Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/204

 goes by the euphemistic name of the Ladies' Gallery, to assert that there was no antagonism; those men both feared and despised women. The cage will go when Englishmen realise (it takes them some time) how ridiculous they appear to all the world by exhibiting themselves as in terror of their own women.

In many other ways women feel the antagonism less, and one improvement of the utmost importance to them is the enormous increase in their liberty of going about without molestation from men. When I was a girl, it was considered rather a bold thing for a lady to walk unescorted within the precincts of the City of London, and there were very few restaurants where she would have been safe from rudeness. Consider who offered this rudeness: men. And why? because, though the woman was doing an absolutely harmless thing, she was singular, and it was assumed that she did it from an improper motive and was therefore fair game; or still more simply, because the cruel lust of tormenting a helpless creature was irresistible. What woman who has moved an inch out of shelter, but has encountered this?

Still, the antagonism is much less than it was. How is it that we hear more of it? The chief reason is a very simple one: women's griefs have become reasoned and articulate. Whereas women were fighting man by wiles and arts, they are now appealing to his reason and finding words for their appeal, while a few, exasperated, are hitting out