Historia

Male opponents offeminism claimed that the female crusaders were frustrated old/ . maids (many, in fact, were married); that women would become coarsened arid de: feminized by entering the cutthroatarena of politics; that their husbands (if tb'ey · .· · were lucky enough to have husbands) would look after their rights; and that women, · like black slaves, were divinely ordained to be inferiorand would be happier in that status. An editorial in the New York Herald wondered what would happen ifpreg- · nant sea captains, generals, members of Congress, physicians, and lawyers were suddenlyseized with birth pangs in critical situations. The following official report reveals the joking condescension with which the New York legislature approached the problem. How might feminists have answeredthese jibes?
Mr. Foote, from the Judiciary Committee, made a report on Women's Rights that set the whole House in roars of laughter: "The Committee is composed of married and single gentlemen. Thebachelors on the Committee, with becoming diffidence, have left the subject pretty muchto the married gentlemen. They have considered it with the aid of the light they have before them and theexperience married life has given them. Thus aided, they are enabled to state that the ladies always have the best place and choicest tidbit at the table. They have the best seat in the cars, carriages, andsleighs; the warmest place in the winter, and the coolest place in the summer. They have their choice on which side of the bed they will lie, front or back. A lady's dress costs three times as much asthat of a gentleman; and, at the present time, with the prevailing fashion, one lady occupies three times as much space in the world as a gentleman. "It has thus appeared to the married gentlemen ofyour Committee, being a ma-. jority (the bachelors being silent for the reason mentioned, and also probably for the further reason that they are still suitors for the favors of the gentler sex),...