This last is the view which has been most violently opposed. The food habits of a people are extremely difficult to change, and as to the care of young children, the obvious need and value of the mother have blinded us to her as obvious deficiencies. The position as to sex is most amusingly in contradiction of our present theory of its dominant importance, a theory which claims as “natural” an indulgence absolutely without parallel in nature.
Being so universal a heretic it is much to the credit of our advance in liberal thought that my work has been for the most part well received. The slowness and indifference of the public mind was of course to be expected, and its very general misunderstanding; the only thing I have to complain of in the way of ill-treatment has been from newspapers, and even among them there has been much, very much, of fair and helpful recognition.
So general an attack upon what we have long held incontrovertible must needs have met misunderstanding and opposition. If the world had been able to easily receive it then it would not have been necessary. The clear logic of the position, the reasoning which supported it, made small impression on the average mind. Reason is the least used of our faculties, the most difficult — even painful. That is why successful orators do not need it.
This is also why my little Forerunner had so few subscribers, at least one reason why. There were some who were with me on one point and some on two, but when it came to five or more distinct heresies, to a magazine which even ridiculed Fashion, and held blazing before its readers a heaven on earth which they did not in the least want — it narrowed the subscription list.
The magazine came to an end with 1916. For a while I did little writing — I had said all I had to say. Then presently I undertook a new game, writing short bits of daily stuff for a newspaper syndicate. “Could I keep it up?” anxiously inquired the gentleman who engaged me. I told him what I had been keeping up for seven years, and he was satisfied. But alas! though I tried my best to reach and hold the popular taste, I couldn’t do it, so after a year that effort came to an end. It was the only time in my life when I had a “pay-envelope,” and that was most enjoyable.
Another experiment was with one of the smaller Chautauquas, a six weeks’ trip among very small towns in rather backward regions mostly. With the lecturer went a “Revue,” a group of girls who danced and sang and otherwise pleased the audience. This I rather dreaded, the traveling in company with a lively bunch of young ladies of that sort, but found them as pleasant and likable as any girls, excellent company; I grew quite fond of them. And they of me it appeared, for they honored me with the title of “Good Old Scout,” and on our last performance together, those dear girls presented me with a bouquet and a nice little speech of appreciation, which went to my heart.
As a Chautauqua lecturer I was as much of a failure as in the pleasant platitudes of newspaper syndicates. Giving the same lecture night after night has never been within my powers, that is to do it well, and to do it at all I must have an audience some of whom, at least, are interested. I am a teacher, though sometimes amusing and impressive while teaching, and what is required in this work is an entertainer.
These audiences, in little mining towns and remote villages, were generally like this; in the two or three front rows a collection of squirming children; in the last two or three rows another collection of lads and lasses, with much shuffling and giggling, peanuts and chewing-gum; in the middle rows those dumb ranks of tired housewives, miners or farmers. I did not please, and never wanted to try that kind of work again.
During these New York years there was often some speaking to do, even after I had been forced to stop speaking gratuitously for the many Socialist groups and associations always asking. Slowly, very slowly, I have raised my lecture from a minimum of nothing to a minimum of $100 — holding the privilege of making it much less, when necessary, for educational and religious bodies, and for the Forums which are doing such good work all over the country — and also getting more at times.
It has taken a long time for our Women’s Clubs to outgrow the habit of being served for nothing. There came to me once a lady from a large Woman’s Club in New Jersey, who wanted me to address them for $15.00 (all I asked at that time was $25.00). She said their budget would allow no more, that it was in her department. I had been told of the size and character of this club beforehand, so I questioned her gently — was this a small, new, struggling club? No, indeed. It was the largest and longest established in the city. Was it a reformatory association? By no means — social and educational. Were the members poor working women? They were not, not at all, they were ladies of the highest social standing. Then, I calmly inquired, can you tell me of any reason why I should address your club for less than my usual charge? She could not think of any, and they raised the gigantic sum I asked.
Another time came two ladies from Metuchen, New Jersey. Does that name seem impressive? I had heard that Mary Wilkins Freeman lived there, but that was all. They wanted me to make an address at some sort of civic performance, for nothing. Vainly did I explain that I was a professional speaker, that my rates were so and so, that I could not make distinctions for all comers. They seemed grieved at my conceit, urged their plea most earnestly, and finally brought to bear this irresistible argument— “We think it would benefit you to be known in Metuchen!” I had not sense enough to appreciate this priceless boon, and as far as I can tell, am completely unknown in Metuchen to this day.
In the Forum held by the Rev. Percy Grant I loved to speak, for he had real viva voce discussion from the floor. Written questions are safer in the long run perhaps, but it is much more vivid when they come hot from the protesting hearer. On one occasion there my speech was being violently attacked by a whiskerous foreigner, during the question period. Mr. Grant checked him, said it was the time for questions, not counter-attacks, would he please put his remarks in the form of a question; to which with some effort he replied, “My question is that I disagree with the speaker!”
