The Indianapolis Journal

The Woman of These Times

Marian Harland, in North American Review.

Woman—with a capital letter—should by now have ceased to be a specialty. There should be no more need of "movements" in her behalf and agitations for her advancement and development considered apart from the general good of mankind than for the abolition of negro slavery in the United States. "For what a man"—and presumably a woman—"hath, doth he yet seek after?" With the world of knowledge and opportunity thrown open to her, it argues little for her ambition and less for her ability to grasp cardinal principles that she elects to build fences about her reservation, and expends time and forces in patrolling precincts nobody cares to attack. "I am glad the question for discussion to-day does not contain the word woman,'" said a member of a celebrated literary club. "I am aweary of the pretentious dissyllable, and satiated with incessant twaddle of 'woman's progress,' woman's work for woman,' and the ninety and nine variations upon the one string. By this time we ought to be there if we are ever to arrive. I am half sick of womanhood! I want to be a human being."