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Title: The Woman and the Right to Vote

Author: Rafael Palma

Release Date: September 24, 2008 [EBook #26699]

Language: English

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                           Philippine Senate
                      Fifth Philippine Legislature
                             First Session
                    The Woman and the Right to Vote


                          Address Delivered By

                           Hon. Rafael Palma
                    Senator for the Fourth District

  In support of Bill No. 23 of the Senate in the sessions held by said
               body on the 22d and 25th of November, 1919



                                 Manila
                           Bureau of Printing
                                  1919







THE WOMAN AND THE RIGHT TO VOTE


Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Senate:

I have seldom felt so proud of being a representative of the people
as now, when it gives me an opportunity to advocate a cause which can
not be represented or defended in this chamber by those directly and
particularly affected by it, owing to the leven of prejudice that the
beliefs and ideas of the past have left in the mind of modern man. The
cause of female suffrage is one sure to strike a sympathetic chord
in every unprejudiced man, because it represents the cause of the
weak who, deprived of the means to defend themselves, are compelled
to throw themselves upon the mercy of the strong.

But it is not on this account alone that this cause has my sympathy and
appeals to me. It has, besides, the irresistible attraction of truth
and justice, which no open and liberal mind can deny. If our action
as legislators must be inspired by the eternal sources of right,
if the laws passed here must comply with the divine precept to give
everybody his due, then we can not deny woman the right to vote,
because to do otherwise would be to prove false to all the precepts
and achievements of democracy and liberty which have made this century
what may be properly called the century of vindication.

Female suffrage is a reform demanded by the social conditions of our
times, by the high culture of woman, and by the aspiration of all
classes of society to organize and work for the interests they have
in common. We can not detain the celestial bodies in their course;
neither can we check any of those moral movements that gravitate with
irresistible force towards their center of attraction: Justice. The
moral world is governed by the same laws as the physical world, and
all the power of man being impotent to suppress a single molecule of
the spaces required for the gravitation of the universe, it is still
less able to prevent the generation of the ideas that take shape in the
mind and strive to attain to fruition in the field of life and reality.

It is an interesting phenomenon that whenever an attempt is made
to introduce a social reform, in accordance with modern ideas and
tendencies and in contradiction with old beliefs and prejudices,
there is never a lack of opposition, based on the maintenance of the
_statu quo_, which it is desired to preserve at any cost. As was to be
expected, the eternal calamity howlers and false prophets of evil raise
their fatidical voices on this present occasion, in protest against
female suffrage, invoking the sanctity of the home and the necessity
of perpetuating customs that have been observed for many years.

Frankly speaking, I have no patience with people who voice such
objections. If this country had not been one of the few privileged
places on our planet where the experiment of a sudden change of
institutions and ideals has been carried on most successfully,
without paralyzation or retrogression, disorganization or destruction,
I would say that the apprehension and fears of those who oppose this
innovation might be justified.

However, in less than a generation our country, shaken to its very
foundations by the great social upheavals known as revolutions,
has seen its old institutions crumble to pieces and other, entirely
new institutions rise in their place; it has seen theories, beliefs,
and codes of ethics, theretofore looked upon as immovable, give way
to different principles and methods based upon democracy and liberty,
and despite all those upheavals and changes which have brought about a
radical modification in its social and political structure, or rather
in consequence of the same, our people has become a people with modern
thoughts and modern ideals, with a constitution sufficiently robust
and strong to withstand the ravages of the struggle for existence,
instead of remaining a sickly and atrophied organism, afraid of
everything new and opposed to material struggles from fear of the
wrath of Heaven and from a passive desire to live in an ideal state
of peace and well-being.

In view of the fruitful results which those institutions of liberty
and democracy have brought to our country; and considering the
marked progress made by us, thanks to these same institutions, in
all the orders of national life, in spite of a few reactionists and
ultra-conservatives, who hold opinions to the contrary and regret the
past, I do not and can not, understand how there still are serious
people who seriously object to the granting of female suffrage,
one of the most vivid aspirations now agitating modern society.

I remember very well that in the past, not so very long ago, the same
apprehension and fears were felt with regard to higher education for
our women. How ridiculous--the same people argued--is it for woman
to study history, mathematics, philosophy, and chemistry, which are
not only superior to the assimilating power of her deficient brain,
but will make her presumptuous and arrogant and convert her into
a hybrid being without grace or strength, intolerable and fatuous,
with a beautiful, but empty head and a big, but dry heart! However,
we admitted the women to our high schools and universities and made
it possible for them to attain to the degree of bachelor of arts
and graduate in law, medicine, and other professions. Can it be said
that those women have perverted the homes of their parents or that,
when they married, they were a source of disgrace or scandal to their
husbands? We are now able to observe the results, and if these results
are found to be detrimental to the social and political welfare of
the country, it is our duty to undo what we have done and to return
to where we were before.

Fortunately, nobody would think of such a thing. From the most
cultured centers of population to the remotest villages, public opinion
fervently approves and applauds the education of women, and even the
most backward peasants send their daughters to the cities and go to the
greatest sacrifices imaginable in order to make it possible for them to
ascend to the highest pinnacles of knowledge. Though ignorant rustics,
they reason in their own rude way that woman and man are made of the
same clay, and refuse to believe that because it has been their fate
to have daughters instead of sons, they must condemn them to bear the
chains of ignorance, incapacitating them from being useful to their
families, society, and their country.

Education has not atrophied or impaired any of the fundamental
faculties of woman; on the contrary, it has enhanced and enriched
them. Far from being a constant charge to the family, the educated
woman has often been its sustain and support in times of great
need. The educated woman has not become a blue-stocking, that fatuous
creature imagined by certain elements, nor has she lost any of her
feminine charms by being able to argue and discuss on every subject
with the men. On the contrary, it seems to lend her an additional
grace and charm, because she understands us better and can make
herself better understood. Thank God, people are no longer ready to
cast ridicule upon what some used to consider the foolish presumption
of women to know as much as the men, and this is doubtless due to the
fact that the disastrous results predicted by the calamity howlers,
the terrible prophets of failure, have not materialized.

Very well; if you allow the instruction and education of woman
in all the branches of science, you must allow woman to take on
her place not only in domestic life, but also in social and public
life. Instruction and education have a twofold purpose; individually,
they redeem the human intellect from the perils of ignorance, and
socially they prepare man and woman for the proper performance of
their duties of citizenship. A person is not educated exclusively for
his or her own good, but principally to be useful and of service to
the others. Nothing is more dangerous to society than the educated
man who thinks only of himself, because his education enables him to
do more harm and to sacrifice everybody else to his convenience or
personal ambition. The real object of education is public service,
that is, to utilize the knowledge one has acquired for the benefit
and improvement of the society in which one is living.

In societies, therefore, where woman is admitted to all the
professions and where no source of knowledge is barred to her,
woman must necessarily and logically be allowed to take a part in
the public life, otherwise, her education would be incomplete or
society would commit an injustice towards her, giving her the means
to educate herself and then depriving her of the necessary power to
use that education for the benefit of society and collective progress.

I can not resist this conclusion. If woman is given equal opportunities
with man for educating herself; if she is encouraged to learn and
study the knowledge of the world and of life, it is but just that the
doors of public life should be thrown open to her in order to allow
her to play in it the part to which she is entitled.

In backward societies, woman is taught only such knowledge as she
requires for the home; that is, she is unconsciously prepared for that
gentle, that charming slavery so pleasing to the masculine sex. The
question now before us is what system we shall adopt for our women:
whether slavery and ignorance, or liberty and education.

Female suffrage is the consequence of the education of woman; it is
also the consequence of her liberty of conscience. The vote is the
expression of political faith, just as worship is the expression of
religious faith. There is no more reason for keeping woman from the
ballot box than there is for preventing her from going to church.

There is no reason why suffrage should be a privilege of sex,
considering that the duties of citizenship rest as heavily upon woman
as upon man. Is woman under less obligation to strive for the welfare
and future of her country because she is a woman? To attempt to curtail
the activity of woman in public life is tantamount to declaring that a
woman must not love her country and must not dedicate any of her time
to her duties of citizenship; that she must not feel the affection
and devotion which the idea of native land and community awaken in
every well-born creature.

Physical barrenness is combated and looked upon as a misfortune in
woman; but we condemn her to a perpetual political barrenness, to
patriotic barrenness, if we keep her away from exercising the right of
suffrage which affords the citizen the most effective means to make
his influence felt in social questions and in the improvement of the
public affairs. How are we to inculcate in our children, that sacred
pledge of the future of the nation, the cult and worship of native land
and liberty if we do not give their mothers that practical education
involved in the exercise of the right of suffrage; if they are taught
that government and politics are strange gods at whose shrines they
are forbidden to worship; if they feel upon themselves the stigma of
inferiority, of being incapacitated from speaking to their children
about the public affairs and the interests of the nation and the State?

All social classes are entitled to representation in the legislative
houses and are thus enabled to work for legislation favoring their
interests: the merchants, the laborers, the manufacturers, all can
choose one of their own number; but the women, who are not merely one
group or class, but a collection of groups or classes, who represent
one-half of the country and have interests of their own to defend,
not only with relation to their sex, but also with relation to their
position in the family, are not allowed to vote and are therefore
not permitted to have representatives to promote and defend laws
and measures necessary for their protection and betterment. Is this
just? Is this even moral? Female labor can be exploited in shop and
factory; feminine virtue can be made the object of commerce, and yet
woman is not allowed to defend directly the interests of her sex,
owing to one of those aberrations of the moral sense that spring from
the crass egoism and brutal tyranny of man.

If woman were at least exempt from complying with the laws! But no;
the law binds the woman as well as the man; the Penal Code menaces man
and woman alike with the sword of justice, and the burden of taxation
rests upon both the masculine and the feminine wealth. Consequently,
before the law, their duties are the same, but their rights are not.

