November 3, 1912, To the Editor, The Sunday Times, “Equality of the Sexes”
This letter from “Bachelor” is included in Davison’s scrapbook, perhaps
as a reminder that A. Knox was not unique, and that rebutting such
perceptions was work worth doing:
Sir,–Would you allow me to point out to your correspondent, Miss Witte, who
maintains that women do not imitate men, that they have virtually no choice but
to do so? A Sex which is practically devoid of creative faculty must imitate the
one which possesses it, and notwithstanding the malignity with which suffragists
regard men, they pay them that tribute of flattery in everything they attempt.
The only practical test to which the problem of the equality of the sexes
can be subjected is achievement and weighed in this balance the pretensions of
women can only be characterized as sheer audacity. Modernity is a blessed
word in the mouth of the Ibsenite and Shavian female of to-day, but so far as the
promotion of modern developments are concerned she has been a signal and
complete failure. However great may be the laurels which the suffragist has
garnered in the arena of hooliganism, mechanical invention, aeronautics and
medical research know her not. A woman philosopher has yet to enlighten
humanity and a woman historian with any power of generalization remains
unborn. As playwrights, a lack of constructive talent has been the most salient
feature of the productions emanating from their pens. Clamouring in season and
out of season for the possession of a vote, not so much as a publication from
their ranks has been issued on such subjects as Tariff Reform, Bimetallism, or
Imperialism. Poetical inspiration they have but little and of humour they are
almost wholly destitute.
In that most superficial of all forms of literature—fiction—women have
undeniably achieved a vast measure of success, but in their hands the novel has
lost its artistic purpose and been converted into a medium of propagandism and
the channel by which as Mr. Maxwell wittily remarked the other day, the ‘crank
gets at his victim.’
The inevitable Madame Curie will, doubtless be trotted out as a
convincing refutation of the sterility of women so far as science is concerned, but
as that lady has never been an independent investigator, as radium as a substance
was the discovery of M. Becquerel, I am not prepared to recognize even
this exception to an army of strenuous futiles. Yours, etc.
BACHELOR