New York abounds with dinner clubs and lunch clubs, with speeches. I used to enjoy the old Twilight Club, to which the original conditions of membership, they said, were the possession of a clean shirt and a dollar — or was it half a dollar? But after they assumed the name of the Society of Arts and Sciences, to which they had not the faintest shadow of a claim, and the purpose of which was but too obviously to induce visiting foreigners to accept their invitations to speak for them, for nothing — I have declined to meet with them.
There was a small woman’s lunch club called the Heterodoxy, started by that brilliant and beautiful woman, Marie Jenney Howe, and composed of various ultra-heretical thinkers, or doers, or those wishing to be so considered, which I found interesting for a while, but when the heresies seemed to center on sex psychology and pacificism, I wearied of it. Another much pleasanter one was the Query Club, the well-managed pet of another brilliant and beautiful woman, Claire Mumford. This consisted of professional women of ability; their lunches were always vivid and amusing. Unfortunately they smoked all the time, smoked before the soup — with the soup and all the time, smoked worse than men do — and there are still some people who do not like the smell of tobacco, especially with food. So I dropped out of that.
Then there was the Gamut Club, mothered by Mary Shaw — that well-loved great actress who has done so much for the American stage. These were professional women too, largely actresses, kinder and not so smoky.
In great cities where people of ability abound, there is always a feverish urge to keep ahead, to set the pace, to adopt each new fashion in thought and theory as well as in dress — or undress. So in New York swept in with a rush the Freudian psychology, with all the flock of “psycho-analysts.”
Always it has amazed me to see how apparently intelligent persons would permit these mind-meddlers, having no claim to fitness except that of having read certain utterly unproven books, to paddle among their thoughts and feelings, and extract confessions of the last intimacy. Men and women with no warrant in
professional education, setting up offices and giving treatment — for handsome fees — became plentiful.
One of these men, becoming displeased with my views and their advancement, since I would not come to be “psyched,” as they call it, had the impudence to write a long psychoanalysis of my case, and send it to me. My husband and I, going out in the morning, found this long, fat envelop with our mail. I looked at it, saw who it was from, and gave it to Houghton. “I don’t want to read his stuff,” I said. “You look it over and tell me what it is about.” This he did, to my utter disgust. “Burn it up, do,” I urged. “I haven’t the least curiosity to know what this person thinks is the matter with me.”
Fancy any decent physician presuming to send a diagnosis to some one never his patient, and who on no account would have consulted him! The joke is on him, in that his arrow never reached the mark, but the joke is on me because with a mind of that sort nothing could make him believe that a woman could have so little curiosity.
CHAPTER XX. HOME
TWENTY-TWO years in New York. Twenty-two years in that unnatural city where every one is an exile, none more so than the American. I have seen it stated that there are but 7 per cent native-born, of native ancestors, in that city. Others give a larger proportion, perhaps 15 or 20 per cent. Imagine Paris with but a fifth of its citizens French! London with but a fifth English — Berlin with but a fifth German! One third of the inhabitants of New York now are Jews, and we know of the hundreds of thousands of Italians, Germans, and others.
One summer we went to the coast of Maine for a little. I could have hugged the gaunt New England farmers and fishermen — I had forgotten what my people looked like!
The petty minority of Americans in New York receive small respect from their supplanters. Why should they? What must any people think of another people who voluntarily give up their country — not conquered — not forced out — simply outnumbered and swallowed up without a struggle. After a speech of mine in Cooper Union a scornful German demanded from the floor— “What is an American?”
A good answer which I did not think of then would have been: “An American is the sort of person who builds a place like this for you to enjoy, free.” But my real answer is this: “Americans are the kind of people who have made a country that every other kind of people wants to get into!”
One of the bitterest lacks in that multiforeign city, that abnormally enlarged city, swollen rather than grown, is that of freedom in friendship and neighborliness. People of similar tastes huddle in little local groups, narrower than villages, as in the vaunted pseudo-artistic settlement, Greenwich Village. Dwindling islands of earlier inhabitants cling to Murray Hill or some other spot, and do not “call” beyond certain limits.
As I always tried to live where I could at least see out of the crowd, where Central Park or, better, the river, rested the eye and gave air to the lungs, we moved farther and farther up-town. The result was loneliness. Few indeed are the people in New York who will go to see a friend unless they are fed. It is not lack of friendliness, it is lack of time; and also that ridiculous inability to step outside of their villages.
Some few dear friends we had, friends I love and am proud to know. Yet even these I saw but little of. My husband and I, not being afraid of distance, went a-calling from time to time, but seldom indeed did people reach 135th Street and climb five flights of stairs to see us.
Yet I remember with joy the able and delightful folk we knew, though we saw far too little of them.
