University of Northern Iowa
The New Woman
Author(s): Ouida
Source: The North American Review, Vol. 158, No. 450 (May, 1894), pp. 610-619
Published by: University of Northern Iowa
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THE NEW WOMAN.
BY OUIDA.
It CAN scarcely be disputed, I think, that in the English lan
guage there are conspicuous at the present moment two words
which designate two unmitigated bores : The Workingman and
the Woman. The Workingman and the Woman, the New
Woman, be it remembered, meet us at every page of literature
written in the English tongue; and each is convinced that on its
own especial W hangs the future of the world. Both he and she
want to have their values artificially raised and rated, and a
status given to them by favor in lieu of desert. In an age in
which persistent clamor is generally crowned by success they
have both obtained considerable attention ; is it offensive to say
much more of it than either deserves ? Your contributor avers
that the Cow-Woman and the Scum-Woman, man understands ;
but that the New Woman is above him. The elegance of these
appellatives is not calculated to recommend them to readers of
either sex ; and as a specimen of style forces one to hint that the
New Woman who, we are told, " has been sitting apart in silent
contemplation all these years" might in all these years have
studied better models of literary composition. We are farther on
told " that the dimmest perception that you maybe mistaken, will
save you from making an ass of yourself." It appears that even
this dimmest perception has never dawned upon the New Woman.
We are farther told that "thinking and thinking" in her soli
tary sphynx-like contemplation she solved the problem and pre
scribed the remedy (the remedy to a problem!); but what this
remedy was we are not told, nor did the New Woman apparently
disclose it to the rest of womankind, since she still hears
them in "sudden and violent upheaval" like "children unable
to articulate whimpering for they know not what." It is sad to
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TBE NEW WOMAN 611
reflect that they might have been "easily satisfied
(at what time ? ), " but society stormed at them u
a little wail became convulsive shrieks " ; and we ar
the New Woman who had "the remedy for the pro
immediately produce it. We are not told either in
or at what epoch this startling upheaval of volcan
took place in which "man merely made himse
with his opinions and advice," but apparently
wailing and gnashing of teeth since it would seem
managed still to remain more masterful than he ou
We are further informed that women "have allo
arrange the whole social system and manage or m
these ages without ever seriously examining his wo
to considering whether his abilities and his metho
ficiently good to qualify him for the task."
There is something deliciously comical in the id
gested, that man has only been allowed to " manag
age" the world because woman has graciously refra
venting his doing so. But the comic side of this
solemn assertion does not for a moment offer its
Woman sitting aloof and aloft in her solitary med
superiority of her sex. For the New Woman th
thing as a joke. She has listened without a smile t
" preachments " ; she has " endured poignant miser
she has " meekly bowed her head " when he called h
and she has never asked for " any proof of the supe
could alone have given him a right to use such nau
sions. The truth has all along been in the possessio
but strange and sad perversity of taste ! she has "
man than for truth, and so the whole human race h
"All that is over, however," we are told, a
the one hand man has shrunk to his true proport
all the time of this shrinkage, been herself expan
in a word come to " fancy herself " extremely. So
no longer the slightest chance of imposing up
game-cock airs.
Man, "having no conception of himself as imperf
this difficult to understand at first; but the New W
his weakness," and will "help him with his
morally is in his infancy.99 There have been times w
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612 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
a doubt as to whether he was to be raised to her level, or woman
to be lowered to his, but we "have turned that corner at last
and now woman holds out a strong hand to the child-man
and insists upon helping him up." The child-man (Bismarck ?
Herbert Spencer ? Edison ? Gladstone ? Alexander III. ? Lord
Dufferin ? the Due d'Aumale ?) the child-man must have his
tottering baby steps guided by the New Woman, and he must
be taught to live up to his ideals. To live up to an ideal,
whether our own or somebody else's, is a painful process; but man
must be made to do it. For, oddly enough, we are assured that
despite "all his assumption he does not make the best of him
self," which is not wonderful if he be still only in his infancy;
and he has the incredible stupidity to be blind to the fact that
" woman has self-respect and good sense," and that " she does
not in the least intend to sacrifice the privileges she enjoys on the
chance of obtaining others."
