Women in Politics

"in general, women [writing] on women bore me. chesterton says something like one woman is magnificent, more than one is a mob." --JVS

When looking up Chesterton on women and mobs, I came across his essay, "The Suffragist," which is intriguing, especially in light of the recent VP nomination (do we call it that?):

"[W]hen a woman puts up her fists to a man she is putting herself in the only posture in which he is not afraid of her."

This reminds me of Warren, who challenged me to arm wrestle, suggesting I use both arms against one of his.

Chesterton continues: "If you will notice, you will see that all the instinctive gestures of oratory are gestures of military leadership. ... It is almost the exact gesture of drawing the sword.

"The point is not that women are unworthy of votes; it is not even that votes are unworthy of women. It is that votes are unworthy of men, so long as they are merely votes; and have nothing in them of this ancient militarism of democracy. ... [T]hese [militaristic oratory gestures] are not the gestures, and therefore not the instincts, of women. No honest man dislikes the public woman. He can only dislike the political woman; an entirely different thing. ... A husband would be pleased if his wife wore a crown of gold and proclaimed laws from a throne of marble; or if she uttered oracles from the tripod of a priestess; or if she could walk in mystical motherhood before some great religious order. But that she should stand on a platform in the exact altitude in which he stands; leading forward a little more than is graceful and leaving her mouth open a little longer and wider than is dignified--well, ... that hurts. It is for the modern world to judge whether such instincts are indeed danger signals; and whether the hurting of moral as of material nerves is a tocsin and a warning of nature."

Redeemingly, Chesterton is charming and witty. But it is really lines like "leaving her mouth open a little longer and wider than is dignified" that propel nice, well-meaning women (me!) straight into feminism.