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THE FUTURE OF THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT
THE FUTURE OF THE
WOMEN’S MOVEMENT
BY
H. M. SWANWICK, M.A.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
MRS. FAWCETT, LL.D.
PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE SOCIETIES
LONDON
G. BELL & SONS LTD.
1913
TO
F. T. S.
PREFACE
Women in the movement often wish that theword humanist had not been appropriated,because it would far more properly connote thewomen’s movement than the word feminist.
It is significant of much that there is in the Englishlanguage no commonly used substantive correspondingto “homo.” There is need, of course, for the wordsman and woman, but there is also need for a worddenoting the species, irrespective of sex, and I havebeen driven to make use of a locution not commonin English, in writing “a human.” But the commonpronoun is non-existent and I have not used theneuter, lest it should alarm nervous persons. Perhapswhen we have got over the panic fear of unsexingourselves, we may find it safe to speak of ahuman, just as we do of a baby, as “it.”
There may seem to be a disappointing lack ofprophesy in a book avowedly dealing with thefuture; but since I believe the women’s movementto be a seeking for knowledge and good, to show[viii]what is reasonable and good in the movement is toshow what will persist and triumph. Through allour faults and mistakes, we women are aiming atbetter understanding and co-operation with men,and a better adaptation to one another of conditionsand persons. We are having to hammer outfor ourselves the right principles of government.We can take them ready-made from no man.Doubtless we shall flounder considerably, as menhave done—and do. But there is little fear that inthe long-run the best minds of men and women willnot have a common principle.
Meanwhile we have to resist the tendency to easyand cheap generalisations about woman, her sphere,her vocation, and her capacity, based upon a verysmall amount of very partial investigation and ahuge amount of inhe