I have written amongst other pens'ees eparses which will some
day see the light, the following reflection :
L'^cole nouvelle des femmes libres oubl^e qu'on ne puisse pas a la fait
combattre Thomme sur son propre terrain et attendre de lui des politesses,
des tendresses et des galanteries. II nefaut pas aux m?me moment prendre
de l'homme son chaise a rUniversite" et sa place dans Tomnibus; si on lui
arrache son gagnepain, on ne peut pas exiger qu'il offre aussi sa parapluie.
The whole kernel of the question lies in this. Your con
tributor says that the New Woman will not surrender her
present privileges; i. e., she will still expect the man to stand
that she may sit; the man to get wet through that she may use
his umbrella. But if she retain these privileges she can only do
so by an appeal to his chivalry, i. e., by a confession that she is
weaker than he. But she does not want to do this : she wants to
get the comforts and concessions due to feebleness, at the same
time as she demands the lion's share of power due to superior force
alone. It is this overweening and unreasonable grasping at both
positions which will end in making her odious to man and in her
being probably kicked back roughly by him into the seclusion of
a harem.
Before me lies an engraving in an illustrated journal of a
woman's meeting; whereat a woman is demanding in the
name of her sovereign sex the right to vote at political elec
tions. The speaker is middle-aged and plain of feature ; she
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TBE NEW WOMAN. 613
wears an inverted plate on her head tied on with string
her double-chin ; she has balloon-sleeves, a bodice tight
ing, a waist of ludicrous dimensions in proportion to he
person ; she is gesticulating with one hand, of which a
gers are stuck out in ungraceful defiance of all arti
of gesture. Now, why cannot this orator learn to g
and learn to dress, instead of clamoring for a franch
violates in her own person every law, alike of common-
artistic fitness, and yet comes forward as a fit and pro
son to make laws for others. She is an exact representa
her sex.
Woman, whether new or old, has immense fields of cul
ture unfilled, immense areas of influence wholly neglected.
She does almost nothing with the resources she possesses, be
cause her whole energy is concentrated on desiring and demand
ing those she has not. She can write and print anything she
chooses ; and she.scarcely ever takes the pains to acquire correct
grammar or elegance of style before wasting ink and paper. She
can paint and model any subjects she chooses, but she imprisons
herself in men's at&liers to endeavor to steal their technique and
their methods, and thus loses any originality she might possess.
Her influence on children might be so great that through them
she would practically rule the future of the world ; but she dele
gates her influence to the vile school boards if she be poor, and
if she be rich to governesses and tutors ; nor does she in ninety
nine cases out of a hundred ever attempt to educate or control
herself into fitness for the personal exercise of. such influence.
Her precept and example in the treatment of the animal creation
might be of infinite use in mitigating the hideous tyranny of
humanity over them, but she does little or nothing to this effect;
she wears dead birds and the skins of dead creatures i she hunts
the hare and shoots the pheasant, she drives and rides with more
brutal recklessness than men; she watches with delight the strug
gles of the dying salmon, of the gralloched deer ; she keeps her
horses standing in snow and fog for hours with the muscles of
their heads and necks tied up in the torture of the bearing rein ;
when asked to do anything for a stray dog, a lame horse, a poor
man's donkey, she is very sorry, but she has so many claims on
her already ; she never attempts by orders to her household, to
her foumisseurs, to her dependents, to obtain some degree of
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614 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
mercy in the treatment of sentient creatures and in the methods
of their slaughter.
The immense area which lies open to her in private life is
almost entirely uncultivated, yet she wants to be admitted into
public life. Public life is already overcrowded, verbose, incom
petent, fussy, and foolish enough without the addition of her in
her sealskin coat with the dead humming bird on her hat.
Woman in public life would exaggerate the failings of men, and
would not have even their few excellencies. Their legislation
would be, as that of men is too often, the offspring of panic or
prejudice ; and she would not put on the drag of common-sense
as man frequently does in public assemblies. There would be
little to hope from her humanity, nothing from her liberality; for
when she is frightened she is more ferocious than he, and when
she has power more merciless.
"Men," says your contributor, "deprived us of all proper
education and then jeered at us because we had no knowledge."
How far is this based on facts ? Could not Lady Jane Grey
learn Greek and Latin as she chose ? Could not Hypatia lec
ture ? Were George Sand or Mrs. Somerville withheld from
study ? Could not in every age every woman choose a Corinna or
Cordelia as her type ? become either Helen or Penelope ? If
the vast majority have not either the mental or physical gifts to
become either, that was Nature's fault, not man's. Aspasia and
Adelina Patti were born, not made. In all eras and all climes
a woman of great genius or of great beauty has done what she
chose ; and if the majority of women have led obscure lives, so
have the majority of men. The chief part of humanity is insig
nificant, whether it be male or female. In most people there is
very little character indeed, and as little mind. Those who have
much never fail to make their marks, be they of which sex
they may.
