New Day for Women

By Mrs. A.J. Wilder, Mansfield, Missouri

Great Responsibilities Will be Ours after the War

How long has it been since you saw and old maid? Oh, of course, one sees unmarried women every day, but it has been a good many years since I have seen a real “old maid’ or “maiden lady.” Even the terms sound strange and lead one back and back into memories. There were old maids when I was a girl. Later some of the older girls protested against being called old maids and insisted upon being called “bachelor girls.” There was some controversy over whether women should be given such a title, I remember, but not having any special interest in the subject, I lost sight of it and awakened later to the fact that both old maids and bachelor girls had disappeared, how or when I do not know. In their place are simply women, young women, older women, (never old women), married and unmarried women, divorced women and widows, with the descriptive adjective in the back ground, but nowhere in the world, I think, are there any old maids.

As one considers the subject, it becomes plain that this one fact contains the whole story and explanation of the change in the world of women, the broadening and enriching of their lives. In the days when old maids flourished, the one important fact in a woman’s life was whether or not she were married and as soon as a girl child reached maturity she was place in on of two classes and labeled accordingly. She was either Mrs.—or else an old maid.

The World Is Open To Us

As women became more interested in other things; as the world opened up to them its storehouse of activities and absorbing interest; when the fact that a woman was a doctor, a lawyer, a farmer or what not; when her work in and for the world became of more importance than her private life, the fact of whether or not she were married did not receive the emphasis that it formerly did. To be sure, everyone knows that a woman’s most important work is still her children, but other interest enter so largely into her life today that she is not classified solely on the one count. Altho still a vital part of a woman’s life, marriage is not now the end and aim of her existence. There are in the world, many, many other ambitions and occupations to take up her attention.

Women are successful lumber dealers, livestock breeders, caterers, curators, bacteriologists, pageant managers, cable code experts and besides have entered nearly every ordinary profession. The have learned and are learning the most advanced methods of farming and scientific dairy management while it has become no uncommon thing for a woman to manage an ordinary farm. The exigencies of the war have thrust women into many new occupations that otherwise they might not have undertaken for many years if ever. Thousands of them have become expert munition makers and, while we all hope there will be no need for that trade when the present war is ended, still there will be use for the trained technical skill which these women workers have acquired.

Women are running trains, they are doing the work in factories, they are clerks, jurors, representatives in congress and farm help. By the time the war is over most of the economic and industrial systems of the world will be in the hands of the women. Quite likely, too, they will have, thru the ballot, the control of the political governments of the world.

If by an inconceivable turn of fate, Germany should conquer in the struggle now going on, women will be held in control by the military power and without doubt will be again restricted to the home and children, according to the rule laid down by Emperor Wilhelm defining there sphere of activity, but this we will not permit to be possible.

When the democratic nations are victorious and the world is ruled by the ballot instead of cannon, there is scarcely a doubt but what women will be included the the universal suffrage. Already the franchise has been given to 6 million women in England. A suffrage amendment to the constitution of the United States missed being brought before congress by only a few votes and there is no doubt but that the women of the United States will soon have the ballot.

In Russia when the Revolution occurred, the women took the franchise with the men as a matter of course and without question. In France the old idea that women should rule thru their influence over men is still alive but growing feeble. More and more women and men are coming to stand together on terms of frankness and equality. Italy is far behind the other nations in the emancipation of its women, still the women of Italy have a great influence. It was the use of German propaganda among the Italian peasant women that weakened Italy and caused the late reverses there.

We all realize, with aching hearts, that there is a great slaughter of men on the battle fronts and with the sexes about equal over the world before the war, what will be the result when millions of men are killed? When at last the “Beast of Berlin” is safely caged and the soldiers of freedom return home to settle quietly down into civil life once more, the women are going to be largely in the majority over the world. With the ballot in their hands, they are going to be the rulers of a democratic world.

There is a great deal of speculation about the conditions that will prevail after the war. Nearly all writers and thinkers are looking for a new order, a sort of social and industrial revolution and they all expect it to come thru the returned soldiers. No one, so far as I have found, is giving a thought to the fact that in a free democratic world, the power will be in the hands of the women who have stayed quietly at home working, sorrowing and thinking.

Will we be wise and true and strong enough to use this power for the best, or will we be deceived thru our ignorance or driven on the wrong way by storms of emotion or enthusiasm? We have been privileged to look on and criticize the way the world has been run. “A man-made world” we have called it not and then, implying that women would have done so much better in managing its affairs. The signs indicate that we are going to have a chance to remake it nearer to the heart’s desire. I wish I might be sure that we would be equal to our opportunity.

I suggested this idea of the coming powers of women, to a liberal-minded man, a man who is strongly in favor of woman suffrage and he replied: “The women are no more ready for such a responsibility than the people of Russia were; they are ignorant along the lines of government and too uncontrolled in their emotions.”

I wonder if he is right! The majority vote in a Democratic league of nations will be a great power to hold in inexperienced hands; a great responsibility to rest upon the women of the world.

Mrs. A.J. Wilder. "New Day for Women." Missouri Ruralist (June 5, 1918): 12-13.

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