Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/203

 be described as peace, while the present state of friction is called war. There are elements of warfare in both, but the first was underhand and corrupting, while the foolish elements of the present condition are patent and, as I believe, temporary. I believe this because I feel pretty sure that there is enough fairness in the mass of men for them not permanently to resist what is just in the women's claim, once the women make it plain; and secondly, because what has been foolish or wrong in the women's movement is the result of the old folly and wrong which the movement as a whole is directed against: the folly of trying to make legislative action precede education, and the wrong of fighting evil with evil, the age-long error of retaliation.

One must grant that one hears a great deal more of sex-antagonism now than one did even ten years ago; certainly much more than one did a quarter of a century ago. But if anyone will take the trouble to compare the debates in the House of Commons twenty-five years ago with the debates now, and note the difference of tone when women are mentioned, he cannot avoid being struck by the fact that the thing is getting more talked about now, just because it is going. The old contempt for women has largely gone, and has been replaced by a most serious, if considerably bewildered effort to understand what the women would be at. It does not lie in the mouths of men who built or maintained in the House the monkey cage, which