It has come to be believed that everything that has
a bearing upon the concession of the suffrage to woman
has already been brought forward.
In reality, however, the influence of women has caused
man to leave unsaid many things which he ought to
have said.
Especially in two respects has woman restricted the
discussion.
She has placed her taboo upon all generalisations
about women, taking exception to these on the threefold
ground that there would be no generalisations which
would hold true of all women; that generalisations
when reached possess no practical utility; and that
the element of sex does not leave upon women any general
imprint such as could properly be brought up in connexion
with the question of admitting them to the electorate.
Woman has further stifled discussion by placing her
taboo upon anything seriously unflattering being said
about her in public.
I would suggest, and would propose here myself to
act upon the suggestion, that, in connexion with the
discussion of woman’s suffrage, these restrictions
should be laid aside.
In connexion with the setting aside of the restriction
upon generalising, I may perhaps profitably point
out that all generalisations, and not only generalisations
which relate to women, are ex hypothesi [by hypothesis]
subject to individual exceptions. (It is to generalisations
that the proverb that “the exception proves
the rule” really applies.) I may further point
out that practically every decision which we take
in ordinary life, and all legislative action without
exception, is based upon generalisations; and again,
that the question of the suffrage, and with it the
larger question as to the proper sphere of woman,
finally turns upon the question as to what imprint
woman’s sexual system leaves upon her physical
frame, character, and intellect: in more technical
terms, it turns upon the question as to what are the
secondary sexual character[istic]s of woman.
Now only by a felicitous exercise of the faculty of
successful generalisation can we arrive at a knowledge
of these.
With respect to the restriction that nothing which
might offend woman’s amour propre [self love]
shall be said in public, it may be pointed out that,
while it was perfectly proper and equitable that no
evil (and, as Pericles proposed, also no good) should
be said of woman in public so long as she confined
herself to the domestic sphere, the action of that
section of women who have sought to effect an entrance
into public life, has now brought down upon woman,
as one of the penalties, the abrogation of that convention.
A consideration which perhaps ranks only next in importance
to that with which we have been dealing, is that of
the logical sanction of the propositions which are
enunciated in the course of such controversial discussions
as that in which we are here involved.
