34. The Suffragette
I HAVE SPOKEN With some disdain of the
suffragette. What is the matter with her, fundamentally, is
simple: she is a woman who has stupidly carried her envy of
certain of the superficial privileges of men to such a point that
it takes on the character of an obsession, and makes her blind to
their valueless and often chiefly imaginary character. In
particular, she centres this frenzy of hers upon one definite
privilege, to wit, the alleged privilege of promiscuity in amour,
the modern droit du seigneur. Read the books of the chief
lady Savonarolas, and you will find running through them an
hysterical denunciation of what is called the double
standard of morality; there is, indeed, a whole literature
devoted exclusively to it. The existence of this double standard
seems to drive the poor girls half frantic. They bellow raucously
for its abrogation, and demand that the frivolous male be visited
with even more idiotic penalties than those which now visit the
aberrant female; some even advocate gravely his mutilation by
surgery, that he may be forced into rectitude by a physical
disability for sin.
All this, of course, is hocus-pocus, and the
judicious are not deceived by it for an instant. What these
virtuous beldames actually desire in their hearts is not that the
male be reduced to chemical purity, but that the franchise of
dalliance be extended to themselves. The most elementary
acquaintance with Freudian psychology exposes their secret
animus. Unable to ensnare under the present system, or at all
events, unable to ensnare males sufficiently appetizing to arouse
the envy of other women, they leap to the theory that it would be
easier if the rules were less exacting. This theory exposes their
deficiency in the chief character of their sex: accurate
observation. The fact is that, even if they possessed the freedom
that men are supposed to possess, they would still find it
difficult to achieve their ambition, for the average man,
whatever his stupidity, is at least keen enough in judgment to
prefer a single wink from a genuinely attractive woman to the
last delirious favours of the typical suffragette. Thus the
theory of the whoopers and snorters of the cause, in its esoteric
as well as in its public aspect, is unsound. They are simply
women who, in their tastes and processes of mind, are two-thirds
men, and the fact explains their failure to achieve presentable
husbands, or even consolatory betrayal, quite as effectively as
it explains the ready credence they give to political and
philosophical absurdities.
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"In Defense Of Women" by H. L. Mencken, 1922