18
animal—nature lies, I think, the sex-subjection of woman, not, be it clearly understood, because man is physically stronger, but because he is man and his form of sex self-feeling is dominant and positive; woman's is more usually submissive and negative.
A superficial thinker may imagine that here I give my case away. "Ah! now at last we have the truth. Man is born to command, woman to obey. Woman is by nature unfitted to rule, and hence to vote. Back to the hearth and home." Not at all. Woman qua woman, qua sex, is in subjection. What purpose that serves in the divine economy I do not know, but it seems to me a fact, one that I have neither the power nor the wish to alter, one also, I think, that has not been clearly enough recognised. But woman qua human being, and even qua weaker human being, is not in subjection. The argument from superior force is as obsolete as war-paint and woad. When a man first says to a woman, " I must insist that you…" he had better take care. He is in danger of toppling over from admiration or friendship into love. The woman, if she is attracted, yields, with a strange thrill. This is not because he is the stronger. The same evening her brother also "insists" that she shall not borrow his latch key. He also is stronger, but there is no corresponding thrill.
My point is, I hope, clear. If woman were woman only, "the sex," as she is sometimes called, she would wish, she would ask, for no vote, no share in dominion. A claim based on sex is, to my mind, doomed to failure, and this not because man is physically or even mentally stronger, but because qua man he is dominant, he has more positive self-feeling. The consciousness of this
