"No religion, no physical or moral
code," wrote the clear-sighted George Drysdale, "proposed by one sex
for the other, can be really suitable. Each must work out its laws for
itself in every department of life." In the moral code developed by the
Church, women have been so degraded that they have been habituated to
look upon themselves through the eyes of men. Very imperfectly have
women developed their own self-consciousness, the realization of their
tremendous and supreme position in civilization. Women can develop
this power only in one way; by the exercise of responsibility, by the
exercise of judgment, reason or discrimination. They need ask for
no "rights." They need only assert power. Only by the exercise of
self-guidance and intelligent self-direction can that inalienable,
supreme, pivotal power be expressed. More than ever in history
women need to realize that nothing can ever come to us from another.
Everything we attain we must owe to ourselves. Our own spirit must
vitalize it. Our own heart must feel it. For we are not passive
machines. We are not to be lectured, guided and molded this way or that.
We are alive and intelligent, we women, no less than men, and we must
awaken to the essential realization that we are living beings, endowed
with will, choice, comprehension, and that every step in life must be
taken at our own initiative.
Moral and sexual balance in civilization will only be established by the
assertion and expression of power on the part of women.
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