The unfortunate" idea that there is no good education without
a college curriculum is as injurious as it is erroneous. The college
education may have excellencies for men in its frottement, its
preparation for the world, its rough destruction of personal con
ceit ; but for women it can only be hardening and deforming.
If study be delightful to a woman, she will find her way to it as
the hart to water brooks. The author of Aurora Leigh was
not only always at home, but she was an invalid ; yet she became
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THE NEW WOMAN. 615
a fine classic, and found her path to fame. A college
would have done nothing to improve her rich and bea
it might have done much to debase it.
The perpetual contact of men with other men ma
for them, but the perpetual contact of women with
is very far from good. The publicity of a college mu
to a young girl of refined and delicate feeling.
The " Scum-woman" and the " Cow-woman," to
elegant phraseology of your contributor, are both of the
menace to humankind than the New Woman with her fie
her undigested knowledge, her over-weening esti
own value and her fatal want of all sense of the ridic
When scum comes to the surface it renders a grea
the substance which it leaves behind it; when the
pure nourishment to the young and the suffering,
blessed in the realm of nature ; but when the N
splutters blistering wrath on mankind she is merel
baneful.
The error of the New Woman (as of many an old one) lies in
speaking of women as the victims of men, and entirely ignoring
the frequency with which men are the victims of women. In nine
cases out of ten the first to corrupt the youth is the woman. In
nine cases out of ten also she becomes corrupt herself because she
likes it.
It is all very well to say that prostitutes were at the beginning
of their career victims of seduction ; but it is not probable and it
is not provable. Love of drink and of finery, and a dislike to
work, are the more likely motives and origin. It never seems to
occur to the accusers of man that women are just as vicious and
as lazy as he is in nine cases out of ten, and need no invitation
from him to become so.
A worse prostitution than that of the streets, i. e., that of
loveless marriages of convenience, are brought about by women,
not by men. In such unions the man always gives much more
than he gains, and the woman in almost every instance is per
suaded or driven into it by women?her mother, her sisters, her
acquaintances. It is rarely that the father interferes to bring
about such a marriage.
In even what is called a well-assorted marriage, the man is
frequently sacrificed to the woman. As I wrote long ago,
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616 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
Andrea del Sarte's wife has many sisters. Correggio dying of
the burden of the family, has many brothers. Men of genius
are often dragged to earth by their wives. In our own day a famous
statesman is made very ridiculous by his wife ; frequently the
female influences brought to bear on him render a man of great
and original powers and disinterested character, a time-server, a
conventionalist, a mere seeker of place. Woman may help man
sometimes, but she certainly more often hinders him. Her self
esteem is immense and her self-knowledge very small. I view
with dread for the future of the world the power which
modern inventions place in the hands of woman. Hitherto her
physical weakness has restrained her in a great measure from
violent action; but a woman can make a bomb and throw it,
can fling vitriol, and fire a repeating revolver as well as any
man can. These are precisely the deadly, secret, easily handled
modes of warfare and revenge, which will commend themselves
to her ferocious feebleness.
Jules Ruchard has written :
" J'ai professe* de l'anatomie pendant des longues ann^es, j'ai passe une
bonne partie de ma vie dans les amphitheatres, mais je n'en ai pas moins
eprouve* un sentiment penible en trouvant dans toutes les maisons
d'education des squilettes d'animaux et des mannequins anatomiques entre
les mains des fillettes."
I suppose this passage will be considered as an effort " to
withhold knowledge from women," but it is one which is full of
true wisdom and honorable feeling. When you have taken her
into the physiological and chemical laboratories, when you have
extinguished pity in her, and given weapons to her dormant
cruelty which she can use in secret, you will be hoist with your
own petard?your pupil will be your tyrant, and then she will
meet with the ultimate fate of all tyrants.
In the pages of this Review a physician has lamented the
continually increasing unwillingness of women of the world to
bear children, and the consequent increase of ill-health, whilst to
avoid child-bearing is being continually preached to the working
classes by those who call themselves their friends.
