The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎634r] (158/239)

“the threatened re-subjection of woman.”
127
locked heredity the race has now sufficiently advanced for women
to have a conscious mission : the perfecting of the human race.
What should we think of the woman or of the man who would
wish to re-establish gynaecocracy on this planet : who would
voluntarily aid and abet the reversion of the male to his original
place in the economy of race-production as merely the fertiliser, the
g ter, and the hunter? From the human standpoint we should
regard that man or that woman as an enemy to progress and
civilisation. And yet there are thousands of men and women in
this identical position. By desiring to maintain the subjection of
women—a state incidental to racial progress established in order
to raise the male to a position of equality with the woman— these
people are in very deed enemies to their own kind ; moles crawling
m emghted regions of their own making, unconscious of the
beautiful world above and around them. They are the fools who
whisper in their hearts ‘‘ there is no God. ” Who has not noticed
^ at it is always the least virile and manly amongst the men who
are so bent upon “ keeping women in their proper place ” (what
they really want, of course, is to keep them out), and the least
womanly amongst the women who are willing to abdicate their
jo -giveji right of human will in favour of an unlovely subservi-
ence to the mere brute strength of the male. This is what Lucas
Malet observes when she sees the “ highest class ” least affected
by the new regime/’ The more intellectual and the better-bred
e man, the less irksome in his domination to the woman If it
exists she does not feel it. It is for this reason that the supporters
o his movement, with as Lucas Malet observes “ one or two well-
nown exceptions ” are not drawn from the aristocratic classes,
ut it is not to their credit. Because they suffer no visible or
immediate inconvenience such as their less fortunate sisters daily
expeilence, their interest, through lack of intelligence or intel
lectual sympathy, has not been quickened in the deep pulsating
movement that is throbbing in the hearts and minds of all women
-unconsciously in those who are affected by their disabilities, and
consciously in those of the few who in all ages would have been
the leaders in any movement they believe to be for the good of their
Kina.
Lucas Malet throughout her article ignores the love of work
lor its own sake, yet this love exists and is instinctive in women
as well as in men, and shows itself very early in the child. The
suppression of one natural instinct cannot act beneficially upon
another natural instinct, and it is only when the human being has
been allowed to develop m the fullest freedom that the true rela-
MaLMnffi 6 Wl11 aSSUme itS Pr ° per P^ion- Lucas
Malet talks of the American climate making for the development