Thomas Wentworth Higginson * Jan 30, 2003
Woman and Her Wishes - 1853 - Thomas Wentworth Higginson: In beginning my research for a platform address next month on one of my favorite historical characters, I decided to scan and upload a copy of this great pamphlet. In 1853 -- only 5 years after the 1848 convention at Seneca Falls -- Higginson argued for women's rights.
I love his style in this essay. A couple of my favorite quotes from the text (each paragraph below is independent of the other, from different parts of the original essay):
It would seem that under the circumstances, the rising protest of American women, though it may annoy men, can hardly surprise them.
It is no wonder that, under these circumstances, we Americans are remarkably polite to women. It will take a good many bows and delicate homages to atone for this unexpected result of free institutions, -- leaving one-half the population with less access to political power than they have under monarchies. With an awkward impulse of compensation, we attempt to atone for our fraud by courtesies. We rob woman of her right to the soil she stands upon, and then beg leave to offer her a chair.
Men insist, like the German Jean Paul, on having a wife who shall cook them something good. I confess to some sympathy with these. I, too, wish to save the dinner. Yet it seems more important, after all, to save the soul. It is a significant fact, that several female authors, as Mrs. Child and Miss Leslie, have had to work their passage into literature, by compiling cookery-books first; just as Miss Martineau thinks it well to vindicate Mrs. Somerville's right to use the telescope, by proving that she has an eye to the tea-table also. Let us consent to this, and only supplicate, that after the cookery-book is written, and the table set, the soul of the woman may be considered as free.
We repress a woman's tongue in public, and then complain that she uses it disproportionately in private. But if she has any thing worth saying in the one case, why not in the other?
"Women ought not to interfere in history," says an eminent writer, "for history demands action, and for action they are constitutionally disqualified!" Shades of Queen Bees and Margaret of Anjou, of the Countess of Derby, Flora McDonnell, and Grace Darling.
Posted by Jone Johnson Lewis at 07:48 PMRelated items:
• More Women's History - Jul 04, 2003• Emma Goldman - Too Radical for 2003? - Jan 15, 2003
• Women Artists of the 16th Century - Dec 23, 2002
• Maya Angelou Quotations - Dec 12, 2002
• Marian Wright Edelman - Dec 05, 2002
