Woman's World Column - Oct. 1, 1885

Carrie Chapman Catt (Carrie Lane at the time) retired from teaching after the end of the 1884 school year and married Leo Chapman, publisher and editor of the Mason City Republican newspaper, in February 1885. In the March 5 issue of The Republican, Catt’s name appeared in the masthead as co-editor of the paper with Chapman, and on March 19, the first installment of her new column, “Woman’s World,” was published. The Mason City Public Library has microfilm of every issue of The Republican from 1885 except one, and Catt’s column appears nearly weekly through early November. The Chapmans sold the newspaper in April 1886, and there are no extant copies of the paper from that year.

We sometimes hear surprise expressed that woman has contributed so little to the master-pieces of the world in science, art and literature. To me the wonder is always the other way—that she has produced anything in that direction at all; and this for the plain reason that the shadow of repression, which is the bequest of the oriental harem, still hangs over her. That she has always been at a great disadvantage in training or education is something, but it is a secondary matter. The real disadvantage of women has lain in being systematically taught from childhood up that it is their highest duty to efface themselves or at least keep out of sight. One can overcome all disadvantages of education, but to do anything remarkable without running the risk of being conspicuous—this would puzzle the most skillful. Fame is the shadow of great action.

It would be easy to show by a long series of examples the eager desire of men, especially the mediocre ones, that women should remain invisible. It was the Latin epitaph upon the model woman that she staid at home and spun. Harriet Martineau, and other literary women might be as good housekeepers as they pleased, but it could not clear them of reproach. Indeed, it is rather pathetic to notice how the pioneer literary women of American endeavored to disarm public judgement by printing some “Frugal Housewife” or Seveny-five Receipts” before they dared to show their heads as authors. Even now the practice is not discontinued and Marion Harland, with all her wide popularity, has to wind up with a practical work on “Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper,” to demonstrate that, though a writer, she still has the virtues of her sex. We have not yet outgrown that profound remark of Frederika Bremer that a woman may do almost anything she pleases with a man if she always has something nice to pop into his mouth.

From the days of that Roman epitaph onward, the tradition of concealment has been pretty well sustained. It would be easy to fill pages with the sayings of wise men to the general effect that women should, as far as possible, be kept in some place with a lid to it. The favorite German novelist Auerbach, for instance, puts this with praiseworthy directness: “The best woman is she of whom men speak least. I understand it so that where a man speaks of a woman he should content himself with a few words. He should say, ‘She is an intelligent, a good, a domestic or a noble woman.’ Qualify these words and the strength of the comment is lost.” It is certain that in saying this Auerbach speaks of the spirit of his nation. He says it gravely, too, and does nothing inconsistent with it, being in this respect more fortunate than the English Archdeacon Trench, who thoroughly approves the Latin motto as applied to women “She has lived well who has kept well concealed,” and quotes it with pride in a preface to a very thick octavo volume containing several hundred of his mother’s most private letters.

There has been one way alone in which men have been willing to see any amount of literary or artistic genius developed in women—when these ladies consent to attribute their work to a husband or brother, and say nothing about it. This is the self-effacement at its most delightful point, when the woman does the work and the man gets the fame. The Mendelssohn family had not the slightest objection to their gifted Fanny’s composing as much music as she pleased, providing it appeared under the name of her brother Felix. Nobody knows, his recent biographers tell us, how many of his “Songs without Words” the sister contributed; but the moment she proposed to publish anything under her own name, the whole household was aroused, and the shadow of the harem invoked; it was improper, unwomanly, indelicate, for her to publish music—except to swell her brother’s fame.

Mademoiselle De Scudery, whose interminable novels delighted all good society in France and England two centuries and a half ago, printed most of her fifty novels under the name of her brother. Charles De Scudery undoubtedly wrote part of the books, and he certainly may be said to have encouraged his sister in writing them inasmuch as he used to lock her up in a room to keep her at it. But he never seems to have doubted as to his fraternal right to claim them all; and he once drew his sword on a personal friend for doubting his authorship of Le Grand Cyrus, a novel of 13,000 pages, of which it is now well established that his sister wrote the whole.

In short, the repressing influence has not consisted in this or that trivial disadvantage, but in the Oriental theory itself. If women have less natural gifts than men, they need more encouragement and not more hindrance; if a young man of puny appearance comes into a gymnasium he is not invited to exercise with his hands tied. At all events, for what work a woman does she is entitled to credit, and not to have the shadow invoked to hush up her existence as much as possible, letting the credit go to some one else. I know a lady who when a child, was once coaxed by her elder brothers to climb through the sliding-door of the pantry, which she alone was small enough to enter, and to bring out an apronfull of apples. The elder accomplices then carried them off into the orchard and devoured them without leaving her a single one. If art and authorship in women be crimes, like stealing apples, men have certainly adjusted the rewards and penalties in a manner very much like this.—T. W. H., in Harper’s Bazar.

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The following article from the Truthseeker contains several comments on the condition of many women which are both truthful and originally expressed:

“A wife who has been married twenty years and has not found content in ‘the holy estate’ makes this complaint and confession for the benefit of her sisters: I married because it was my only way of getting a living recognized as respectable by the society in which I lived. I had wished to go into business, but no capital was forthcoming. I had ambition to be learned and distinguish myself as a writer, but the idea was snuffed out. I would fain have been a nurse, a teacher, a lady help, anything to gain both experience and money; but difficulties were insuperable. I wanted some work in life; I soon got it. I married the least objectionable of the sherry-drinking, cigar-smoking bachelors who came to my mother’s dances, and I have faithfully tended him, nursed him, and mended him for twenty long years. I have dismissed him every morning with a smile, and welcomed him with a smell of savory meats such as his soul loveth. I have always seen his soup was salted to his mind, and his butcher’s bill kept down to the level of his income. In addition I bore him children. A typical union this. I brought to this union youth, innocence ambition for love and joy. He contributed the bread and cheese, together with a fading youth and whatever remained over after a life of pleasure. For his own credit his servants were well clad and fed, and so am I. The difference lies in this, that they are paid in cash, I only in kind. They give certain services only, and are free to come and go at pleasure. I, body and soul, am a possession of my master’s, from whom death only can set me free. Men are always full of pity for the spinster, deprived of the luxury of a husband; but I think the most pity is due to those unequally yoked. Perhaps it is vain to expect men to sympathize with women. They never know what it is to grow old without having tasted the joys of youth; what it is never to have one day of freedom such as men enjoy while they are yet children—never even for one short year to see the wonders and glories of this world. This is to die before we have begun to live. It is evident enough that thousands of husbands take no pains to make themselves lovable or have none of the qualities likely to inspire love. Strong that one hears so much talk about the education of women to be good wives and mothers, and never a word about the training of men to tolerable husbands and fathers. Everything in a boy’s education tends the other way. From the time he leaves his mother’s apron-strings other men teach him to despise and ridicule women, to trample on their liberties, indulge in habits which disgust them, to degrade that manhood which women would fain love and reverence.’ ”

Chapman, Carrie Lane. 1885. “Woman’s World.” Mason City Republican, October 1.

PDF version, courtesy of Mason City Public Library