman’s sphere of activity as did the
Lette-Society in Berlin. Since 1868 the woman’s rights movement has
secured adherents from the best educated middle-class women,—namely,
women teachers. In that year the Catholic women teachers organized a
“Catholic Women Teachers’ Society.” In 1869 was organized the
interdenominational “Austrian Women Teachers’ Society.” This society has
performed excellent service. The women teachers, who since 1869 had been
given positions in the public schools, were paid less than the men
teachers having the same training and doing the same work. Therefore the
women teachers presented themselves to the provincial legislatures,
demanded an increase in salary, and, in spite of the opposition of the
male teachers, secured the increase by the law of 1891. In 1876 a society
devoted its efforts to the improvement of the girls’ high schools, which
had been greatly neglected. In 1885 the women writers and the women
artists organized, their male colleagues having refused to admit women to
the existing professional societies. In 1888 the women music teachers
likewise organized themselves. At the same time the question of higher
education for women was agitated. In Vienna a “lyceum” class—the first of
its kind—was opened to prepare girls for entrance to the universities
(Abiturientenexamen). Admission to the boys’ high schools was refused to
girls in Vienna, but was granted in the provinces (Troppau, and
Mährisch-Schönberg). Girls were at all times admitted as outsiders
(Extraneae) to the examinations held on leaving college
(Abiturientenexamen). In this way many girls passed the “leaving”
examination before they began their studies in Switzerland. Until 1896 the
Austrian universities remained closed to women. The law faculties do not
as yet admit women. The women’s clubs are striving to secure this reform.
Those women that had studied medicine in Switzerland previous to 1896, and
wished to practice in Austria, required special imperial permission, which
was never withheld from them in their noble struggle.
In this way Dr. Kerschbaumer began her practice as an oculist in
Salzburg. However, the Countess Possanner, M.D., after passing the Swiss
state examination, also took the Austrian examination. She is now
practicing in Vienna.
As the Austrian doctors have active and passive suffrage in the election
to the Board of Physicians (Ärztekammer)[72] Dr. Possanner also
requested this right. Her request was refused by the magistrate in Vienna
because, as a woman, she did not have the suffrage in municipal
elections, and the suffrage for the Board of Physicians could be exercised
only by those doctors that were municipal electors.[73] Thereupon Dr.
Possanner appealed her case to the government, to the Minister of the
Interior, and finally to the administrative court. The court decided in
favor of the petition. It must be emphasized, however, that the Board of
Physicians favored the request from the beginning.
Women preachers and women lawyers are as yet unknown in Austria. As in
former times, the teaching profession is still the chief sphere of
activity for the middle-class women of German Austria. According to the
law of 1869 they can be appointed not only as teachers in the elementary
schools for girls, but also as teachers of the lower classes in the boys’
schools. Their not being municipal voters has two results: if the
municipality is seeking votes, it appoints men teachers that are
“favorably disposed”; if the municipality is politically opposed to the
male teachers, it appoints women teachers in preference. But to be the
plaything of political whims is not a very worthy condition to be in. If
women teachers marry, they need not withdraw from the service (except in
the province of Styria). More than 10 per cent of the women teachers in
the whole of Austria are married, more than 2 per cent are widows. The
women comprise about one fourth of the total number of elementary school
teachers, of whom there are 9000. Their annual salaries vary from 200 to
1600 guldens ($96.40 to $771.20). The ordinary salary of 200 guldens is so
insufficient that many elementary school teachers actually starve. The
competition of the nuns is feared by the whole body of secular school
teachers. In Tyrol instruction in the elementary schools is still almost
wholly in the hands of the religious orders. The sisters work for little
pay; they have a community life and consume the resources of the dead
hand.
Of the secondary schools for girls some are ecclesiastic, some are
municipal, and some private. The lyceums give a very good education
(mathematics is obligatory), but as yet there are no ordinary secondary
schools whose leaving examinations are equivalent to the
Abiturientenexamen of the Gymnasiums. The “Academic Woman’s Club” in
Vienna is demanding this reform, and the Federation of Austrian Women’s
Clubs is demanding the development of the municipal girls’ schools into
Realschulen. The state subsidizes various institutions. The girls’
Gymnasiums were privately founded. Dr. Cecilia Wendt, upon whom the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred by Vienna University, and who
took the state examination for secondary school teachers in mathematics,
physics, and German, was the first woman appointed as teacher in a
Gymnasium, being appointed in the Vienna Gymnasium for girls. Since
1871, women have been appointed in the postal and telegraph service. Like
most of the subordinate state officials, they receive poor pay, and dare
not marry. The women telegraph operators in the central office in Vienna
are paid 30 guldens ($14.46) a month. “The woman telegraph operator can
lay no claims to the pleasures of existence.” “These girls starve
spiritually as well as physically.”[74] During the past twenty-eight years
salaries have not been increased. Every two years a two-week vacation is
granted. Since 1876 there has existed a relief society for women postal
and telegraph employees.
