Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/147



would be as well to forestall criticism and say with great clearness that feminism and woman suffrage are not the same thing, though both, admittedly, are the offspring of the same idea. Feminism seeks to remove all barriers which oppose the perfect freedom of women as human beings, conventional, social, political, and economic. Woman suffrage would break down one of these barriers only—the political barrier. The difference between woman suffrage and feminism is one of degree rather than kind, but there are differences of degree that constitute almost a difference in kind, and this is a case in point. The supporters of the woman suffrage movement would very much like to see man's monopoly of the voting broken down, but would, in the main, shrink from still further enlarging feminine opportunities. On the other hand, the true feminist regards woman suffrage as a step, and only a very short step, in the direction of woman's freedom.

Nor is it true to say, as is frequently said, that the woman suffrage movement is identical