The Knox Correspondence October 18, 25, November 1, 1912
This letter of Friday, October 18, 1912, in The Morpeth Herald, is Mr. A. Knox’s
response to Emily Davison’s letter of Friday, October 4 in the same paper. This letter
of the 18th initiates a regular exchange between the two writers that lasted the better
part of a month. Davison carried on the correspondence while she was on a speaking
tour for the WSPU that took her to Wales in early November, a fact she alludes to as
she apologizes for a tardy response. What is remarkable about the exchange is the
good humour and polite veneer both writers show at the beginning of each letter, and
the absolute obstinacy of their arguments. To be sure, Davison’s arguments are
stronger, based on the best contemporary evidence; she responds to Knox with detailed
citations from contemporary experts. When he finds himself out-flanked by her
scientific knowledge, Knox falls back on generalities, stereotypes, and a rhetoric of
“common knowledge” and “usual” behavior in women. What is interesting in these
letters is not so much the arguments each writer advances, but the evidence of
persistent circulation and acceptance of incorrect “common knowledge” about women
and petrified attitudes toward “woman’s sphere” inherent in the culture. Much of the
debate focuses on the size of male and female brains and the correlation between
brain size and intelligence. It is worth noting that supposed correlation between
larger brains and higher intelligence was debunked in popular scientific publications
in the 1890s. The December, 1898 issue of Popular Science (vol. 54, no 11)
contained an article, “Brain weights and Intellectual Capacity,” by Dr. Joseph Simms
who concluded his discussion by writing that “no size or form of head or brain is
incident to idiocy or superior talent is borne out by my observation.” Mr. Knox persists
in clinging to debunked theories and in doing so represents all the prejudice and male
self-satisfaction that the suffrage movement aroused, engaged, and overcame, at last,
after the catastrophe of the First World War.
Here is the exchange between Knox and Davison on October 18th and 25th:
October 18, 1912, To the Editor of The Morpeth Herald, “Woman Suffrage”
Sir,–I shall be grateful is you will allow me to respond to the kind and courteous
letter of Miss E. Davison. There can be but little doubt that a movement has
been initiated for the emancipation of women, and that Miss Davison is one
of its able advocates. I am almost persuaded the movement she upholds is
destined to grow, and when I take into consideration the many willing workers
who are prepared to suffer for their cause, I am led to believe the day is not far
distant when woman’s suffrage will be accepted as part of the Government’s
programme.
Miss Davison is within her rights in characterizing my arguments
as ‘antediluvian.’ They are old, but they are arguments that have lost none of
their strength by being old. If I am in error, I beg to be excused, for we men have
had drilled into us, by the medical faculty, that a woman’s brain weighed less
than a man’s and from this we were led to expect a marked inferiority in that of
the female. Although Miss Davison has taken great pains to assure us of the
contrary, yet we cannot force ourselves to accept her statement that it is an
exploded theory; neither can we take in that the quality of the grey matter in the
female is superior to that of the male. Can we do otherwise when we have the
evidence of a great authority, Sir J. Crichton Brown, before us which says that
as the result of many observations which he is now making, not only is the grey
matter or cortex of the female brain shallower than that of the male, but also
receives less than a proportional supply of blood.
Has Miss Davison ever observed that as soon as the brain has reached
its development there is a greater power of amassing knowledge on the part of
the male? The field has always been open to both sexes, yet in no department
can women be said to have approached men, save in fiction. We have
thousands of women who have [hole in page enjoyed?] a better education and
better [hole in page ] social advantages than a Robbie Burns or a Farraday, and
yet we have neither heard nor seen their work. It has been said the cause of this
is that the female mind has been unjustly dealt with in the past, and that they
cannot be expected all at once to rise to the level of man. The treatment of
women in the past is much to be regretted, but we cannot get over the fact that
this fact indicates one of the causes that go to mark the inferiority of women at
the present day. That she now has exhibited a disposition to emancipate herself
may be owing partly to the easy means of intellectual inter-communication in this
age, where a few women, who have felt the impulses of a higher aspiration, have
been enabled to co-operate in a way that it was impossible in former times and
partly to the views of a great many men, which have led to the encouragement
and assistance, instead of suppression, of their efforts.
It is quite evident Miss Davison did not give proper consideration to the
nature of women’s organization when she advocated the social status of women.
If we look the matter honestly in the face, it is apparent that woman is marked
out by nature for different positions in life, and that her organization renders it
improbable that she will succeed in running on the same lines and at the same
pace with man. Hence the necessity of woman keeping to her own sphere of life.
Supposing, Miss Davison, women had the franchise, would they imagine
that if they, being in the majority, combined to pass laws which were unwelcome
to men, the latter would quietly submit? Would they expect that men should fight
for them in war, if by a majority of votes they should determine upon war? Would
they no longer claim a privilege of sex in regard to the defence of the country by
arms? Legislation would be of little value unless there were a power behind it to
make it respected; and where would Miss Davison look for that power but only
where she could expect to find it, in the opposite sex?
The experiment of giving the women the vote will be tried some day and
may be it will not be so black as it is painted. We can only, as a great Cabinet
Minister said, ‘wait and see,’ Yours, etc.,
A. KNOX
Bedlington Colliery