The woman stenographer, to-day so much sought after in business offices,
was in 1842 absolutely excluded from the courses in Gabelsberger
stenography[75] by the Ministry of Public Instruction. In the courts of
chancery (Advokatenkanzleien) women stenographers are paid 20 to 30
guldens ($9.64 to $14.46) a month. They are given the same pay in the
stores and offices where they are expected to use typewriters. They are
regarded as subordinates, though frequently they are thorough specialists
and masters of languages. In the governmental service the women
subordinates that work by the day (1.50 guldens,—73 cents) have no hope
for advancement or pension. The first woman chief of a government office
has been appointed to the sanitary department of the Ministry of the Labor
Department, in which there is also a woman librarian.
It is not easy to imagine the deplorable condition of workingwomen when
women public school teachers and women office clerks are expected to live
on a monthly salary of $9.64 to $14.46. The Vienna inquiry into the
condition of workingwomen in 1896 disclosed frightfully miserable
conditions among workingwomen. Since then, especially through the efforts
of the Socialists, the conditions have been somewhat improved.
In Vienna, efforts to organize women into trade-unions have been
made,—especially among the bookbinders, hat makers, and tailors. Outside
Vienna, organization has been effected chiefly among the women textile
workers in Silesia, as well as among the women employees of the state
tobacco factories. The most thorough organization of women laborers is
found in northern and western Bohemia among the glassworkers and bead
makers. In Styria, Salzburg, Tyrol, and Carinthia the organization of
women is found only in isolated cases. Everywhere the organization of
women is made difficult by domestic misery, which consumes the energy,
time, and interest of the women. The organized Social-Democratic women
laborers of German Austria have a permanent representation in the “Women’s
Imperial Committee.” Of the 50,000 women organized in trade-unions, 5000
belong to the Social-Democratic party. The Magazine for Workingwomen
(Arbeiterinnenzeitung) has 13,400 subscribers. Women industrial
inspectors have proved themselves efficient.
It is to be expected as a result of the wretched economic conditions of
the workingwomen that prostitution with its incidental earnings should be
widespread in German Austria. Vienna is the refuge of those seeking work
and seclusion (Verschwiegenheit). The number of illicit births in Vienna
is, as in Paris, one third of the total number of births. For these and
other reasons the “General Woman’s Club of Austria” (Allgemeine
Österreiche Frauenverein), founded in 1893 under the leadership of Miss
Augusta Fickert, has frequently concerned itself with the question of
prostitution, of woman’s wages, and of the official regulation of
prostitution,—always being opposed to the last. The International
Federation for the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prostitution
(internationale abolinistische Föderation) was, however, not represented
in German Austria before 1903; the Austrian branch of this organization
being established in 1907 in Vienna.
The middle-class women are doing much as leaders of the charitable,
industrial, educational, and woman’s suffrage societies to raise the
status of woman in Austria. The most prominent members of these societies
are: Augusta Fickert, Marianne Hainisch, Mrs. v. Sprung, Miss Herzfelder,
v. Wolfring, Mrs. v. Listrow, Rosa Maireder, Maria Lang (editor of the
excellent Dokumente der Frauen, which, unfortunately, were discontinued
in 1902), Mrs. Schwietland, Elsie Federn (the superintendent of the
settlement in the laborers’ district in North Vienna), Mrs. Jella Hertzka,
(Mrs.) Dr. Goldmann, superintendent of the Cottage Lyceum, and others.
These women frequently coöperate with the leaders of the Socialistic
woman’s rights movement, Mrs. Schlesinger, Mrs. Popp, and others. The
disunion of the two forces of the movement is much less marked in Austria
than in Germany, the circumstances much more resembling those in Italy.
