Feminism and Sex-Extinction Part 31

Having sown the fickle wind of woman's variability, they are like to reap the whirlwind in her inherent non-conformability; a difficult and parlous factor such as they have never previously encountered in political and industrial administration. Such non-conformability as is seen at an extreme in the anarchy of revolutions; in which women, having lost control and balance, plunge deeper and deeper into excesses, without power, it would seem, of recoil. While men reach a maximum, recover poise, and then setting about to re-const.i.tute order out of chaos, more often than not evolve a higher form of order than had previously obtained.

VII

Secure in their traditional superior strength, however, and with characteristic complacency in this relation, men have no suspicion of the s.e.x-antagonism--hatred even--seething against them in Feminism. And this far from having been annealed or softened, has been, on the contrary, greatly aggravated by the concessions and new privileges lately accorded the s.e.x.

Strange to say, the chief talk of extremist women in their new War-capacities was bitterest grievance and hostility against the male, because, although installed in masculine positions, they were denied rights identical with his; of rank and recognition, of responsibility and pay. That they held these capacities temporarily merely, and as novices and amateurs, while men held theirs as experts, for long service or for superior values by right of masculine abilities, had no weight whatsoever. Never in all her days of so-called subjection has woman been so loud and denunciatory of the injustices of The Oppressor, of his conspiracies and crimes against her, as since she has been yielded a number of those rights which Feminism claims.

Feminists will say this is because complete equality in all things has not yet been granted--has yet to be fought for. The truth is, however, that the interests and functions of men fail wholly to satisfy the wholly dissimilar natures of women. But until they have realised this--the true reason of their discontent--an ever-increasing number of women will continue to make these their coveted goal, and to chafe with anger and bitterest resentment against the other s.e.x for denying them full measure of things--without intrinsic value for them.

It needs no saying by me, that, apart from the Feminist extremist faction, the Woman's Movement includes a number of the s.e.x characterised by the n.o.blest ideals and impulse, as by the finest achievements; their creed and aims being pure of self-seeking or materialist ambitions for themselves or for their kin. And these it is to whom we owe it, that, amid the clamour and the combat of those others, the spirit of true Womanhood, devoted, wise and altruistic, is making itself felt everywhere in modern thought and modern progress.

Such women for the most part discredit Feminism, in many cases directly oppose both its doctrine and practice.

VIII

The huge numerical preponderance of women must, of itself, presently swamp all masculine power and initiative in State affairs unless the political functions of the s.e.xes be separated. Thenceforward, _Vox populi_ must be the voice of Woman--man's having ceased to be heard.

And man's chiefest menace lies, be it reiterated to the point of tedium, in that momentous fact of the biological investment in woman, of the Racial Trustfund. For this is, at the same time, his sole heritage and that of the nation. And not only does it const.i.tute her the custodian of Human Life and Faculty but it makes her arbitress as well of man's and of the nation's destiny.

In yielding his House of Parliament, man has surrendered not only his highest and most characteristic prerogative, but he has yielded the last exclusive stronghold of his manhood. An entrenchment indispensable to his difficult task of holding his own against a s.e.x overwhelmingly superior in number, and chartered, by right of womanhood, with time-honoured baffling privileges which handicap and defeat him at all turns. A s.e.x Nature has armoured with charms, moreover, and with weaknesses for his disarming; by appeal, on the one hand, to his chivalry, on the other, to his senses.

Entrenched in his last stronghold, he stood some chance of exerting his allotted dominance in life's affairs. All his strongholds invaded, he stands none.

For the rest, it can only be said that men who should reject their own, and elect members of the opposite s.e.x to represent them in Parliament, would by that vote alone of non-confidence in the ability or the good faith of their kind, proclaim the human male a pitiful failure in species; an order without specialisation of brain, of character, or of moral, to give it essential values in Human concerns.

Woman, on the other hand, would stand acclaimed a Super-Being. One not only highly-specialised by G.o.d and Nature, as creatrix of the Race, and endowed with gifts to be the Racial nurse and guide and teacher, but, added to these most vital of human capacities, she would stand accredited by man with such superior qualifications also for the administration of the State as to lead him to adjudge her his superior in this capacity likewise. While her still further pre-eminence is now to be emphasised by pitting her on equal terms against the male, in all the Arts and Crafts, the professions and the businesses.

Truly--poor Super-Being that she is to be--burdened and spent by her super-tax of faculties and functions, she will need, indeed, to break into the Racial Trust-Fund, in order to equip herself for these her multifarious exactions. Because not only will it be her affliction to produce the Race and mother it, but she must provide for it too; moreover, must doctor it, play lawyer, parson and accountant to it; paint its pictures, mould its statuary, plan its architecture, build its houses, compose its music, blow its trumpets, beat its drums; and, over and beyond all these, must administer its politics, and serve it presently, no doubt, as Premier, Primate and Chancellor.

While it must be merely a matter of brief time, when, to her other tasks, will be added the manning of its Army, its Navy and Air-Services, and the serving of its guns.

Should Feminist aims be realised--and already they are more than half-won--it will be a case, truly, of _Exit Man!_

Rejected on all counts, as possessing no intrinsic s.e.x-values, to offset woman's vital and pre-eminent one of the creation of Life (for his biological part in this is so slight and brief as to be unworthy of note were it not indispensable, and will be insignificant, indeed, when he no longer serves as highly-specialised agent and artificer of the Racial faculty); possessing no distinctive qualities and no obligations of fatherhood, to protect and to provide for offspring, and thereby to offset woman's vital and important one of nurturing and rearing this; no more than woman's equal (if that) in the Sciences and Arts, in Politics and Commerce--Truly no alternative will be left him save to retire, abased, into the dim background of the Human Pageant; a self-admitted failure, without place or standing, by virile and exclusive right and power of body, brain and office.

