Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/206

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FUTURE OF WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

women against the depredations of other men. If a woman had no "protector" of her own, or if he chanced to be a tyrant, she remained unprotected by the State. The growth of a healthier opinion among men has now greatly reduced the number of men who desire to "outrage and insult" women, and has greatly increased the State protection of women. There will perhaps always be some few men of primeval instincts, or what is worse, of primeval instincts corrupted by modernity; but it is for civilised men to reduce them as far as they can, to control those that cannot be civilised, and surely not to become their apologists.

The development in England that is known as militancy is, so far, peculiar to England, and is the result of the political situation and of the temperament and character of two women, Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel, acting upon it. The fiery and self-willed nature of Mrs. Pankhurst made her a person to whom half-measures and compromises have always been repugnant. Her deep and passionate sex-pride gave her an eloquence and an attractive force which drew thousands of women to her. She voiced in a language new to the timid and the ladylike, all the revolt that was gnawing at the hearts of women. To many women it must have seemed that their deepest unuttered thoughts and the unuttered thoughts of generations of women had found expression, and anyone who has had this experience, knows what intense devotion is