Is it not strange that our laws should contain so much social injustice
towards woman, so much exasperating discrimination, all based upon the
theory of the servile dependency of woman upon man, resulting from her
congenital mental and physical inferiority? Moebius is incarnated in
our Codes, governs our policy, and influences all the customs  and
usages of our social and political life, to such a point that we
ought to be ashamed that in the midst of this era of vindication,
when all classes have secured their right to liberty and equality,
woman has been kept indefinitely upon the same level as in the
centuries of subjection and slavery.

True democracy can not exist with one-half of the people free and
the other half in a stage of slavery, with one-half of the people
with representation in the public affairs and the other half without
it. The people does not consist of men alone, but of women as well,
and conditions being equal, woman should have the same political
rights as man. She should, at least, have those fundamental rights the
exercise of which, like that of the right to vote, requires nothing
but intelligence and capacity, in order that she may have some voice
in the decision of her own destiny and may herself fight the battles
for her honor, her liberty, and other rights neglected or ignored by
man on account of the undisputed monopoly exercised by him over the
public affairs.

The injustices and social and juridical discriminations contained in
our codes will not be eliminated in a radical manner and the condition
of woman will not improve while man alone legislates and controls
all the spheres of public life, dictating to woman what she must do
and what she must not do; and woman will be incompetent to take care
of her own interests and shape her own life so long as she does not
look higher, so long as she consents to the superiority of man and
believes that her lot is simply that of serving and pleasing man
in bed and home, instead of being his true helpmate and companion,
for the progress and felicity of the human race.

All arguments that are or may be adduced against female suffrage
tend invariably towards these two objects: the confinement of woman
to the home and the perpetuation of her civil and political slavery.

Woman must busy herself with nothing but her household duties and
must live only for her husband and her children; she has her hands
full from the rising to the setting sun if she manages the cook,
cleans the house, and mends the clothes: this is the great argument
of the partisans of the old regime. Another is, that it is not in the
nature of things that woman should struggle with man in the battle
of public life; that if she enters that struggle, man will cease to
look upon her as a being to be worshipped, as a sacred idol at whose
feet he must kneel, and will see in her a rival to be combated and
overcome, for his own preservation, and woman will not only drag the
pure flower of her virtue into the mire of political life, but will
lose the esteem, respect, and consideration now tributed to her.

I have the most profound respect for all men and women who honestly
believe this to be the case. It is not their fault that they believe
that what has always been so is the best. They do not realize that
life is motion and that the new elements of life and character which
are being imperceptibly introduced into society demand changes and
innovations. Society can not become stagnant, otherwise it runs the
risk of becoming like stagnant water, which generates pestilential
miasma. The theory that woman exists for the home alone has been a
dead issue for some time past. Woman has quietly taken her place in
public life and aids and directs man, even though he may not notice
it and may not recognize her right to do so. In modern society, woman
participates in the direction of public charity and in the education of
the children, she practises law and medicine, engages in literary and
journalistic pursuits, occupies many public offices, and takes interest
and cooperates in the suppression of social vice and suffering.

Who does not admit that woman has duties towards her home and her
husband and children to which she must ordinarily give the preference
over all other duties? However, does this exclude the performance of
other duties towards God, her neighbor, and the State? Like man, woman
has many duties to perform, and the true merit lies in the orderly and
complete performance of these duties. Does not the Filipina dedicate
part of her time, sometimes a very considerable part, to the church
and to her so-called social duties, receiving and making calls and
attending celebrations, theaters, and balls?

Has anybody ever complained against this? Has woman ever been
criticised for her assiduous attendance of the religious services and
the public performance of her religious duties in crowded churches,
in the public streets, filled with tumultuous throngs of people,
marching in a procession behind some saint, jostled about and
exposed to disagreeable incidents, which she bears with resignation
because she suffers them for the cause of the public confession of
her faith? Our women go not only to church, but to the theater and to
popular entertainments and celebrations, where they may show off their
elegant dresses and satisfy their feminine curiosity. In all this we
see no pitfalls or dangers to their virtue, though we know that the
women who go to those places and exhibit themselves in this manner
are mothers, wives or daughters who have duties to attend at home.

Now, what is the difference if woman leaves her home to attend or take
part in a political meeting where the public needs or the election
of candidates for public office are discussed? In what way is the
virtue or purity of woman imperilled by her taking an interest in
public questions affecting the welfare of the families, considering
that whatever her status may be in life, woman always occupies some
position in the family? Why should we fear that woman will leave the
flower of her charms on the brambles of politics if she listens to
a political speaker, after having listened to sermons all her life,
or if she herself makes a speech giving her opinions on some subject
of interest to the family, on the necessity of remedying some social
evil or of providing a home for abandoned and indigent children?

Let us take the case of one of the most vital questions of the
present time, the subject of gambling. Do you not believe that this
question has a direct bearing upon the welfare of the families,
especially of the feminine part of them? Who suffers the most if the
father or husband spends the money of the family in order to satisfy
his craving for gambling? The women, of course, the daughters who
are often condemned to undergo unnecessary privations and suffering
because of the conduct of the head of the family. And you try to deny
to woman the right to take a part in political affairs, to enlighten
the electorate with regard to the fatal results of gambling or cast
her vote for the candidate who promises to secure the passage of
measures against it? And why should the opinion of woman on issues
like this not have as much weight as that of man? Should it not be
given greater weight, it being she who suffers the consequences and
results of the evil? There are many questions like this which vitally
affect the welfare and happiness of woman.

I fail to see anything pernicious in the activity of woman in the
field of politics: I even believe that her activity in this respect
will be highly salutary and beneficent not only for womankind, but
for society in general. It will serve to instruct woman and give her
a more extensive knowledge of the world and of life. She will not be
considered as an outsider where society and government are concerned
and will therefore not remain indifferent to their short-comings and
progress. Nothing could possibly be more harmful to society than the
presence in it of foreign bodies absolutely indifferent to its weal
or woe, of useless parts in the machinery of progress.

We are terrified by the idea that the impulsiveness of woman and her
fanaticism and narrow-mindedness, according to some, her weakness and
lack of character, according to others, and her unpreparedness and
deficient culture, according to still others, will make female suffrage
a mere farce and will convert it into a tool for certain elements
and interests. My opinion is that all these impulses, sentiments,
weaknesses, and imperfections of woman are due to nothing but to
the seclusion in which she has been kept. They are the effects of an
educational and social system tottering to decay, of a system that does
not give the natural faculties of woman that room for expansion and
development which is as necessary to life as steam is to electricity
and electricity to light. And those defects and imperfections can
not be cured by continuing the system  under which they have formed
and developed, but there must be a radical reform, a regeneration,
in order that, as a bird on its first flight stretches its wings and
soars forth into space, where there is an abundance of air and light,
woman may have an opportunity to develop to their fullest extent her
faculties and instincts and to show the graceful essence of her being.

We must give woman new objectives in life and lofty occupations in
which she can test her aptitude, in order that everything defective
and ill-developed in her character and education may be eliminated
in the atmosphere of liberty and publicity, where all defects can
be brought to light without fear or pity and all vices crushed with
iron heel. This is why I desire and demand political rights for our
women. I am convinced that one of the results of this concession
will be to enrich, improve, and develop her aptitude and aspiration
to serve the high ideals of life and society. Woman will devote less
time to dress, fashions, gossip and all the other petty and trifling
things that are generally the subject of their conversation and will
endeavor to study and discuss the more serious questions of social
betterment and welfare.

Politics is not a permanent occupation that absorbs all the time of
a person who has other regular business to attend to. As a matter
of fact, not speaking of political officers and a few professional
politicians, most of the citizens devote to politics only the time
strictly necessary and which they can spare. Any man or woman depending
for his or her living or future upon politics will soon come to the
conviction that politics bring starvation instead of bread.

Politics are perfectly compatible with the domestic duties and
occupations of woman, whether she be mother, wife, or daughter. An
educated woman realizes her responsibilities; she knows how to divide
her time and will give her domestic duties the preference over any
other duties outside of the home. A woman is not liable to engage
in political activity if she is very busy at home, and when confined
to her bed by the labors and cares of maternity, she will be unable
to engage in politics, even if she were willing. Therefore, when I
hear the argument that woman will be remiss in her household duties
on account of politics and that she will neglect to take care of her
husband and children if she is given the right to vote, I frankly
confess that I am, perhaps, too dull to see the truth of it.

You insist that by divine precept the place of woman is in the home
and that of man in society, and that this is the true and proper
division of labor between the two halves of the human species. If this
is really the plan of God, will you tell me then why all religions
and all schools of ethics coincide in prescribing duties towards the
neighbor and teach us to love our fellow-beings? Did the Lord speak to
man alone, and not also to woman when amidst fire and smoke, on the
quaking mountain, he gave to the world the tables of the Decalogue
and said: "Love thy neighbor as thyself?" And the universal precept
contained in every code of morals and in every religion, "Whatsoever
ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,"--does
it refer to man alone, or does it include woman also? To me, these
precepts indicate that man and woman have duties towards others,
that they have duties towards their fellow-beings, and that they must
not confine their efforts towards happiness to the home, but extend
them beyond it, to society. Will you tell me whether there can be
happiness in the homes if society is not happy, seeing that society
is nothing but the extension and sum of all the homes, and that all
the suffering and evils that afflict society find their echo in the
home, just as the happiness of the home exercises an influence upon
the happiness of society?

You attempt to do something impossible: You try to divide the human
being into halves: one-half that is happy in the home and the other
that is happy in society, or vice versa. You can do it if you wish,
but then you will either have to consign all your codes which confer
upon man the government and administration of the home to the waste
basket and make others vesting these powers in woman, or if you do not
wish to do that, you will have to give woman a share in the public
affairs in order that she may, the same as in the home, assist man
in building up and strengthening the happiness of that other big home
which we call society.

You say that woman, upon appearing on the stage of politics, will
lose the respect and admiration of man; that instead of gaining
any advantages, she will lose all those inherent in her present
position, in which she is removed from any direct struggle with man,
is adorable and adored everywhere, and reigns supreme in her home with
the undisputed authority of the wife or mother, clad in the purple
of the grace and majesty with which Nature has endowed her, pure and
undefiled by the mire with which political strife and intrigue always
bespatter the reputation and dignity of those who engage in them.

