Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

 - Class of 1896

Page 12 of 208

 

Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD) online collection, 1896 Edition, Page 12 of 208
Page 12 of 208



Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD) online collection, 1896 Edition, Page 11
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Page 12 text:

 qualities in both cases carried to their highest developement and dissociated from all that might be incompatible with them. But this explanation does not help us to an answer to the question, are these qualities identical or are they diverse ? Etymology deserts us here, as so often; for by its tests to be womanly is to be womanlike; but in our usage of the terms the being womanlike does not secure the being womanly. Our language contains other terms that have a similar ring to those we are considering: womanish,mannish, effem- inate, masculine and others. We get no direct help from them. The first and third are applied by way of disapproval to the conduct or appearance of some men, and the second and fourth similarly to women. Indirectly we may get a little light, for what in a woman might be called mannish or masculine would not go to make the manliness of a man, and what in a man’s conduct, at least, would be termed effeminate would not be deemed womanly in a woman. So that there are womanish traits and mannish ones, that while they may not detract from womanliness and manliness, do not add to them. The history of a word sometimes helps us out in determining its contents, and it is not at all unlikely that substantial aid may be had from this source toward the solution of the problem we have set ourselves; but unfortunately the writer has no adequate apparatus criticus at hand, and the time he has allowed himself for writing this article will not permit him to set about constructing one. Turning to Mrs. Cowden-Clarke’s Concordance of Shakespeare we find that she uses womanly only three times as against manly nineteen times. Moreover womanly is in every instance used in a sense where to-day we should prefer womanish. Lady Macduff calls her plea of having done no harm, a womanly defense. Cleopatra is said to be not more womanly than Antony. Turning to Young’s Concordance of the Bible, we find that in its pages neither term is used. However, “quit you like men” may perhaps be taken as the equivalent of be manly; but we look in vain for “quit you like women ” or anything similar to it. Moreover, Bible heroines do acquit themselves very much like men. Has the distinct recognition of the class of qualities that is meant by womanliness, grown up during the period throughout which woman has been achieving a slow enfranchisement from a condition of subordination to man's whims and passions to a position of intelligent and self-directed activity at his side ? And has the word womanly been emptied of its signification of weakness in order that it might be freighted with the new and nobler sense ? If so, the fact looks in the direction of womanli- ness and manliness being not so very diverse. What qualities enter into manliness? Dignity, a keen sense of humor, readiness to sustain responsi- bility, boldness in enterprise, intrepidity in danger, courage in standing by unpopular convictions, fortitude in suffering, self-control, openness, frankness, integrity in thought and in conduct. Can a woman dispense with any one of these and her womanliness not suffer? What qualities enter into womanliness? Gentleness, patience, ministry, tenderness, piety and other such qualities?—(it is lo

Page 11 text:

WOMANLINESS. HE aim of this article is to inquire into the nature of the quality, or groups of quali- ties, which we term womanliness, with the purpose of aiding in a determination of the conditions which are favorable, and those which are unfavorable, to its development. It is first necessary to state the problem presented by the subject, and this may perhaps be as well done by comparing womanliness with manli- ness, and noticing resemblances and differences, if there be any, between the two. As we exhort a boy to be manly, so we encourage a girl to be womanly. Do we mean in the latter case that a different set of qualities should be culti- vated from those which are contemplated in the former, or are we only thinking of similar qualities seen by us through a different atmosphere, or, it may be, exhibited in relation to a different class of objects, and expressed with that difference that distinguishes all feminine activity from masculine activity of the same kind ? In other words, is there sex in character, or is character neutral and gender predicable only of the direction and shape which its expression takes? It would seem as if to state the question in this shape was to answer it, but it will do no harm to turn it over a little while longer in our thoughts. It is perfectly plain that a woman is not womanly by virtue of her sex, nor a man manly for the same reason, else how could we speak of a womanly woman, or a manly man; we might just as well say a feminine woman or a male man. Womanliness and manliness are qualities that one may be either a woman or a man and yet be destitute of. We may, perhaps, explain the terms by refer- ring them to the ideal; manliness is the sum of all those qualities that we could wish a man to possess, and womanliness the sum of all those qualities that we desire to see in a woman, and these



Page 13 text:

amusing to notice how our lexicons which furnish quite a list of qualities that enter into manliness are at a loss when the time comes to enumerate others which are distinctively womanly). What sort of manliness would that be which should be destitute cf these? Put all the first named qualities together with these in a single person, and if that person be a man he will be manly, if a woman she will be womanly. Either may be or may not be cultured and accomplished; cultivation enriches, accomplishment embellishes both womanliness and manliness, they cannot make nor become a substi- tute for either. Now in man these qualities are exhibited in the activities which his family, social, business and g)litical duties call out. In woman they are exhibited in the activities which her duties demand. ut the “spheres of man and woman are by no means so distinct, in fact, as some theorists would like to have us believe. If men vote they also tsome of them) sew and cook and they need not part with an iota of manliness in doing either. If women bear children and nurse them, they also (some of them) support their children, and not seldom their children's father, by their enterprise and labor, and they gain, not lose, in womanliness by doing it. What we mean by woman’s sphere is nothing more than the scope of activity which is conventionally conceded to her. But this conventional concession is not a fixed thing, it is a changing one. No one needs to be reminded that it embraces to-day many departments which it once excluded, why should any one need to be admonished that it will include at the end of the twentieth century many things which the end of the nineteenth century excludes? These owls that blink their eyes in the growing light and wait to see the shadows move backward! The womanliness of the twentieth century will be just like the womanliness of the centuries that preceded it; it will consist in exhibiting the qualities above named in the doing of what ever her hand finds to do. What that shall be will not be determined by fable or philosophy, by decree or dogma, by priest or politician, but by herself listening to the calls that come out of her changing environment and responding to them. When the scroll of history shall have unrolled to its now infolded end, woman's sphere may be interpreted, and at the same time man's will be better understood. JOHN B. VAN METER.

Suggestions in the Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD) collection:

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Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD) online collection, 1898 Edition, Page 1

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Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD) online collection, 1899 Edition, Page 1

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Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD) online collection, 1900 Edition, Page 1

1900

Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD) online collection, 1901 Edition, Page 1

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