Woman and Her Wishes - 1853

I have heard the indignation expressed by young women on occasions like this; once, especially, after a Normal School examination, when this had been the burden of the addresses of the excellent gentlemen there present. "They all spoke," said the indignant girls, "as if the whole aim of a woman's existence was to be married, and we all wished that we might never be married, so as to prove that there were other noble duties in life for us, as well as for young men. They would not have spoken so to them."

Now, with this immense difference, that precisely where the stimulus is applied to young men, there the pressure of discouragement is laid on girls, it cannot be expected that the faculties of the latter for different employments should be developed with equal ease. The varied functions suitable to women will be filled more slowly, for the same reason that it takes twice as long to ascend the Ohio against the current, as to descend by its aid. But it has well been asked, "If woman's mind be really so feeble, why is she left to struggle alone with all those difficulties which are so sedulously removed from the path of man?"

There is, moreover, this inconvenience, that although greater strength may in certain cases be developed by this encounter with prejudice, it is apt likewise to mar the symmetry and grace of the character; and hence the occasional charge of unfeminine unattractiveness against distinguished women. Mill, with his usual penetration, enumerates among common fallacies, the impression, that because one extraordinary member of a class is rendered conceited or offensive by the isolation, the whole class, if elevated, would show the same qualities. Make education and station accessible to all women, and the source of annoyance will disappear.