I believe I have stated the position of our adversaries in terms both
poetical and precise, and when I speak of our adversaries, I include
that numerous legion of women who still hesitate to ask for the right
of suffrage, for reasons which, perhaps, deserve being called selfish.

However, the idealistic woman I have depicted will not disappear if
our women are educated in politics the same as they are educated in
the arts and sciences. A political education, far from being harmful
to the natural charms of woman, will in my opinion enhance these,
for the same reason that our modern education has given woman charms
which the woman of the past did not possess. Unless you argue that
education is in itself an evil rather than a blessing, and that it
vitiates the character instead of improving it, you can not escape the
conclusion that by increasing the knowledge and experience of woman,
you give her more vigor, more energy, and a greater personal charm.

Nothing commands greater respect than education. Education elevates a
person. From the moment that you show that you possess education, the
consideration and respect of the others are yours. Education does not
know the bar of race prejudice; through it an individual of a colored
race can win the respect and often the admiration of the white man.

Does woman ever inspire man with greater respect than when she
is instructed, when a college education has brought her to his
own level? Was woman more respected in the past, when she remained
ignorant, than she is now? I am willing to concede that she may have
been courted more assiduously, but that does not mean that she was more
respected. Do you understand by respect and consideration those empty
forms of etiquette which make a man bow down to the ground to a woman
and regale her with a few hollow compliments, designed to tickle the
vanity or turn the head of a credulous and frivolous being? Do you
call respect the singular habit of certain men to always find the
eyes of the woman to whom they are speaking divine, to compare her
mouth to a rosebud, her teeth to a string of beautiful pearls, and
her form to the slender willow, and other stupidities of that kind? If
that is the sort of respect and consideration that woman will lose if
she goes into politics, she ought to be very glad to get rid of it,
because all these empty phrases of gallantry are like the crowing of
the rooster who wishes to dazzle a silly hen on which he has designs.

And, tell me, how is it possible for weakness and ignorance to inspire
respect? As a matter of fact, when a little cooking, embroidering, and
music, and the knowledge of the catechism were deemed sufficient to
prepare a girl for married life, which was then the only career open
to woman, she was the recipient of great consideration and courtesy
from man. These, however, were not inspired by real respect, but
rather by a sentiment of chivalry, because man thought woman so weak
and ignorant that he deemed it his duty to show her that protection,
consideration, and courtesy which are due to weakness and ignorance. Is
this the opinion that our women want us to have of them? Respect is
a sentiment engendered by the idea of equality, and unless woman is
placed on the same level with man in the field of politics, we shall
continue to hear ignominious phrases such as "But, woman, what do
you know about these things! You go and mind your own business!"

Our women need not worry that if they are allowed to vote, they will
necessarily forfeit the consideration and courtesy accorded to them
at present, when they do not come into direct collision with man on
the field of politics, and that the men will then consider themselves
free to attack them as a rival whom they must overcome and destroy
for their own preservation. In the first place it is a mistake to
conclude that the participation of woman in public life will result
in rivalry between the sexes. The attraction and sympathy between man
and woman springs precisely from the difference in sex. If there were
only men or only women, there might be such a thing as our mutually
destroying each other, because there would be no purpose in life and
the human race would not reproduce itself. It is in the interest of
one sex not to destroy the other. On the other hand, politics is not
always a personal struggle. In its proper and loftiest sense it is a
struggle of ideas and principles, of theories and methods. Therefore,
if a man is pitted against a woman in the arena of politics, they
are certainly not compelled to engage in fisticuffs and kill each
other, but each will present his own views on the points at issue,
with more or less sound arguments in support of them. I do not believe
any man has the right to insult a woman because she is his opponent,
seeing that he has no such a right where a man is concerned. And
if in the heat of political strife such an insult should be passed,
has not woman the right to reply or to pay the offender back in his
own coin? This is a case where woman will be given an opportunity to
learn to be independent in judgment and action, seeing that certain
persons do not want woman to vote unless she possesses independence
of thought and action. I do not want, either, to give voice to the
suspicion that many men are against female suffrage because they fear
they might be worsted in a public debate, and what would then become
of the prestige of the strong sex?

In the second place, if woman wants man to adore and idolize her,
she can get him to do it whether she votes or not. Man does not
adore woman because she has less rights than he has; but he worships
her because woman is woman, the archetype of grace and beauty of
creation, and man will forever burn incense at the shrine of that
divinity. Remember that it has always been said that christianity
elevated the condition of woman and gave her greater rights, and yet
it is the Christian countries where woman is accorded the greatest
consideration and respect.

Suffrage will not detract from the beauty of the long tresses
of woman, nor will it make her cheeks and lips less rosy and the
curves of her body less graceful. On the contrary, it will lend her
an additional grace, that of being able to write a ballot in her
diminutive handwriting, and man will always feel for her that love,
tenderness, and adoration which grace and beauty will always inspire
all the world over. Hercules will always bow to Venus because she is
Venus, though Venus be a suffragist.

A political education will provide woman with new means for gaining the
respect and admiration of man. Woman will realize that her duty does
not merely consist in giving sons and daughters to the fatherland,
but in educating and training them in such a manner that from their
childhood on they will take interest in everything tending to improve
social conditions, and in inspiring them with the desire to devote
their efforts to a certain cause or party, for the best of their
people. Public opinion will become much broader and stronger when
it shall reflect the sentiments of our women, who are at present
a passive element where the duties of citizenship are concerned;
and when in her dark hours the nation shall need assistance, she will
receive it not only from her citizens, but also from her citizenesses,
who will not be ignorant and inexperienced in the tasks and duties
confronting the people, but will be accustomed to the discipline of
organization and to the calls of the public service.

There is no doubt, of course, that it is greatly to the advantage of
man to maintain woman in ignorance, not only with regard to politics,
but also where other matters are concerned. For one thing, it renders
it easier for man to satisfy his whims and make of woman a toy which he
can use or drop according to his fancy. She is obedient, submissive,
and resigned; she never discusses or argues; she obeys and serves
in silence, like a beautiful piece of furniture, differing from the
rest only in that she is animate; she is a delightful doll because
she can speak and has a little sense. I know that this is the ideal
of many men, for the only reason that it suits their convenience.

But that is not woman as she should be; the woman that our century has
redeemed from ignorance and slavery; the woman whom God has endowed
with an intellect, a will and a heart, hers to cultivate and perfect
in order that she may be not the servant of man, but his companion,
not the subject of the king, but the queen enthroned by his side,
to be his faithful and constant ally from the cradle to the grave,
in prosperity and adversity, not only in the intimacy of the home,
but also in the wide arena of public life. Man and woman were created
to mate and to understand and love each other, to work, suffer, and
struggle side by side for all that is good and beautiful in life,
to perpetuate the sovereignty of human couple on earth, and to make
it a place of happiness, free from tyranny and suffering and fit to
be inhabited by peaceful and intelligent beings and not by vultures
and wild beasts.

This is the mission of woman and man on earth as I understand and
conceive it. Until man and woman are placed on exactly the same
footing, until they stand on the same plane, so that there can be
an intimate communion of thoughts, ideas, and interests, life will
always be ominous and unhappy for one or for the other, and humanity
will never overcome the evils with which it is now struggling. God
made woman as perfect as man, and it is unjust to deprive her of any
of the benefits and advantages which man derives from science, arts,
and politics. Politics is a noble occupation, as it is the art or
science of making nations happy, and it is but just that woman should
contribute her share to the attainment of that happiness.

Is there any doubt that woman has faculties, sentiments, views,
and methods of doing things of her own, different from those of
man? How often has man, when he did not dare to do a thing, left it
to woman to do! She has a personality of her own and should, like
man, be given an opportunity to develop it; she should be given a
voice where her own interests are concerned, and should on her own
account face the risks incidental to life, venturing, experimenting,
and discovering things for herself instead of having man establish an
invariable rule of conduct for her and imposing upon her the methods
which she must follow.

Politics is no longer what it should be; it has become too masculine
and is brutal, selfish, and altogether too personal, because it
lacks the kindness, the self-denial, the altruism, and the spirit of
sacrifice which are characteristic qualities of the feminine sex. Why
should we not benefit by the energy of woman, by her impulses and
her views of things, in order to improve our practices and methods in
public life? Perhaps, politics will be chastened and purified to some
extent by the intervention and presence of woman, just as her presence
at any gathering makes man more careful in language and actions!

Like a number of other institutions that are now a thing of the past,
the monopoly exercised by man over the public functions is based on
force and violence, and in order to perpetuate this monopoly, its
supporters take shelter behind the wall of prejudice erected in the
course of the times under the protection of the established order of
things, and from there they hurl the shafts of satire and ridicule
upon all who demand that this violent condition cease. Ridicule is
the most powerful weapon now used against the woman who attempts to
obtain justice and the vindication of the rights of her sex, some of
which rights, such as that of governing the peoples, were not even
withheld from them in many of the primitive states.

The result is that many persons have a very queer idea of the
suffragist. She is represented as a woman who dislikes home work and
is absent from her home at all hours of the day and night. The most
common picture is that in which the wife addresses a gathering of
other women, while the husband is busy at home, sweeping the floor
and attempting to pacify the squalling baby. This is the idea which
has been spread by cinematographs and reviews and which has impressed
itself upon the minds of the unthinking  masses, who are incapable
of rising above a superficial view of things.

Nothing, however, is farther from representing her as she really
is. The suffragist is a true product of our era of liberty. Having
received the same education as man, she knows and does not shirk her
responsibilities towards her family; but at the same time she is free
from prejudice and deems it her duty to cooeperate with man in all work
concerning social reform and the public welfare of the community in
which she lives. She believes that for the very reason that there are
duties in the home which are assigned to woman, she has also duties to
perform in public life. The distribution of the work between man and
woman causes no conflict between them in their home and family life,
and there is no reason why there should be any conflict in public
life if each sex is assigned the duties adapted to it.

Being a suffragist does not mean being antagonistic to the family
duties. On the contrary, the suffragist realizes that the happiness
of the family is the foundation of the happiness of society, and she
knows that social distress and vices affect the family and that she
can and should cooeperate with man in the relief of that distress and
the suppression of those vices.