The War came and passed. It left with me principally a new sense of the difference in races and the use of nations in social evolution. I was forced to see that the “next steps” in social progress in England, America, or France, were not those most needed in Uganda or Tibet. This recognition has brought new light in my studies of further social progress; there is still so much more before us — so little to be satisfied with in all our recent advance.
This new century, now past its first quarter, has seen the achievement of many of the things so ardently striven for in the last, but it is like climbing a mountain range, each surmounted peak only shows more and higher ones. For instance we have attained full suffrage for women. This was never to me the summum bonum it was to many of its advocates, but I did expect better things of women than they have shown.
They remain, for instance, as much the slaves of fashion as before, lifting their skirts, baring their backs, exhibiting their legs, powdering their noses, behaving just as foolishly as ever, if not more so. I have no objection to legs, as bare as faces when necessary. The one-piece bathing suit is precisely as right for women as for men. It is an exhilarating sight to see men and women, swimming together, walking or running on the beaches together, free, equal, not stressing sex in any way. But these gleaming “nudes,” in the street-car for instance, have no raison d’être, are merely an exhibition, neither timely, nor by any means always attractive. I have seen legs, yards of them one might say, with knee and thigh in full evidence, which so far from being desirable were fairly repellent.
The fine women who were making such advance in all manner of business and professional achievements are going on, in increasing numbers. More and more our girls expect to work, to earn, to be independent. But on the other hand, the “gold digger” is as rampant as ever, as greedy and shameless.
There is a splendid stir and push among our youth, what is called a “revolt,” against pretty much everything that was before good, excellent, necessary — but what have they to propose instead? So far there has not been put forth by all this revolted youth any social improvement that I have heard of. Much is heard of the advantage of repudiating tradition, superstition, old legends, dogmas, conventions. Little is heard of any clear, newly established truth.
There is now nothing to prevent women from becoming as fully human in their social development as men; and although just now they seem more anxious to exhibit sex than ever, the real progress in humanness is there and will gradually overcome this backwash of primitive femininity.
It is amusing to find in this “advanced” period, some survivals of the mental attitudes of our decorous ancestors. For instance, I made myself, within a few years, a dress for the platform. Behold this aged amazon, stark and grim, covered from neck to wrist and ankle. Allow also for six layers of covering, the lace, the silk, the “slip” and so on inward.
Yet I was told confidentially, for my good, that people had criticized this costume as indelicate! They said it “showed the outline of the bust”! Two women and one man, it appears, had made this objection, with the added reproach, “At your age.” When one considers the “outlines” now freely shown on our streets and in our parlors, to say nothing of the limitless exhibition elsewhere, and then looks at this grave and voluminous robe, such objection as this surely shows that there are still with us persons of a pure-mindedness difficult to fathom.
The Labor Movement, for which I worked as earnestly as for the advance of women, has now gone so far, achieved so much, with reduced hours, increased wages, and better conditions generally, that sympathy has given place to admiration. Further, there is a growing question on the part of the consumer as to where he comes in for advantages. The coal-miners fight for themselves, the coal operators fight for themselves, and the price of coal continues to go up.
Socialism, long misrepresented and misunderstood under the violent propaganda of Marxism, has been fairly obliterated in the public mind by the Jewish-Russian nightmare, Bolshevism. That “public mind” was never very clear on the subject, as was natural under the kind of talk they mostly heard; people used even to confuse Socialism with Anarchism — which are absolute opposites; and now there is such horror at the crimes and such contempt for the stupidities of the Russian Tyranny, that it is impossible to get a fair hearing for the most simple and advantageous steps in social progress if they seem to savor at all of Socialism. It may be years before that legitimate and gradual social advance can be presented with any hope of understanding.
One of the most important and most hopeful of all lines in advance is the rapid growth toward better education. From the post-graduate to the baby this gain is shown, and the baby end of it is most important. That intensely valuable period of life, the first four years, is at last recognized as deserving better care than can be given by solitary mothers and hired nurse-maids. We have now a name for this young person, “the pre-school child,” and under this title earnest study is now being given to those first years and the best treatment for them. I sit and chuckle to see the most conscientious mamas proudly doing to their children what I was called “an unnatural mother” for doing to mine. Maternal instinct is at last giving ground a little before the resistless march of knowledge and experience. All this is good to see.
In our prehistoric status of “domestic industry” there is some progress, but not much. The increasing cost and decreasing efficiency of domestic servants teaches most women nothing. They merely revert to the more ancient custom of “doing their own work.” But the double-pressure goes on; more and more professional women, who will marry and have families and will not be house-servants, for nothing; and less and less obtainable service, with the sacrifice of the wife and mother to that primal altar, the cook-stove. This pressure, which marks the passing of the period of domestic service and the beginning of professional service — cooked meals brought to the home, and labor by the hour — will gradually force that great economic change.
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 274