In these lands it is expected that the woman’s rights movement will profit
greatly through the growth of Socialism. This is explained by the fact
that the Austrian Liberals are not equal to the assaults of the
Conservatives. Universal equal suffrage, which does not as yet exist in
Austria, has its most enthusiastic advocates among the Socialists. With
the Austrian Socialists, universal suffrage means woman’s suffrage
also.[76]
During the Liberal era two rights were granted to the Austrian women:
since 1849 the women taxpayers vote by proxy in municipal elections, and
since 1861 for the local legislatures (Provinciallandtagen).[77] In
Lower Austria the Landtag in 1888 deprived them of this right, and in
1889 an attempt was made to deprive them of their municipal suffrage. But
the women concerned successfully petitioned that they be left in
possession of their active municipal suffrage. Since 1873 the Austrian
women owners of large estates vote also for the Imperial Parliament
through proxy. The Austrian women, supported by the Socialist deputies,
Pernerstorfer, Kronawetter, Adler, and others, have on several occasions
demanded the passive suffrage in the election of school boards and
poor-law guardians; they have also demanded a reform of the law of
organization, so that women can be admitted to political organizations. To
the present these efforts have been fruitless. When universal suffrage was
granted in 1906 (creating the fifth class of voters), the women were
disregarded. In the previous year a Woman’s Suffrage Committee had been
established with headquarters in Vienna. It is endeavoring especially to
secure the repeal of paragraph 30 of the law regulating organizations and
public meetings. This law (like that of Prussia and Bavaria previous to
1908) excludes women from political organization, thus making the forming
of a woman’s suffrage society impossible. For this reason Austria cannot
join the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance.
During the consideration of the new municipal election laws in Troppau
(Austrian Silesia), it was proposed to withdraw the right of suffrage from
the women taxpayers. They resisted the proposal energetically. At present
the matter is before the supreme court. In Voralberg the unmarried women
taxpayers were also given the right to vote in elections of the Landtag.
The legal status of the Austrian woman is similar to that of the French
woman: the wife is under the guardianship of her husband; the property law
provides for the amalgamation of property (not joint property holding, as
in France). But the wife does not have control of her earnings and
savings, as in Germany under the Civil Code. The father alone has legal
authority over the children.
Here the names of two women must be mentioned: Bertha v. Suttner, one of
the founders of the peace movement, and Marie v. Ebner-Eschenbach, the
greatest living woman writer in the German language. Both are Austrians;
and their country may well be proud of them.
In Austria the authorities are more favorably disposed toward the woman’s
rights movement than in Germany, for example.
HUNGARY[78]
| Total population: | 19,254,559. |
| Women: | 9,672,407. |
| Men: | 9,582,152. |
Federation of Hungarian Women’s Clubs.
Woman’s Suffrage League. |
At first the Hungarian woman’s rights movement was restricted to the
advancement of girls’ education. The attainment of national independence
gave the women greater ambition; since 1867 they have striven for the
establishment of higher institutions of learning for girls. In 1868 Mrs.
v. Veres with twenty-two other women founded the “Society for the
Advancement of Girls’ Education.” In 1869, the first class in a high
school for girls was formed in Budapest. An esteemed scholar, P. Gyulai,
undertook the superintendence of the institution. Similar schools were
founded in the provinces. In 1876 the Budapest model school was completed;
in 1878 it was turned over to a woman superintendent, Mrs. v. Janisch. A
seminary for women teachers was established, a special building being
erected for the purpose. Then the admission of women to the university was
agitated. A special committee for this purpose was formed with Dr. Coloman
v. Csicky as chairman. In the meantime the “Society” gave domestic economy
courses and courses of instruction to adults (in its girls’ high school).
The Minister of Public Instruction, v. Wlassics, secured the imperial
decree of November 18, 1895, by which women were admitted to the
universities of Klausenburg and Budapest (to the philosophical and medical
faculties). It was now necessary to prepare women for the entrance
examinations (Abiturientenexamen). This was undertaken by the “General
Hungarian Woman’s Club” (Allgemeine ungarische Frauenverein). With the
aid of Dr. Béothy, a lecturer at the University of Budapest, the club
formulated a programme that was accepted by the Minister of Public
Instruction. By the rescript of July 18, 1896, he authorized the
establishment of a girls’ gymnasium in Budapest. It is evident that such
reforms, when in the hands of intelligent authorities, are put into
working order as easily as a letter passes through the mails.