No, the general idea people have of the suffragist is altogether
a wrong one and it is high time that at least the educated and
intelligent correct their views where they are based on prejudices and
ideas belonging to the past. We can not prevent the uneducated masses
from thinking as they did half a century ago; but the fact that many
serious and otherwise progressive persons content themselves with
the opinion of the uneducated shows that here we do not go deep into
subjects and allow ourselves to be carried away by the impressions
of the moment.

Suffragism is a legitimate aspiration, an ideal of our century. It
springs from the philosophy and institutions of the modern world and
from the growing difficulty of the position of woman in the struggle
for existence. It is necessary for her to protect herself and organize,
not to create rivalry and make war upon man, but to become an asset
in the social progress and protect herself from the exploitation and
iniquity of the other social groups, whose victim she would become
if she remained indifferent and took no part in the public life.

As a man of the law and a legislator, I would not think of opposing
this aspiration. I consider it as natural as the right to live
and the right of self-defence. I do not consider it premature for
the Filipino woman to demand this right, as her sisters have done,
successfully in some cases, in other parts of the world. To me it
makes no difference that the number of those now demanding it is
small and insignificant. It would even make no difference to me if the
women of our country did not demand or want it at all. Where rights
fundamentally in accordance with the spirit of our institutions and
with the ideals of our times are to be granted, I would not consult
those who are entitled to demand them, but would give them without the
asking, because it would be just and God wants justice to prevail at
all times and everywhere. I am not a judge, but a legislator, and
it is my first duty to provide for justice, not to administer it,
nor wait for some one to ask for it and some one to object to it.

It is a source of gratification to me that there is a group of women
who, voicing the aspirations of their sex, have dared to approach
our Legislature and call attention to a void in our statutes. This
indicates to me that the consciousness of that right has been born and
has revealed its existence in the Filipino woman, and more than that
I need not know. I do not have to count and classify the women who
think that way. When Rizal espoused the cause of the political rights
of our race, his companions were very few, because in the majority of
his compatriots that consciousness was lying dormant. But it would
be a falsehood and an error to affirm that even at that time Rizal
did not voice the cause of his entire race, and that no attention
should be paid to his demands because he and those with him were
few in number. He knew that his country was oppressed, that he was
defending a just cause, and that he was fighting for the rights of
his fellow-citizens, and he did not stop to reflect whether or not
those fellow-citizens had the consciousness of their rights.

We must conclude, therefore, that the few women who now speak to
us of the rights of their sex and for suffrage, represent all the
Filipino women, unless we wish to insult our women by saying that
they have so little common sense as to oppose the concession to
them of rights that will broaden the scope of their lives and of
their activity in society. It matters but little that the desire
for suffrage appears in its initial stage, in the vague form of an
indefinite proposition: the fact is that there has been an indication
of that desire, and in my judgment the plant has germinated and it is
useless to endeavor to smother it, as it will grow again. The more
we delay female suffrage, the more shall we suffer by it, because
why should we stifle a budding plant instead of allowing it to grow
and in due season produce delicious fruit?

We need not imitate the older nations who have been so slow in
recognizing women's rights. We have neither their traditions nor their
prejudices and our progress need not come by slow revolutions. We
must foster all those peaceful revolutions of ideas that will
result in social justice. Just as we accept the latest inventions
in mechanics, industry, and art, such as the automobile, the dynamo,
and the aeroplane, so must we accept the latest improvements in the
social and political institutions of the most advanced countries.

Female suffrage spells justice and vindication for the modern
woman and we must adopt it forthwith, without unnecessary delay and
formalities. The liberty of worship which gave us religious tolerance;
the popular suffrage which strengthened our collective conscience; the
free public school which emancipated our masses from the tutelage of
the _cacique_: in short, all the achievements of democracy of which we
are so justly proud would not yet be beautiful realities and we would
not be able to enjoy their mature fruits as we now do, if we had been
compelled to feel our way and make many tentative steps instead of at
once entering fully upon our social and political life. We have to move
quickly and anticipate the aspirations of the feminine masses, which
are as yet vague, in order to save us the agitation which otherwise
is sure to come and the justice of which will have to be recognized.

When we are told that our social condition is such that we are not
ready for female suffrage, and that our women are not sufficiently
educated to exercise political rights, I feel like asking whether
we said the same thing when we imported and implanted in our country
the democratic institutions that are the base and foundation of our
present society. Our traditional education was diametrically opposed to
a popular system of government, yet we adopted that form of government,
because we considered it better than the other, more suited to our
interests and to the ideals of the century, and did not worry about
whether or not we were sufficiently educated and prepared for it.

It is more than twenty years now that the free public school has opened
its doors to the women, and education has extended its benefits to them
in the same proportion as to the men. Many of the women educated in
these schools are now wives or mothers, and yet you still ask whether
the Filipina has attained to the maturity necessary for her investment
with political rights. I am sure there is no idea of requiring them
all to be doctors or bachelors of art before we grant them the right
of suffrage.

A political education can not be acquired except by education, just
as you can not learn how to swim except by swimming. The argument
that the Filipina is not sufficiently prepared is a justification of
the attitude of a country which never finds its colonies sufficiently
prepared or educated to exercise the right of sovereignty themselves.

The other day, when I made a flight in a seaplane for the sake of the
experience, I felt--I frankly admit it--some apprehension, a certain
fear of the unknown, but after the first few moments were happily
past, I felt perfectly comfortable and enjoyed the flight through
space and the view of the magnificent landscape far below me. Ah,
it is beautiful to cleave the air like a swallow and to ride upon
the clouds and the winds of heaven, looking down upon the cities and
human dwellings spread like a relief map upon the crystal sheet of the
waters, to traverse enormous distances in a few minutes almost without
noticing it, and to emulate in everything the bird and like the bird
to alight suddenly, without fatigue and physical hardships. When
the voyage was over, I realized that my apprehension and fear had
been unfounded; that it was not more risky to fly through space on
an aeroplane than to speed across country on an automobile, and I
then realized the numerous advantages to be derived from the flying
machine, that product of our time which is destined to revolutionize
not only warfare, but also the pursuits of peace.

The same thing occurs with all new ideas and reforms of a moral and
political order. They are adopted with the instinctive fear, the
vague apprehension inspired by the new and unknown. There is much
talk of their objectional features and dangers for the established
order of things. You might think the firmament was going to crumble
to pieces or the world was threatening to go out of joint. However,
after the innovation has been made, it is found to be quite natural and
logical, because things go on in their natural course, the heavenly
bodies continue in their orbits as before and the mountain peaks do
not slide down into the valleys. Courage and hope are born again in
the human breast, the masses get used to the new state of affairs,
and soon even the most recalcitrant would be furious if any one should
propose to return to the old order of things. This has happened in
our country before, and has always been and always will be the way
in which progress is worked out.

We must make up our minds to overcome our scruples and fears. If
in discussing the aeroplane, we were to speak of nothing but of the
number of aviators who have been killed, we would never accept that
invention. We must embark in one in order to prove to ourselves that
our fears and apprehensions are unfounded. Sight must not be lost of
the fact that suffragism is not a new thing in the world, that it is
far from being an experiment and is already an established fact in some
countries. Exactly the same as the aeroplane: if we desire to become
acquainted with the advantages of that apparatus, we do not ask those
who have never traveled in it, but those who have experimented with it,
and if we wish to know the advantages of suffragism, we must not listen
to those who oppose it as a matter of principle and theory, but must
consult countries that have made experiments with it and have already
had a chance to see its results. We must take note of the fact that
suffragism is gaining in strength every day and is becoming a general
movement in the countries where it has found acceptance. Exactly like
the aeroplane. Would it not be perfectly ridiculous to declaim against
the aeroplane on account of the accidents that are liable to occur,
and would we not be stupid to refuse to follow the lead of other
governments who utilize its advantages for defence or aggression in
war and for rapid communication in time of peace? And is it not just
as stupid and even senseless to oppose suffragism on speculative or
rather hypothetical grounds, instead of being guided by the experience
of other countries in this respect and accepting suffragism as part
and parcel of our modern customs and institutions?

In conclusion, permit me to quote a few passages on this subject from
an address which I made at an entertainment given at the Opera House
in honor of Rizal by various schools for young ladies in 1913:


    According to the old idea, woman's sphere of action should
    not extend beyond the home, beyond her domestic occupations,
    and she should be nothing but the glory and delight of
    her husband and her children. This is not right. Like man,
    woman is born and lives in society, and she can not and must
    not remain indifferent to social distress and suffering. To
    think otherwise would be selfishness and aberration and would
    leave society a prey to much suffering which only the blessed
    hand of woman can cure or relieve. Let woman be the glory and
    happiness of the home; but do not forget that she must extend
    her beneficent action beyond the confines of the household,
    that she must make the world outside the participant of the
    wealth of kindness and charity that bountiful Providence has
    lavished upon her. Just as she shares the duties of life with
    man within the home, so should she without it, in public life,
    share with man the responsibility of remedying and alleviating
    public distress and misfortune.

    It is very significant that beneficence, charity, and morality
    are feminine virtues, it being woman's mission to exercise all
    these virtues in society. She must take a part, and should,
    in my opinion, always take the initiative, in all work for
    the protection of the orphans, the relief of distress, and
    the elevation of the standard of public morality. She must
    strive and suffer, in the society in which she is living,
    for all that is feminine in life, must with a wave of her
    hand attenuate the fierceness of the struggle for existence,
    and must brighten the gloomy night of human suffering with
    her gentle presence. Our country needs not only the strength
    of her men, but the kindness and charity of her women;
    she needs not only heroes, but also heroines. And heroines
    exist and always have existed in the history of humankind;
    and there are and always have been heroines in our country,
    the special privilege of which, according to serious foreign
    authors, consists in its women being superior to its men.

    And the girls who to-day pay homage to Rizal and dedicate their
    songs and prayers to him, will to-morrow be citizenesses who
    will not, like unhappy Maria Clara, be made the victims of
    social injustice, but will help to banish social injustice
    and strive for justice, virtue, and the glory and greatness
    of their native land.


