Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/323

Rh. It is in any case a most striking and downright satire upon those shining lights of the press, who seem to depend only on a public, such as the undersigned, whom they can constantly alarm with the anxiety that women could, by an equality of rights, lose their nature, adopt masculine habits, seek masculine employment, usurp masculine "spheres of action," in short, transform themselves into female men. How fortunate that these monitors remind us of ourselves; otherwise we might forget that we are women! But is it not remarkable that those men, who are least of all qualified to serve us as models for imitation, are most frequently haunted by a fear that our enfranchisement might induce us to cast off our feminine nature, and to pass over into the male sex? If some malign power should ever irresistibly. tempt me to adopt a masculine nature, models, of the sort of these German editors, would cure me thoroughly for all time, and would drive me back into my feminine nature for the salvation of my humanity and respectability."

After these remarks, which were received with cheerful acclamations, the committee for special motions was requested to report.

The first motion concerned the permanent association of radical German women. To gain this point it was resolved to establish a central committee in New York, which was to take the initial steps towards organizing the movement throughout