Woman Is Too Noble to Demand Equality

The special correspondent of The Woman's Voice, Mr. Makhoul Saadeh, called in Geneva upon the refined Miss Nelly Zusso, one of the finest Western young women working in the women's field, and put to her a number of questions, to which the young lady kindly gave the following answer:

I am very happy that you have put these questions to me, for you afford me the opportunity to speak on a subject that concerns me and concerns the daughters of my sex, since it allows them to think carefully about themselves and to be assured of the importance of the great role that rests upon their shoulders; and after that they can know where woman ought truly to be equal to man.

It has been said, in definition of woman, that she is man's companion, not his likeness; and she is also his complement—and here, as I see it, lies the whole secret of woman's mission. This saying may anger some women, if it is taken at its surface; but it is a saying that honors us women; it does not lower us but raises us, because it makes of woman a being too great and too noble to demand equality with man—that equality which rests upon the spirit of envy, rivalry, and the petty squabbles whose effects we can observe in our present society.

The disorder that has struck the economic balance of the world has affected woman's spirit profoundly; it has led many of us to flee from the responsibilities of the home, and has fed in us the spirit of rebellion. So we set out gazing toward a path other than the path we are on, and demanding what does not profit us. And why must woman be equal to man? Why, indeed, should she strive to be his equal? Can this yearning be an answer to the noble human love that lies deep in woman's soul—the greatest thing the Creator has granted us? That love in its all-embracing human sense, which disdains self-love; that love which thinks only of others, which gives and does not take? No—in doing this we go against our nature.

What drives us women who call for equality is blind matter—that matter which has shackled our thinking and clouded our idealism. We have become slaves in bondage to our material needs, which grow day by day; and so some of our women have found that there is no calm and no rest except in working in the marketplace, to obtain what a man can obtain—and from this came this rivalry. And from this woman—she who surpasses man in her softness and her grace—came to feel, once she had equaled him in the earning of money, that she had become stronger than he; and this is mistaken thinking.

I do not deny any human being his right to live the better life he pictures and desires, putting forth all that is in his power to reach a fitting level. But on the other hand I believe that when man is able to earn his living with ease, through the reform of the social level, and when he is able to obtain the material necessities that help him raise his standard, then the number of women who pursue independent work will grow smaller; indeed, the greater part of those women who understand the truth of their functions in life, and their educational, constructive role in the life of man, will prefer to remain in the home and to be the backbone of the family!... And there will remain no use in debating the right of woman to vote. I am certain that the majority of the sex called the weak sex in Switzerland (did not Gandhi say that the fair sex is not weak—rather it is, in my eyes, the nobler of the two sexes, because it embodies sacrifice and suppressed pain?)—I say that the majority of our women are not on the side of giving woman the right to vote, because there is no need, as we see it, to fight for privileges we already possess and which men do not withhold from us. Swiss law recognizes woman's equality with man, for whenever a dispute arises between the two sexes—divorce, for instance—we always feel that the law is considerate of the woman.

But on the other hand, we cannot ignore the existence of a great number of women who, for many reasons, do not succeed in their marriages in finding that spiritual blending, and are not able, in joining themselves to a man, to form one complete being. As for such women, even though they live under the order that man establishes, it would be of real benefit to grant them the right of election (not of voting); in that way this class of women could seat themselves in certain government posts, which would do much to soften their excess of insistence in demanding equality with man in voting and election. Add to this that in women's holding

of certain government posts there is a benefit to the country not to be despised.

And however we turn the matter over, and however we face the problem, we find that the best equality lies in the cooperation of woman and man, not in a rivalry that aims at an equality far removed from logic and from humanity.

And finally I must close this talk with the words of a man who is, without doubt, a friend of us women. He said:

"In the depths of every woman there is a mother, and the mother is the seedbed of men; so let our women labor to create these hero men, and thereby they will have won the right to vote and to be elected."

(Translated by the editorial staff)