Yes; I cherish that hope and have faith in the liberty of woman. It
is not possible to keep one-half of humanity in the upper part and
the other half in the lower part of the balance without producing
disequilibrium, tears, and suffering. Everything tends to reach the
same level in life, the same as in death, the great leveller. Humanity
has seen a new light which will shine brightly, though error and
prejudice may endeavor to shroud it with darkness. Woe to those who
refuse to see the light! The world continues to progress and stops
for no one. He who wishes to lag behind is free to do so, but he will
surely deplore it afterwards.

I can not prophesy what will be the outcome of the efforts which the
Filipino women are now making to obtain suffrage; but I know that
these efforts must be to them, and are to us, a source of pride and
glory, because they show that there is no part of our people which
has remained indifferent to the great movements of the century. There
are persons who scoff at them and many shrug their shoulders; but
this must not discourage our women, because neither scoffing nor
shrugging the shoulders are very weighty arguments. The same persons
who now laugh at them and shrug their shoulders, probably because they
do not know that the world and society are moving and progressing,
will some day recognize that these women were in the right, just as
the men who scoffed at Rizal lived to deplore their mistake and have
since made amends.

What we must do is to diffuse the light and spread the new doctrines,
in order to convince those who unwittingly refuse to see justice and
truth, the only firm foundations of the stability and prosperity of
civilized society.








                          Senado de Filipinas
                      Quinta Legislatura Filipina,
                       Primer periodo de sesiones

                     La mujer y el derecho de votar



                      Discurso pronunciado por el

                           Hon. Rafael Palma
                     Senador por el Cuarto Distrito

     En favor del proyecto de Ley No. 23 del Senado en las sesiones
  celebradas por dicho cuerpo en los dias 22 y 25 de noviembre de 1919




                                 Manila
                           Bureau of Printing
                                  1919







LA MUJER Y EL DERECHO DE VOTAR


Sr. Presidente y Caballeros del Senado:

Pocas veces me he sentido tan orgulloso de ostentar la representacion
popular como esta vez que me permite abogar por una causa que no
puede ser representada ni defendida en este sitio por la parte a
quien directa y particularmente interesa, merced a esa levadura de
prejuicios que han dejado en la mente del hombre moderno las creencias
e ideas del antiguo. La causa del sufragio femenino es una causa que
despierta la simpatia de todo hombre desapasionado, porque representa
la causa del debil que, privado del medio de defenderse por si mismo,
pone toda su razon y derecho al arbitrio del fuerte.

Pero no es solamente por esto que atrae mi simpatia y apela a mi
defensa. Es ademas que dicha causa tiene en si un fondo irresistible de
verdad y justicia al cual no puede negarse ninguna inteligencia abierta
y libre. Si nuestra conciencia como legisladores debe inspirarse en
las eternas fuentes del derecho, si las leyes que aqui formulamos
deben llevar el sello divino de dar a cada uno lo suyo, no podemos
rehusar a la mujer el derecho del voto como no pretendamos renegar
de todas las formulas y conquistas de la democracia y de la libertad
que han hecho de este siglo el ser llamado con propiedad el siglo de
las reivindicaciones.

El sufragio femenino es una reforma exigida por las condiciones
sociales de nuestro tiempo, por la elevacion de la cultura de
la mujer y las aspiraciones de todas las clases o grupos de la
sociedad a organizarse para trabajar por los intereses que tienen
de comun. No podemos parar el movimiento de los astros y no podemos
parar igualmente ninguno de esos movimientos morales que gravitan con
incontrastable fuerza hacia su centro de atraccion: la Justicia. Pues
el mundo moral esta regido por las mismas leyes que el fisico y si
el poder del hombre es impotente para suprimir una molecula de los
espacios necesaria a la gravitacion universal, menos podra contener
la generacion de las ideas elaboradas en la conciencia y ansiosas de
encarnar en los fecundos senos de la vida y de la realidad.

Es interesante el fenomeno de que cada vez que se trata de realizar
una reforma social en consonancia con las ideas y actividades del
siglo y en contradiccion con anejas creencias y preocupaciones, no
faltan nunca las objeciones fundadas en el mantenimiento del _statu
quo_ que se quiere a toda costa preservar. Los eternos agoreros del
desastre, los falsos profetas de la destruccion, como no puede menos
de suceder, alzan sus fatidicas voces en esta ocasion protestando
contra el sufragio femenino en nombre de la santidad del hogar y
de la insustituibilidad de costumbres que han sido por largo tiempo
admitidas.

Francamente, no tengo ninguna paciencia para escuchar semejantes
objeciones. Si este pais no hubiera sido precisamente uno de los
pocos lugares privilegiados del planeta en donde se ha realizado con
fortuna el experimento de una brusca transicion de sistemas e ideales,
sin producir paradas ni retrocesos, sin desarticulaciones ni roturas,
yo diria que los sobresaltos y temores de aquellos que se oponen a
esta innovacion se hallan justificados.

Pero en menos de una generacion, este pais, sacudido en sus cuatro
costados por esos grandes terremotos sociales que por otro nombre se
llaman revoluciones, ha visto desmoronarse sus antiguas instituciones
para levantarse en su lugar otras enteramente nuevas; ha visto
desaparecer teorias, creencias y valores morales que se tenian por
inconmovibles y eternos para ser sustituidos por diferentes principios
y metodos, fundados en la democracia y libertad; y a despecho de esos
cambios y trastornos que han modificado radicalmente su estructura
social y politica y gracias precisamente a ellos, nuestro pueblo se
ha convertido en un pueblo con pensamientos e ideales modernos, con
una constitucion robusta y capaz de afrontar los estragos de la lucha
por la existencia, en vez de aquel enfermizo y atrofiado organismo que
tenia miedo a todas las novedades y repudiaba las luchas materiales
por temor a las iras del cielo y por un pasivo deseo de vivir en paz
y bienestar ideales.

En frente de los provechosos resultados que esas instituciones de
libertad y democracia han dado a este pais, a la vista de los marcados
progresos alcanzados en todos los ordenes de la vida nacional merced
a esas mismas instituciones, pese a algunos cuantos reaccionarios y
ultraconservadores que opinan lo contrario y anoran el pasado, yo no
veo, no puedo ver, como haya gente seria que seriamente sostenga que
no debe concederse el sufragio femenino, una de las mas vivisimas
aspiraciones que agitan actualmente la conciencia del mundo moderno.

Recuerdo muy bien que en otros tiempos, y no muy lejanos, los mismos
temores y sobresaltos se habian abrigado contra la instruccion
superior de la mujer. iQue ridiculo, se decia, que ridiculo que la
mujer aprenda Historia, Matematicas, Filosofia y Quimica que no solo
no puede digerir su escaso cerebro sino que la llenaria de presuncion y
soberbia convirtiendola en una especie de criatura hibrida, sin gracia
y sin fuerza, intolerable y fatua, con mollera hermosa pero vacia
y corazon grande pero seco! Y, sin embargo, hemos dado entrada a la
mujer en las escuelas superiores y en las universidades y, al igual
que el hombre, hemos permitido que sus cabezas ostenten las borlas
de bachiller en Artes, Leyes, Medicina y otras profesiones. ?Podemos,
ahora, decir que esas mujeres han pervertido el hogar de sus mayores
o cuando se han casado han sido para sus maridos motivo de deshonor
o escandalo? Es tiempo de observar los resultados porque si estos
resultados han sido perjudiciales al cuerpo social y politico del pais,
nuestro deber es deshacer lo hecho y desandar lo andado.

Nadie piensa afortunadamente en esto. Desde los mas cultos centros de
poblacion hasta las aldeas mas desconocidas se arrastra silenciosa
y majestuosa una ola de opinion popular que aprueba y aplaude la
educacion femenina, al punto de que los mas rudos sementereros
envian a sus hijas a las ciudades a costa de los mas imaginables
sacrificios para que puedan escalar las cumbres mas altas del saber,
si a eso pudieran. Esos lugarenos ignorantes saben confusamente que la
mujer como el hombre esta hecha de la misma arcilla y no se avienen
a creer que por haberles cabido la suerte de tener ninas en vez de
ninos necesitan condenarlas a llevar las cadenas de la ignorancia
incapacitandolas para ser utiles a sus familias, a su sociedad y a
su patria.

La instruccion no ha atrofiado ni desmejorado ninguna de las facultades
fundamentales de la mujer, sino, por el contrario, las ha elevado
y enriquecido. Lejos de ser una carga constante para la familia, la
mujer instruida ha sido muchas veces su sosten y apoyo en apurados
trances. La mujer instruida no se ha transformado en la marisabidilla,
la fatua criatura forjada por la imaginacion de algunos, ni siquiera ha
perdido ninguno de sus encantos femeninos porque razone y discuta con
el hombre sobre toda clase de materias; antes bien, a causa de ello,
parece que encontramos en ella mayor gracia y encanto, porque nos
comprende mejor y sabe hacerse comprender mejor. Hoy, gracias a Dios,
ha desaparecido ya aquella comezon de ridiculo que acometia a muchos
al observar lo que consideraban necia presuncion de las mujeres de
saber tanto como los hombres, y esto se debe, indudablemente, a que
los desastrosos resultados que pronosticaron los agoreros de las malas
nuevas, las terribles profetas de la destruccion, no se han cumplido.

Pues bien, si admitis la instruccion y educacion de la mujer, en
todos los terrenos de la ciencia, debeis admitir la intervencion
de la mujer no solo en la vida domestica sino tambien en la vida
social o publica. La instruccion y la educacion tienen un doble fin:
el individual, que redime la inteligencia humana de los peligros de la
ignorancia, y el social, que prepara al hombre y a la mujer a cumplir
los deberes de una buena ciudadania. No se educa uno exclusivamente
para su propio bien sino principalmente para ser util y servir a
los demas. El mayor peligro que existe para la sociedad es el hombre
instruido que solo piensa en si mismo, porque su instruccion misma le
da mayor poder para hacer dano y sacrificar a todos a su conveniencia,
o su ambicion personal. El verdadero objeto de la educacion es el
servicio al publico, el de aplicar los conocimientos que no adquiere,
al bien y mejoramiento de la sociedad en que vive.

Por tanto, en las sociedades donde se admite a la mujer a todas
las carreras y profesiones de la vida, donde no se escatima a la
mujer ninguna fuente de conocimiento debe admitirse necesaria y
logicamente la intervencion de la mujer en la vida publica. De otro
modo, su educacion seria incompleta o la sociedad seria injusta con
ella pues despues de suministrarla los medios para su educacion la
privaria de los poderes necesarios para emplear esa educacion en pro
del bien social y el progreso colectivo.

No puedo resistirme a esta conclusion. Si se ofrece a la mujer igual
oportunidad de educacion que al hombre, si se la estimula para aprender
y estudiar los conocimientos del mundo y de la vida, deben abrirsela
las puertas de la vida publica para que pueda desempenar en ella el
papel que le corresponde.

En las sociedades retrogradas se ensena a la mujer solamente
aquella parte de conocimientos que necesita para la vida del hogar,
preparandola asi inconscientemente para sufrir aquella dulce, aquella
encantadora esclavitud que tanto agrada al ser masculino. Es cuestion
solamente de escoger nuestro sistema: o esclavitud e ignorancia o
libertad y educacion para la mujer.

El sufragio femenino es consecuencia de la educacion de la mujer;
es consecuencia, tambien, de su libertad de conciencia. Por el voto
se expresa la fe politica, como por el culto la fe religiosa. No hay
razon para impedirle a la mujer el acceso a las urnas como no la hay
para privarla de ir al templo.

No hay razon para que el sufragio sea un privilegio de sexo, puesto
que los deberes de ciudadania pesan tanto sobre el hombre como sobre
la mujer. ?Es que la mujer, por serlo, esta menos obligada a velar
por los intereses de la Patria, por la felicidad y el porvenir de
su pais? Querer restringir la actividad de la mujer para las cosas
publicas es como decir que la mujer no debe amar a su pais ni debe
consagrar tiempo a las obligaciones que la corresponden como ciudadana,
ni debe sentir el carino y la devocion que en toda criatura bien
nacida despierta la idea de la Patria y de la colectividad.

La esterilidad fisica es combatida y se considera como una desgracia
en la mujer; pero queremos condenarla a una perpetua esterilidad
politica--que es lo mismo decir esterilidad patriotica--al impedirla
que tome parte en el sufragio que da a los ciudadanos el medio mas
efectivo para influir en los destinos sociales y en el mejoramiento
de los negocios publicos. ?Como inculcar en los ninos, esa prenda
sagrada del porvenir de una nacion, el culto y la fe en la Patria
y en la libertad si no se les da a las madres la educacion practica
que envuelve en si el privilegio del voto, si se les ensena que el
gobierno y la politica son divinidades extranas, en cuyos templos
les esta vedado penetrar, si sobre si mismas sienten el estigma de
inferioridad e incapacidad para hablar a sus hijos de los negocios
publicos y de los intereses de la nacion y del Estado?

Todas las clases o grupos sociales tienen derecho a ser representados
en las legislaturas para trabajar por las leyes que afectan a sus
intereses; los comerciantes pueden eligir a uno de ellos, lo mismo los
agricultores, los obreros y los industriales; pero a las mujeres, que
no son meramente un grupo sino un compuesto de grupos, con representar
la mitad de un pais, con propios intereses que sostener no solo en
relacion a su sexo sino tambien en relacion a su situacion dentro de la
familia, no se les permite votar y por tanto no se les permite tener
una representacion que sostenga aquellas leyes o medidas necesarias
para su proteccion y mejoramiento. ?Es esto justo? ?Es siquiera
moral? El trabajo de las mujeres puede ser explotado en fabricas y
talleres, la virtud de las mujeres puede ser objeto de trafico en el
mercado, y, sin embargo, la mujer no puede defender directamente los
intereses de su sexo por una de esas aberraciones del sentido moral
proveniente del grosero egoismo, de la brutal tirania del hombre.

iSi al menos las mujeres estuvieran exentas de cumplir las leyes! Pero
la ley obliga tanto a la mujer como al hombre; el Codigo Penal alcanza
con su espada las infracciones  cometidas por uno y otro sexo, y
el impuesto y la contribucion gravan lo mismo la riqueza masculina
que la femenina. Es decir, ante la ley, los deberes son los mismos,
pero los derechos, no.

?Que extrano que nuestras leyes contengan tantas injusticias sociales
para la mujer, tantas irritantes desigualdades, basadas todas ellas
en la teoria de la dependencia servil de la mujer al hombre causada
por su congenita inferioridad mental y fisiologica? Moebius esta
encarnado en nuestros codigos, rige nuestra politica y preside todas
las modalidades de nuestro vivir social y politico, en forma tal que
hay motivos para avergonzarse que en plena epoca de reivindicaciones,
cuando todas las clases han obtenido sus derechos a la libertad y a
la igualdad, la mujer ha permanecido indefinidamente sujeta al mismo
nivel como en los siglos de sujecion y esclavitud.

Una democracia verdadera no puede existir mitad libre y mitad esclava,
mitad con representacion y mitad sin representacion en las funciones
publicas. El pueblo no es solamente hombre sino tambien mujer, y,
en igualdad de condiciones, la mujer debe tener los mismos derechos
politicos que el hombre. Pero lo menos debe tener aquellos derechos
fundamentales que, como el voto, requieren nada mas que inteligencia
y capacidad para ejercerlo, a fin de que pueda tener alguna voz en la
decision de sus propios destinos y librar por si misma las batallas que
exigen su honor, su libertad y otros tantos intereses que descuidan
o ignoran los hombres en virtud del indisputado monopolio ejercido
por ellos sobre los negocios publicos.

No desapareceran radicalmente las injusticias, las desigualdades
sociales y juridicas contenidas en nuestros codigos ni mejoraran las
condiciones de la existencia para la mujer mientras sean los hombres
los unicos que legislen y dominen todas las esferas de la vida publica,
mientras dicten a la mujer lo que debe hacer y lo que no debe hacer;
y, a su vez, la mujer sera incompetente de cuidar de sus propios
intereses y de dirigir sus propios destinos mientras no mire mas alto,
mientras preste su asentimiento a la superioridad del hombre y crea
que su destino es simplemente servir y complacer al hombre para el
lecho y el hogar, en vez de ser su verdadera ayuda y compania para
el progreso y felicidad del genero humano.

Todas las objeciones que se aducen o pueden aducirse en contra del
sufragio femenino tienden invariablemente a estos dos objetos: a la
seclusion domestica de la mujer y a perpetuar su esclavitud civil
y politica.

Que la mujer no debe atender mas que las ocupaciones del hogar,
que no debe vivir mas que para su esposo e hijos; que tiene bastante
trabajo para todo el dia con dirigir al cocinero, limpiar la casa y
remendar los vestidos; es la formula que sostienen los partidarios
del antiguo regimen. O si no, esta otra: que la mujer no esta por
naturaleza llamada a luchar con el hombre en la vida publica; que
el hombre por razon de esa lucha dejara de considerarla como un ser
digno de adoracion, un sagrado idolo ante cuyos pies se arrodilla,
sino que vera en ella a una rival a quien hay que combatir y anular
para la propia conservacion, y con ello la mujer no solo arrastraria
la nitida sampaguita de su virtud en el lodo de la vida politica, sino
perderia, ademas, la estimacion, el respeto y las consideraciones,
de los cuales se ve rodeada en la actualidad.

No tengo sino el mas profundo respeto para todos aquellos, hombres y
mujeres, que piensan honradamente asi. No tienen la culpa de creer que
aquello que ha existido siempre de un modo tal, no sea lo mejor. No
comprenden que la vida es movimiento e insensiblemente se adhieren a
las capas sociales nuevos elementos de vida y caracter que requieren
necesariamente el cambio y la renovacion. No es posible a la sociedad
estancarse en un sitio, porque ocurrira lo que ocurre a las aguas
estancadas, que despiden pestilentes miasmas. La teoria de que la mujer
solo existe para el hogar y por el hogar ha dejado de existir hace
tiempo. Ella ha tomado insensiblemente su puesto en la vida publica
y ayuda y dirige al hombre aun cuando este no se percate de ello,
y aun cuando no se la reconozca derechos para ello. En las sociedades
modernas, la mujer participa en la direccion de la caridad publica y
en la educacion de los ninos; ejerce como medica, abogada, literata;
forma parte de la legion de la prensa, de muchos empleos publicos y se
interesa y coopera en la supresion de los vicios y miserias sociales.

?Quien no admite que la mujer tiene deberes para su hogar, su esposo e
hijos que debe cumplir ordinariamente con preferencia a cualesquiera
otros deberes? Pero, ?excluye eso, acaso, el cumplimiento de otros
deberes para con Dios, para con el projimo y para con el Estado? El
hombre como la mujer esta lleno de deberes: en cumplirlos ordenada
y totalmente esta el verdadero merito. ?No dedica la mujer filipina
una parte a veces considerable de su tiempo a la iglesia y a otros
deberes llamados de sociedad, a ir de visitas o recibirlas, a concurrir
a fiestas, teatros y bailes?

?Se ha quejado alguien de esto? ?Se ha criticado al menos a las
mujeres porque asistan asiduamente y cumplan publicamente sus deberes
religiosos en los templos llenos de bote en bote; en las calles
publicas, ahitas de muchedumbres tumultuosas, formando cola a lo
largo de las procesiones de los santos, entre empellones y sofocones
desagradables que toleran mansamente a causa de la confesion publica de
su fe? Ellas no van solamente a las iglesias sino a los espectaculos
publicos, a las fiestas populares, alli donde pueden ostentar la
elegancia de sus trajes o satisfacer su curiosidad femenina. Y no
vemos en todo ello ninguna asechanza o peligro para su virtud, sabiendo
que esas mujeres que van a esos puntos y se exhiben de esa manera son
madres, esposas, o hijas que tienen deberes que atender en sus casas.

