Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/210

 up for each other are much higher than the standards which men set up for women, except for their own women. That is why women are sometimes accused by men of cruelty to one another. Cruelty it is not meant to be, but excess of virtue it is which frequently makes one woman harsh with another. Her standard is high, and the other does not come up to it.

When the world ceases to be obsessed with sex and takes a cleaner, finer, broader outlook upon life and humankind, it will be seen that the best interests of the world and the State are served when the individual, man or woman, is doing that work which he or she can best do. The question to the feminist is not: Ought women or men to do this and that? It is, rather: Can women do this with advantage to themselves and the community? If women show evidences of breaking down under the work they have themselves elected to do, or if that work be badly done, the keen eyes of their sisters will note it, and with democratic fervour they will hasten to enact those regulations, whether social or political, which shall veto, in the wider interests of the community, the ambitions of the minority. The common sense of the majority of women may be safely trusted to guide and control the eccentricities of the few.