Feminism

“Men, until not very long ago, were perfectly satisfied with themselves and what they had done. It is a little more than a century ago that women began to protest. Before, they seemed to say nothing or in any case they had no opportunity to say something. However, quite recently — it is not so long ago — women began to say, ‘Excuse us, but we indeed are not satisfied.’ Formerly, if ever they dared to say such a thing, probably they received a knock and were told, ‘Keep quiet, it’s no business of yours.’ Yet things went on in spite of everything, and it was at the end of the century that there began a public protest of women against the way men treated them; because all the laws made by men were to man’s advantage, and all the social organisations made by men were to man’s advantage, and woman always had a lower position and sometimes an absolutely detestable one. In certain countries it is still like that...
          However, till then, if they had protested it must have been either individually or in a rather hidden fashion, because it did not become a public question. But at the end of the last century there was a movement called feminism and women began to protest violently against things as they were, saying, ‘Excuse us, we find that you have failed in all your affairs, and you have not managed anything well. All that you have done seems absolutely bad. You have not succeeded in doing anything, except in fighting among yourselves, killing one another and making life unbearable for everybody. We are beginning to say that we have something to say, and we mean that this won’t do and that it must improve.’ That is how it began. Then, you see, protestations, fights, mockery... They tried to stifle them with ridicule. But it was the men who made fools of themselves, it was not the women (Mother laughs), and finally, they gained one thing: they can now put in their word in the affairs of State.
          It began... it was a frightful scandal but now it is a recognised fact, and we even find that in certain countries, slightly less backward than others, women are admitted in the government. And I must say that, as far as I know, the first country where this happened was Sweden. I knew it at the beginning of this century. It was then that it happened. Women were admitted into Parliament in Sweden, and in the government, and the first thing they did, that they managed to do, was to abolish drunkenness.

That is...?

Drunkenness, you don’t know what drunkenness is? Drunkenness means to drink alcohol, and it is something very widespread, unfortunately, over the whole earth, and it is men who drink, usually. Among the working classes, as soon as they have received their pay they go and drink away more than half of it, and when the wife goes to ask them for money to get food for them, she gets a beating. That’s how things usually occur. And the Swedish Government had tried for a very long time, because these people were quite reasonable and found that it was one of the things which most harmed social peace; but they had never succeeded. But it seems that within something like two or three years of government, women succeeded in doing it. And it was finished, one heard no more about it. How they did it I don’t remember now. Someone had told me then. Naturally, not by prohibition, because wherever that has been tried, it has never succeeded. But they succeeded. It is there. Now it is there. It took more than half a century to spread. Now there are many countries in which women are in the Government.”

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