?Cual es la diferencia, digo ahora, de que la mujer salga tambien de su
casa para asistir o tomar parte en un miting politico donde se trata
de las necesidades publicas o de la conveniencia de eligir a este o a
aquel funcionario? ?Que peligros puede haber para la virtud o pureza de
la mujer en que ella se interese en los asuntos publicos que afectan
al bienestar de las familias, puesto que la mujer en cualquier estado
de su vida ocupa siempre una posicion dentro de la familia? ?Por que
ha de considerarse que la mujer dejara en las zarzas de la politica
la flor de sus encantos si oye a un orador politico--ella que esta
acostumbrada a oir sermones--o, si el caso se presenta, pronuncia ella
misma un discurso expresando su opinion sobre algun asunto de interes
para la familia, sobre la necesidad de remediar ciertos males sociales
o sobre la conveniencia de recoger a ninos abandonados o desvalidos?

Tomemos el caso de una de las cuestiones de mas palpitante interes
en este tiempo, la cuestion del incremento de los juegos. ?Creeis
que esta cuestion no es de aquellas que tienen relacion inmediata
con el bienestar de las familias especialmente de las mujeres dentro
de ellas? ?Quienes son los que mas sufren de los abusos del padre o
del esposo al dedicar gran parte de los ingresos de la familia a los
azares e incertidumbres de su pasion? Son las mujeres y las hijas a
quienes se condenan a sufrir muchas veces privaciones y sufrimientos
innecesarios por causa del vicio y de la falta del hombre en la
familia. Y ?quereis negar a la mujer el derecho de inmiscuirse en
la vida politica para que pueda ilustrar con su opinion al cuerpo
electoral sobre los resultados funestos del juego o para influir con
su voto en la eleccion de funcionarios que se comprometan a llevar
a cabo las deseables medidas? ?Y por que no ha de ser la opinion de
la mujer en un asunto de esta naturaleza de tanto o mejor peso que la
del hombre pues que a ella le alcanzan las consecuencias y resultados
del mal? Como este asunto se pueden encontrar otros muchos en que
el bien y la felicidad de la mujer se halla de un modo o de otro
vitalmente interesados.

No veo en todo cuanto pueda hacer la mujer en politica ninguna
actividad perniciosa, y si me apurais mas, digo que semejante actividad
es altamente saludable y beneficiosa para la mujer y para la sociedad
entera. En todos esos casos la mujer se instruye y obtiene mejor
conocimiento del mundo y de la vida. No se considera como un ser
extrano a la sociedad y al gobierno y no se mostrara por tanto ajena
e indiferente a sus miserias y progresos. Nada puede hacer mayor
dano a una sociedad como el encontrar en su seno cuerpos extranos,
absolutamente indiferentes al bien o al mal, piezas inutiles de una
maquinaria que esta en funcion.

Nos aterrorizamos ante la idea de que los impulsos de la mujer,
su fanatismo, su criterio cerrado, segun unos, su debilidad o falta
de caracter, segun otros, su poca preparacion o poca cultura, segun
otros mas, hagan del derecho de sufragio una mera farsa o una comedia
ridicula por la que han de entrar a tener predominio elementos o
intereses privilegiados. Lo que yo digo es que todos esos impulsos,
sentimientos, debilidades e imperfecciones de la mujer se deben
precisamente a su estado de seclusion domestica, efectos de una
educacion o de un sistema tocado de senil debilidad, que no permite
a las facultades naturales de la mujer aquella expansion que es tan
necesaria a la vida como el vapor a la electricidad y la electricidad
a la luz. Y que para corregir esos defectos e imperfecciones, no es lo
mas cuerdo mantener el sistema bajo el cual han crecido y prosperado,
sino producir un cambio violento, un vuelco regenerador para que ella
pudiera, como el ave que ensaya sus alas, volar a los altos espacios,
abundantes de aire y luz, libre para derramar alli la graciosa esencia
de su ser y ensayar los limites de sus facultades e instintos.

Tenemos que procurar a la mujer nuevos objetivos en la vida, otras
ocupaciones elevadas para que pruebe su aptitud y de esta manera
todo eso que se senala como defectuoso y deforme en su caracter
y educacion se eliminara en un ambiente de libertad y publicidad,
donde sin miedo ni piedad se puedan sacar a colacion los defectos y
expurgar al individuo de sus vicios. Y por esto quiero y pretendo
para la mujer derechos politicos, porque entiendo que uno de sus
resultados sera enriquecer, mejorar y favorecer sus aptitudes y
aspiraciones para servir a los altos ideales de la vida y de la
sociedad. La mujer se ocupara menos de fruslerias y pequeneces,
de cortes de vestidos y modas, de chismes y otros topicos comunes,
que constituyen por lo general, el asunto de sus conversaciones y
se esmerara en aprender y tratar de las cosas serias que atanen al
mejoramiento y bienestar sociales.

La politica no es una ocupacion permanente que pueda absorber
el tiempo de una persona que tiene otros negocios regulares que
atender. De hecho, con excepcion de los funcionarios politicos y
ciertos profesionales, la mayoria de los ciudadanos no emplea en
politica mas que el tiempo puramente preciso que le permiten sus
ocupaciones ordinarias.  El hombre o la mujer que haga depender su
suerte o sus medios de vida de la politica tiene que convencerse de
que la politica no da para comer pero si para tener hambre.

Es perfectamente compatible la politica con las ocupaciones y tareas
domesticas de la mujer, sea ella madre esposa o hija. La mujer educada
sabe sus responsabilidades y conoce la manera de dividir su tiempo
y anteponer sus obligaciones domesticas a cualesquiera otras fuera
del hogar. Y cuando la mujer esta muy atareada en casa, no hara
politica; o cuando se ve atada al lecho por los dolores y cuidados
de la maternidad no podra hacer politica, aunque quiera. Y, por eso,
cuando se dice que la mujer va a descuidar el hogar por la politica o
va a desatender el cuidado del esposo y de los hijos por el mero hecho
de obtener el sufragio, realmente confieso que, por mi torpeza quiza,
no puedo entenderlo.

Insistis en que la mujer, segun el plan divino, es para el hogar y el
hombre para la sociedad y en eso consiste la verdadera division del
trabajo entre las dos mitades del genero humano. ?Me quereis decir
por que, si eso fuera el plan de Dios, todas las religiones y todas
las escuelas de moral coinciden en prescribir el deber al projimo,
el amor a los semejantes? ?Se ha dirigido el Senor solo al hombre
y no a la mujer tambien cuando entre temblores de tierra y llamas
resplandecientes entrego el mundo las tablas del Decalogo y dijo:
"Ama a tu projimo como a ti mismo"? ?Se refiere al hombre y no a la
mujer inclusive aquel precepto universal, contenido de toda moral y de
toda religion, que dice: "Haz a tu projimo lo que quieras que hagan
contigo"? Estos preceptos me indican que el hombre y la mujer tienen
deberes para con los demas, tienen deberes para con sus semejantes
y que no deben concentrar su felicidad en el hogar sino tambien,
fuera de el, en la sociedad. ?Me quereis decir si el hogar puede ser
feliz entretanto que la sociedad no lo sea, puesto que la sociedad es
nada mas que la ampliacion y la suma de todos los hogares, y todas
las miserias y males de la sociedad repercuten en el hogar de la
misma manera que la felicidad y el bienestar del hogar influyen en
el bienestar y felicidad de la sociedad?

Quereis hacer una division imposible, dividir al individuo humano en
dos mitades: mitad feliz en el hogar y mitad infeliz en la sociedad,
o viceversa. Podeis hacer, si quereis, esa division; pero una de dos:
o teneis que barrer por inutiles todos vuestros codigos que dan al
hombre el gobierno y administracion de la casa para arreglar otros que
entreguen ambos poderes a la mujer; o teneis que admitir a la mujer,
si no quereis eso, en la participacion de los negocios publicos para
que ella pueda, como en el hogar, ayudar al hombre a formar y cimentar
la felicidad de ese otro hogar grande que se llama sociedad.

Se dice que la mujer al presentarse en el escenario politico se
enajenara al punto el respeto y la admiracion del hombre y, lejos
de ganar, perdera las ventajas en que su actual posicion le coloca,
fuera de toda lucha directa con el hombre, siendo adorable y adorada
en todas partes y reinando suprema en el hogar con la autoridad
indiscutible de la madre o de la esposa, envuelta en ese esplendido
manto de gracia y majestad de que la ha dotado la Naturaleza, pura
e impoluta de las manchas que las luchas e intrigas politicas dejan
siempre en la reputacion y en la dignidad humanas.

No creo que haya dejado de expresar deliberadamente en terminos mas
poeticos y exactos la posicion de nuestros adversarios, y al decir
"de nuestros adversarios" yo incluyo a la innumerable legion de
mujeres que titubean aun en pedir el sufragio por consideraciones
que no se si llamarlas egoistas.

Pero, con todo, digo que ese ideal politico de la mujer no puede
desaparecer porque ella sea educada en la politica a la manera que
se educa en las ciencias y en las artes. La educacion politica,
lejos de perjudicar los encantos naturales de la mujer los realzara,
a mi juicio, por la misma razon y motivo que la educacion actual de
la mujer moderna le ha dado otros encantos que no poseia la mujer
antigua. A menos que sostengais que la educacion es en si misma un
mal mas que un bien, que desmejora el caracter en vez de mejorarlo,
no podeis eludir la deduccion de que ampliando los conocimientos y
las experiencias de la mujer, dariais mas vigor, mas energia y mas
encanto a la personalidad femenina.

Nada infunde mayor respeto como la educacion; la educacion es lo que
eleva el nivel de las personas. Desde el momento en que uno muestra
ser educado, al punto obtiene la consideracion y el respeto de los
demas. A pesar de los prejuicios de raza, solamente por su educacion
el hombre amarillo u oscuro puede conquistar el respeto y a veces la
admiracion del hombre blanco.