IX

A more inspiring picture presents itself, however.

Of a Manhood, worthy of its racial and national traditions, waking timely to a recognition of its manhood's powers and duties, and, having emanc.i.p.ated itself from woman's rule in all beside her natural province, reinstating its supremacy in every virile field and function; and thus re-shouldering bravely its allotted burdens in Labour, Faculty and Administration.

Of a Womanhood re-finding itself also, and finding itself and its natural lot upon a fairer and a n.o.bler plane--the plane of Life, as ever, but illumined now by broader outlook, and instinct with higher understanding.

And these two working for the common good, of our Anglo-Saxon Race, recruited by their sympathetic impulse and reciprocal achievement, having been set, in course of a few generations, upon routes of such a Human Renaissance as should carry it forward to fulfilment of its splendid destiny.

In this New Human Dispensation would be a House of Women to serve as a second--a balancing and an uplifting--wing to the House of Men.

Thus in the national as in the natural life, The s.e.xes would be most effectively operating and co-operating; travelling each along its own inherent and allotted lines, employing each its own intrinsic powers and fulfilling its intrinsic functions, apart from, but abreast of and in continual touch with the other; inspiring, fortifying, supplementing and complementing the attributes, the trend and the achievements, each of each.

Said Mazzini, "_Man and Woman are the two human Wings that lift the soul toward the Ideal we are destined to attain_." And the value and the effectiveness of these two human, as of other wings, lie in the degree to which, although they work in unison, _they move in different areas_; apart from and independent, each of the other; balancing and correlating, but, nevertheless, each sustaining its own side of the body, Vital and Social.

APPENDIX

FURTHER EVIDENCES IN SUPPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL AND MENDELIAN PROPOSITIONS ADVANCED IN BOOK I.

I

_The Male is the impelling force in Physical Development, or Adaptation to environment_

Scientific stock-breeding supplies valuable practical examples of applied Genetics, or the Science of Heredity.

Although artificial, in the sense that the creatures of the Stock-yard are not mated by law of Natural Selection, nor are they bred or reared under normal environmental conditions, the circ.u.mstance that breeders are breeding for special characteristics, and mate the parents with a view to the transmission and the accentuation of such, provides important indications regarding hereditary influence and its determinant factors.

Mr. Horace G. Regnart, who has done much to establish Stock-breeding on a scientific basis, kindly furnishes me with the following interesting and suggestive data:

"We Breeders pay more attention to the bull because he can sire fifty calves yearly; while the cow can produce only one. One can afford to pay a thousand guineas for a bull, whereas one cannot afford fifty cows at the same price. And the purchase of a first-cla.s.s bull is the cheapest way of getting a good herd. The history of practically every great herd is the history of some particular bull. As we say, '_a bull is half the herd_.' It is equally true to say that every great bull is the son of a great cow. With one highly-prepotent bull we can raise a high-cla.s.s herd, even if we start with second-rate females; while a bad bull will ruin the best herd in the county. It is for this reason that we 'put all our money' on the bull."

All of which supports my theory that the male is the impelling agency in Adaptation to Environment, or evolutionary development on the plane of physics, and that such progressive development is achieved by way of the male traits being Dominant upon this plane, and manifesting, accordingly, in the physical terms of stature and muscle and force-production.

The male being the determinant agent in the physical characteristics of size and flesh and nervous energy--for which breeders of Live-stock are making--the bull is "half the herd." "With one highly-prepotent bull," a high-cla.s.s herd may be raised, even though inaugurated with second-rate females. Whilst "a bad bull will ruin the best herd in the county." Akin to which is the circ.u.mstance that, in two generations, the improvement which occurs in the offspring of a New Forest pony-mare when mated with a horse, lapses; the descendants reverting to the type of the New Forest pony.

If, however, the male, being the agent of Adaptation, determines progressive development in the direction of such physical traits as further fit species to its material environment, the female it is, that, being the agency of the Evolution of Life (and of the equipment of species in terms of Life, accordingly) supplies offspring with the Vital potential of living cells and vital organs--heart, lungs, digestive and a.s.similative organs and functions--which, by engendering the multiple functions and vital processes of Life, _sustain_ the existence and the powers of the organism in relation to environment. The female, moreover, provides it with the Vital potential of reproductive organs for the transmission of types ever further evolved and adapted, in terms both of Life and Adaptation.

The male thus broadly sketches out the lines and supplies the initiative of structural development. The female supplements the sketch with the structural potential of living cells, whereby structural development is achieved; as too with the vital potential of organs whereby living organisation is sustained and transmitted.

The great sire, bull or man, generates the great daughter. But since Life is earlier in origin and precedes Development, the great mother it must be who first _engenders_ the great son. Because, as I have already pointed out, Life and Reproductive-Energy must exist in the potential before they can evolve upon the plane of personal development. In other words, function precedes structure. The potential of both function and structure must precede the _development_ of either on the plane of Life.

Woman, accordingly, is Creatrix of the Race, because in her the Race becomes potential. Man is Artificer of the Race, however, because from him the Race receives its powers of concrete development.

For progressive evolutionary advance, therefore, every new generation of females must contribute a new complement of Vital potential, equal in potence to the new complement of Developmental initiative which the new generation of males contribute, and by way of which the female Vital potential is differentiated into further concrete powers. Fruitless for one parent to supply a finer complement than the other is able to render in terms, respectively, of Life or Development. The female potential must be adequate to energise the male powers of differentiation. The male powers must be adequate to differentiate the female potential.

II

_The female supplies the Typal and Vital Potentials of Adaptation_

To Mr. Regnart, I am indebted for the following further data, which seem further to support my view: