A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert

Author:Kate Walbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

Richard Thorke has paused to wipe his hands on the linen napkin provided for him. He returns to his notes.

“Consider what is known as social evolution, or rather, Woman’s innate or natural abilities and how, given the work of Havelock Ellis and Herbert Spencer, whom I have mentioned and whom many of you must know, and, most recently, Alfred Wallace’s ‘On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type,’ we see now that type can transmute, transform, transcend type,” he continues.

“What is a woman’s type? She fluctuates with the tides, her watery blood leading to a constant irritability, and she dislikes analysis and rigid rules and grows, in Ellis’s words, ‘restive under the order which a man is inclined to obey.’ She has, in the face of this, compensated well: Think of Dr. Gregory’s classic “Legacy to His Daughters,” a primer in which she is advised to cultivate a ‘courteous mode of expression,’ by avoiding conversation altogether—‘if you happen to have any learning, keep it a profound secret, especially from men.’

“So the type still holds. And best not to quibble mathematics. We could call it Differential Availability of Aptitude at the High End—we observe the phenomenon everywhere—little girls turning trucks into baby dolls, little boys turning trucks into tanks.

“So let’s turn from what we cannot amend and begin again, to Darwin. Evolution! Here is the hope: Havelock Ellis believed that the natural existence of Woman is quantified, validated, so to speak, as the natural—emphasis mine—counterbalance to the existence of Man. The harmony possible between Man and Woman is the one that occurs between two warring forces, and by that I mean the very construct of the universe, the pull that keeps the earth spinning on its axis. And he addresses the defects of Woman, the stupendous natural obstacles Woman faces (though he did refute the frontal lobe argument and there it is) with a brilliant analysis: Every inaptitude of Woman will be in its time accompanied by some compensatory aptitude ‘even if it has not itself yet developed into an advantageous character.’

“So. Full stop. And a question.

“Where have you been; whence are you to go?

“Now, in this hour, we are finally put to the test. Are women made of that mettle? Can women rise to the challenge of the times? When you are asked to vote, and I believe, if you are patient, given the way the wind blows, you will be asked to vote in this century, nay, in this decade—”

To this a scattering of applause.

“Will Woman, and by that I mean You, step in line, show the naysayers and the soothsayers—”

Laughter.

“And your husbands and fathers and sons that you have had it all along—courage—that you have understood all along certain incontrovertible necessities and by that I mean war, the necessity of war. This is not dollies in nappies, ladies. Do you understand the elemental nature of the question?”

To the scattering of applause Richard Thorke slightly nods. Then a cloud passes over the sun and a

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