The elegant epithet of Cow-woman implies the contempt with
which maternity is viewed by the New Woman who thinks it
something fine to vote at vestries, and shout at meetings, and lay
bare the spines of living animals, and haul the gasping salmon
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THE NEW WOMAN. 617
from the river pool, and hustle male students off the b
amphitheatres.
Modesty is no doubt a thing of education or prejudice
ventionality artificially stimulated ; but it is an exquisit
and womanhood without it loses its most subtle charm.
tends so to destroy modesty as the publicity and prom
of schools, of hotels, of railway trains and sea voyag
modesty shrinks from the curious gaze of other w
from the coarser gaze of man.
Men, moreover, are in all except the very lowest class
careful of their talk before young girls than women ar
very rarely that a man does not respect real innocen
women frequently do not. The jest, the allusion, the stor
sullies her mind and awakes her inquisitiveness, wi
oftener be spoken by women than men, It is not f
brothers, nor her brother's friends, but from her female
ions that she will understand what the grosser laugh of
around her suggests. The biological and pathological c
complete the loveless disflowering of her maiden soul.
Everything which tends to obliterate the contrast of th
like your mixture of boys and girls in your American
schools, tends also to destroy the charm of intercou
savor and sweetness of life. Seclusion lends an infinite
to the girl, as the rude and bustling publicity of modern
woman of her grace. Packed like herrings in a railway c
sleeping in odious vicinity to strangers on a shelf, goin
and nights without a bath, exchanging decency and priv
publicity and observation, the women who travel, save th
enough to still purchase seclusion, are forced to cast asi
finement and delicacy.
It is said that travel enlarges the mind. There are many
which can no more be enlarged, by any means whatever
nut or a stone. The fool remains a fool, though you car
or her about over the whole surface of the globe, and it
that the promiscuous contact and incessant publicity of
which may not hurt the man, do injure the woman.
Neither men nor women of genius are, I repeat, any cr
for the rest of their sex; nay, they belong, as Plato plac
to a third sex which is above the laws of the multitude.
whilst they do so they are always the foremost to recogn
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618 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
it is the difference, not the likeness, of sex which makes the
charm of human life. Barry Cornwall wrote long ago:
" As the man beholds the woman,
As the woman sees the man;
Curiously they note each other,
As each other only can.
" Never can the man divest her
Of that mystic charm of sex;
Ever must she, gazing on him,
That same mystic charm annex."
That mystic charm will long endure despite the efforts to
destroy it of orators in tight stays and balloon sleeves, who
scream from platforms, and the beings so justly abhorred of Mrs.
Lynn Lynton, who smoke in public carriages and from the
waist upward are indistinguishable from the men they profess to
despise.
But every word, whether written or spoken, which urges the
woman to antagonism against the man, every word which is
written or spoken to try and make of her a hybrid, self-contained,
opponent of men, makes a rift in the lute to which the world
looks for its sweetest music.
The New Woman reminds me of an agriculturist who, dis
carding a fine farm of his own, and leaving it to nettles, stones,
thistles, and wire-worms, should spend his whole time in demand
ing neighboring fields which are not his. The New Woman will
not even look at the extent of ground indisputably her own,
which she leaves unweeded and untilled.
Not to speak of the entire guidance of childhood, which is
certainly already chiefly in the hands of woman (and of which
her use does not do her much honor), so long as she goes to see
one of her own sex dancing in a lion's den, the lions being mean
while terrorized by a male brute ; so long as she wears dead birds
as millinery and dead seals as coats ; so long as she goes to races,
steeplechases, coursing and pigeon matches ; so long as she ''walks
with the guns"; so long as she goes to see an American lashing
horses to death in idiotic contest with velocipedes ; so long as she
courtesies before princes and emperors who reward the winners
of distance-rides; so long as she receives physiologists in her
drawing-rooms, and trusts to them in her maladies ; so long as
she invades literature without culture and art without talent; so
long as she orders her court-dress in a hurry ; so long as she makes
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THE NEW WOMAN. 619
no attempt to interest herself in her servants, in h
the poor slaves of her tradespeople ; so long as she s
as she does at present without scruple at every bruta
spectacle which is considered fashionable; so long a
stands nothing of the beauty of meditation, of solitude
so long as she is utterly incapable of keeping her so
shambles of modern sport, and lifting her daughte
pestilent miasma of modern society?so long as s
can not, or will not either do, or cause to do, any of
she has no possible title or capacity to demand the
privilege of man.
Ouida.
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