In the professional callings we find 15 women druggists, 10 women doctors,
and one woman architect. Erica Paulus, who has chosen the calling of
architect (which elsewhere in Europe has hardly been opened to women), is
a Transylvanian. Among other things she has been given the supervision of
the masonry, the glasswork, the roofing, and the interior decoration of
the buildings of the Evangelical-Reformed College in Klausenburg. A second
woman architect, trained in the Budapest technical school, is a builder in
Besztercze.
Higher education of women was promoted in the cities, the home industries
of the Hungarian rural districts were fostered. This was taken up by the
“Rural Woman’s Industry Society” (Landes-Frauenindustrieverein). Aprons,
carpets, textile fabrics, slippers, tobacco pouches, whip handles, and
ornamental chests are made artistically according to antique models (this
movement is analogous to that in Scandinavia). Large expositions aroused
the interest of the public in favor of the national products, for the
disposal of which the women of the society have labored with enthusiasm.
These home industries give employment to about 750,000 women (and 40,000
men).
Hungary is preëminently an agricultural country and its wages are low. The
promotion of home industry therefore had a great economic importance, for
Hungary is a center of traffic in girls. A great number of these poor
ignorant country girls, reared in oriental stupor, congregate in Budapest
from all parts of Hungary and the Balkan States, to be bartered to the
brothels of South America as “Madjarli and Hungara.”[79] An address that
Miss Coote of the “International Vigilance Society” delivered in Budapest
resulted in the founding of the “Society for Combating the White Slave
Trade.” The committee was composed of Countess Czaky, Baroness Wenckheim,
Dr. Ludwig Gruber (royal public prosecutor), Professor Vambéry, and
others. The recent Draconic regulation of prostitution in Pest (1906)
caused the Federation of Hungarian Women’s Clubs to oppose the official
regulation of prostitution, and to form a department of morals, which is
to be regarded as the Hungarian branch of the International Federation for
the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prostitution. Since then,
public opinion concerning the question has been aroused; the laws against
the white slave traffic have been made more stringent and are being more
rigidly enforced.
A new development in Hungary is the woman’s suffrage movement (since
1904), represented in the “Feminist Society” (Feministenverein). During
the past five years the society has carried on a vigorous propaganda in
Budapest and various cities in the provinces (in Budapest also with the
aid of foreign women speakers); recently the society has also roused the
countrywomen in favor of the movement. Woman’s suffrage is opposed by the
Clericals and the Social-Democrats, who favor only male suffrage in the
impending introduction of universal suffrage[80]. On March 10, 1908, a
delegation of woman’s suffrage advocates went to the Parliament. During
the suffrage debates the women held public meetings.
From the work of A. v. Maclay, Le droit des femmes au travail, I take
the following statements: According to the industrial statistics of 1900
there were 1,819,517 women in Hungary engaged in agriculture. Industry,
mining, and transportation engaged 242,951; state and municipal service,
and the liberal callings engaged 36,870 women. There were 109,739 women
day laborers; 350,693 domestic servants; 24,476 women pursued undefined or
unknown callings; 83,537 women lived on incomes from their property. Since
1890 the number of women engaged in all the callings has increased more
rapidly than the number of men (26.3 to 27.9 per cent being the average
increase of the women engaged in gainful pursuits). In 1900 the women
formed 21 per cent of the industrial population. They were engaged chiefly
in the manufacture of pottery (29 per cent), bent-wood furniture (46 per
cent), matches (58 per cent), clothing (59 per cent), textiles (60 per
cent). In paper making and bookbinding 68 per cent of the laborers are
women. In the state mints 25 per cent of the employees are women; the
state tobacco factories employ 16,720 women, these being 94 per cent of
the total number of employees. Of those engaged in commerce 23 per cent
are women.
The number of women engaged in the civil service (as private secretaries)
and in the liberal callings has increased even more than the number of
women engaged in industry. The women engaged in office work have
organized. In 1901 the number of women public school teachers was 6529
(there being 22,840 men), i.e. 22.22 per cent were women. In the best
public schools there are more women teachers than men, the proportion
being 62 to 48; in the girls’ high schools there are 273 women teachers to
145 men teachers. In 1903 the railroads employed 511 women; in 1898 the
postal service employed 4516 women; in 1899 the telephone system employed
207 women (and 81 men). These women employees, unlike those of Austria,
are permitted to marry.
