November 7, 1911, To the Editor of The World
The same issues appear in this more extended and serious consideration of women’s ability to
effect social and political changes. The letter begins with an analogy that equates arming
women facing wild beasts with a revolver to enfranchising women to deal with male
politicians. Subsequent paragraphs engage the arguments that women’s suffrage will mean
universal suffrage (a reasonable assumption, given the strategies of Asquith’s government);
Davison overturns the argument that the effect of woman suffrage will be to enfranchise
“ignorant electors,” without engaging in class politics. Her main concerns, which echo those
in the letter above, are how women may be able to effect the reforms they value and work for.
They appear in the third paragraph in which she acknowledges the immense cost in time and
effort required to raise public opinion, “it is often a killing process,” and the irony that women
who choose the “longer, more cumbrous, the more nerve-wracking, the more doubtful, method
of working” not only face long years of labor, but also, ironically, may be separated from the
domestic sphere which is their own. She uses Josephine Butler’s work to rescind the
Contagious Diseases Acts as a case in point. The original Act (1864) aimed to control the
spread of venereal diseases by state regulation of prostitution, granting to magistrates the
power to order genital examinations of prostitutes for symptoms of venereal disease, and to
incarcerate women in hospital for three months to cure the disease. Women could be so
examined as a result of an accusation by one police officer. Initially applied to specific areas
and towns, the act was proposed to apply to all of the United Kingdom in 1869. A groundswell
of opposition formed at this point, resulting in the Ladies National Association for the Repeal
of the Contagious Diseases Acts. The Acts were repealed in 1886, about the same time that
Butler took up a campaign against child prostitution in London. As a result of this campaign,
the age of consent was raised from 13 to 16 throughout Great Britain. Davison’s references to
the “several urgent laws upon the White Slave Traffic” refer to the continuing anxiety about
the sex trade, an anxiety that came to the fore among advocates of the Woman Suffrage
movement at just the time that Davison was writing.
“Women’s Point of View”
Madam,–A very interesting statement has been extracted from your anti-Suffragist
correspondent, Gwladys Gladstone Solomon—namely, that ‘there is no doubt that the
possession of such a powerful weapon as the Parliamentary vote would be useful to
woman, qua woman,’ in the light of the fact that anti-Suffragists usually set up as reasons
for the withholding of the vote from women either that (1) the vote is of no use (vide Mr.
Chesterton), or (2) that the vote would do women harm. Yet here we have one confessing
that the vote certainly is a powerful weapon, and, as she probably will allow that women
have a very hard battle in life, often at a disadvantage, therefore the only wise thing to do is
to arm the women as well as possible. Just as one woman with a good revolver can keep a
host of savages or wild beasts at bay, so no one would dream of sending a woman out into
such a situation without arms because it is ‘unwomanly.’
Mrs. Solomon’s objections to woman suffrage are, she says, twofold,( 1) ‘Any
possible measure of woman suffrage must inevitably lead to adult suffrage, and England
will not be ready for that for many years to come.’ I answer, why? On what basis can Mrs.
Solomon suppose that the addition of one million women voters to the seven and a quarter
million men voters will bring about that for which England is not yet ready? There can be
only one plea put forward to justify such a statement, and that is that one million women
are cleverer than seven and a quarter million men. As Mr. Philip Snowden and other
adultists have told us, this cry of adult suffrage has only been raised as woman suffrage got
near to success. Why? By one set of people with the idea of wrecking the women’s cause;
by the other set of people with the idea of surreptitiously stealing the fruits of the women’s
valiant efforts. But then, to return to the anti point of view, are the women cleverer than
the men? Well, if so, they ought certainly to have the vote. But again, these dear antis
maintain that to give votes to women would mean adding to an already too large number of
ignorant electors. And so the antis get lost in the maze of their own sophistics.
To turn to Mrs. Solomon’s second point, which is ‘that all the reforms women might
bring about with the vote they can certainly bring about without it.’ No doubt they can do
so, but only by an iniquitous waste of energy and time. Here is an anti who probably
believes ardently in woman keeping to woman’s sphere, telling us to choose the longer, the
more cumbrous, the more nerve-wearing, the more doubtful, method of working, by
means of stirring public opinion (which, of course, can be stirred, but it is often a killing
process), instead of using the obviously practical, effective, and easy way of the vote. Why,
such advice indicts all government, and would bring people round to Mr. Chesterton’s
paradoxical attitude that the vote is no good, and is therefore not worth fighting for. But it
is worse than that, for it means that the women must take upon themselves such cumbrous,
burdensome work that they cannot possibly attend to their own peculiar sphere. When
one reflects that Josephine Butler had to devote her whole life, had to ‘scorn delights and
live laborious days,’ in getting one injustice to women, which shrieked aloud to the skies,
removed, and that very little has been done in that direction since, and that several urgent
laws upon the White Slave Traffic are waiting, and waiting in vain, to be put on the Statute
Book, one begins to cry aloud—‘How Long, O Lord! How long!’ and bitterly to deplore that
one of those who (unwittingly, of course, but nevertheless blameworthily) are seeking to
keep upon women’s backs the grievous yoke, which is almost too heavy to bear, is a
woman. Yet such crosses have to be borne by all reformers!—Yours, &c.,
EMILY WILDING DAVISON
31 Coram Street, W.C.,
November 1st, 1911