?Cuando ha inspirado la mujer mayor respeto al hombre sino cuando
la ha visto instruida y educada a su altura en los colegios y
universidades? ?Antes, cuando la mujer permanecia en estado de
ignorancia era acaso mas respetada que ahora? Estoy dispuesto a
convenir en que era mas asediada, mas agasajada quizas, pero no
por eso mas respetada. ?Llamais respeto y consideracion a aquellas
vanas formulas de etiqueta que hacian doblar el espinazo del hombre
a la vista de una mujer y le hacian decir cuatro frases vulgares de
cumplimiento, para hinchar la vanidad o marear la cabeza de una mujer
credula y fatua? ?Llamais respeto a ese habito singular de algunos
hombres de calificar siempre de divinos los ojos de la mujer que tiene
delante, de comparar sus labios a lindos petalos de rosa, sus dientes
a sarta de diminutas perlas, su cintura a cimbreante tallo de azucena
y otras tantas necedades de ese jaez? Si es esa la forma de respeto
y consideracion que perderia la mujer por dedicarse a la politica,
ella debe celebrarlo, porque todas esas formulas insustanciales de
galanteria no pasan de ser lo que el cacareo del gallo para sorprender
y asaltar repentinamente a la descuidada gallina.

?Ni como puede, en verdad, inspirar respeto la debilidad y la
ignorancia? De hecho cuando la mujer estaba en aquel estado en que se
tasaban sus conocimientos, porque se creia que un poco de culinaria,
de bordado y de piano, a mas de saber el catecismo, eran suficientes
para el matrimonio, unica carrera que se le permitia, el hombre le
dispensaba toda clase de consideraciones y cortesias, pero estas
no estaban inspiradas en un verdadero sentimiento de respeto sino
mas bien en una especie de caballerosidad, hija de la idea de que la
mujer siendo de suyo debil e ignorante, merecia de parte del hombre,
aquella proteccion, consideracion y cortesia debidas a la debilidad
y a la ignorancia. ?Es esta acaso la idea que quieren las mujeres
que se tenga de si mismas? El respeto es un sentimiento que nace
de la idea de igualdad y a menos que la mujer se coloque al nivel
del hombre en las cuestiones politicas, no dejaran de oirse estas o
semejantes ignominiosas exclamaciones. iPero, mujer, que entiendes
de estas cosas! No te metas en asuntos que no te importan.

No necesita preocuparse la mujer de que al participar en el sufragio, y
como resultado de el habra de perder necesariamente las consideraciones
y cortesias de que se ve rodeada en la actualidad, fuera de toda lucha
directa con el hombre y libre de ser atacada por el como una rival
a quien hay que anular y destruir por propia conservacion. En primer
lugar, es un error el considerar que la intervencion de la mujer en
la vida publica dara por resultado la rivalidad de los dos sexos. La
atraccion y simpatia entre el hombre y la mujer nace precisamente
de la oposicion del sexo: si no hubiera mas que puramente hombres o
puramente mujeres, acaso seria posible pensar que se destruirian porque
no tendria objeto la vida ni la especie humana se reproduciria. De
modo que en el interes de un sexo esta el no destruir al otro sexo. La
politica, por otro lado, no es siempre una lucha personal; en su
sentido propio y elevado es lucha de ideas y principios, de teorias
y procedimientos y suponiendo el caso de que un hombre y una mujer
se ponen frente a frente en una lucha politica no estan obligados
seguramente a dar un espectaculo de _boxeo_ y de matarse a brazo
partido, sino solamente a presentar puntos de vista y opiniones que
tienen mas o menos fundamento, segun sus propios juicios. No creo que
ningun hombre tenga derecho a insultar a una mujer por el hecho de
ser su oponente, cuando no lo tiene tratandose de un hombre. Y en el
caso de que las pasiones politicas dieran lugar a semejante insulto,
?no tendria la mujer el mismo derecho para contestar o echar otro
insulto? He aqui un caso en que la mujer tendra oportunidad para
aprender a ser independiente en sus juicios y en sus acciones, ya
que algunos parece que no quieren el sufragio sino a condicion de
que la mujer tenga independiente manera de pensar y obrar. No quiero
tampoco suponer que muchos hombres no quieren el sufragio de la mujer
porque temen que pueden resultar vencidos en una discusion publica
y el prestigio del sexo quedaria mal parado.

En segundo lugar, si lo que quiere la mujer es encontrar siempre en
el hombre aquella especie de adoracion que se tributa a un idolo, ella
puede estar segura de ello con sufragio o sin sufragio. Esa adoracion
no nace en el hombre por el hecho de que la mujer tenga menos derechos
o este privada de ellos, nace de que la mujer es mujer, arquetipo
de gracia y belleza de la creacion y el hombre quemara siempre el
incienso de su admiracion ante el ara de esas divinidades. Recordad
que se ha dicho siempre que el Cristianismo elevo la condicion de
la mujer y la dio mas derechos; y sin embargo los pueblos cristianos
son los que rodean a la mujer de mayores consideraciones y respetos.

El sufragio no hara menos hermosos los cabellos largos de la mujer,
ni empalidecera la rosa de sus mejillas y de sus labios ni hara menos
graciosas las curvas de su talle, por el contrario la imprimira una
gracia adicional--la de saber escribir una balota con su pequena
letra--y mientras sea asi, el hombre guardara siempre para ella aquel
tesoro de amor, de ternura y de adoracion que en todas partes y en
todos tiempos y por los siglos de los siglos inspirara la idea de la
gracia y de la belleza. Hercules se rendira siempre a Venus por ser
Venus, aunque Venus sea sufragista.

La educacion politica dara a la mujer nuevas armas para atraerse
el respeto y la admiracion del hombre. La mujer entendera que su
obligacion no consiste solamente en dar hijos a la Patria sino
en educar y dirigir sus sentimientos, de modo que desde ninos se
interesen en las cosas que se puedan hacer para mejorar las condiciones
sociales, inspirandoles de este modo el amor o la aficion a servir
una causa determinada o un partido determinado en pro del interes
publico. La conciencia publica se dilatara, se robustecera conteniendo
y reflejando los sentimientos de la mujer, elemento pasivo, hoy por
hoy, de nuestra ciudadania, y en horas de crisis, cuando la nacion
alguna vez se encuentre en peligro, ella se vera servida y ayudada,
no solo por ciudadanos, sino tambien por ciudadanas, que no van a ser
improvisadas ni inexpertas en las tareas y deberes colectivos sino
acostumbradas a la disciplina de la organizacion y a los llamamientos
del servicio publico.

Tiene--?que duda cabe?--sus infinitas ventajas para el hombre el dejar
a la mujer en la ignorancia, no solo de la politica sino tambien
de otras materias. ?No es mas facil asi al hombre satisfacer sus
caprichos y hacer de ella un juguete que puede dejar o utilizar cuando
quiera? Ella es obediente, sumisa, resignada; no discute ni razona
nunca; calla, obedece, sirve, un mueble hermoso que se diferencia
de los demas de la casa en que tiene vida; muneca deliciosa porque
habla y tiene un poco de juicio. Yo se que este es el ideal que muchos
hombres quieren, por la sencilla y unica razon de que asi les conviene.

Pero no es esa la mujer como debe ser; la mujer que nuestro siglo
ha redimido de la ignorancia y de la esclavitud; la mujer que ha
recibido de Dios una inteligencia, una voluntad y un corazon para que
los cultive y perfeccione al objeto de que ella sea, no la sierva del
hombre sino su companera, no la subdita de un rey sino reina al lado
del rey, fieles y constantes aliados desde la cuna hasta el sepulcro,
en la hora feliz o en la adversa, no solo en las intimidades del
santuario domestico, sino tambien en los abiertos y dilatados espacios
de la vida publica. El hombre y la mujer han sido hechos para unirse,
comprenderse y amarse, para estar juntos siempre a trabajar, sufrir
y luchar por cuanto hay de bueno y de bello en la vida, para afirmar
el reinado de la pareja humana sobre el planeta y hacer de el una
habitacion digna y feliz, libre de tiranias y sufrimientos y apta
para ser vivida por seres pacificos e inteligentes y no por buitres
y otras fieras voraces.

Esta es la mision de la mujer y del hombre sobre la tierra tal como la
comprendo y la concibo. Hasta que el hombre y la mujer no se encuentren
en un perfecto nivel, en un plano completo de igualdad segun sus
naturalezas respectivas de modo que pueda haber una comunion intima
de pensamientos, afectos e intereses, la vida sera siempre ominosa y
miserable para el uno o para la otra, y la Humanidad no triunfara de
sus presentes desdichas. La criatura femenina ha salido de la mano de
Dios tan perfecta como el hombre y no es justo privarla de ninguna de
las satisfacciones y ventajas que al hombre proporcionan las ciencias,
las artes y la politica. Si la politica es una noble ocupacion de la
vida, ciencia y arte de hacer la felicidad de los pueblos, justo es
que la mujer contribuya con cuanto quiera y con cuanto pueda a lograr
esa felicidad.

?Que duda cabe que la mujer tiene facultades, sentimientos, puntos
de vista y metodos propios para hacer las cosas, diferentes del
hombre? iCuantas veces se ha visto que cuando un hombre no se
ha atrevido a hacer una cosa se ha dejado obrar a la mujer para
conseguirla! Ella tiene su propia personalidad y debe darsela,
como al hombre, la libertad necesaria para que pueda desarrollarla,
tener voz decisiva en sus intereses y destinos, tomar por su cuenta
los riesgos de la vida, hacer sus propias aventuras, experimentos y
descubrimientos en vez de que el hombre la fije invariablemente la
pauta de conducta y le imponga el molde en que debe trabajar.

La politica ha dejado de ser lo que debia, se ha hecho demasiado
masculina, se ha vuelto brutal, egoista, personalisima, porque le
ha faltado la bondad, la abnegacion, el altruismo y el espiritu de
sacrificio, que son cualidades caracteristicas del ser femenino. ?Por
que no sacar ventajas de las energias de la mujer, de sus impulsos
y modos de ver las cosas para mejorar nuestras practicas y nuestros
procedimientos en la vida publica? iQuien sabe si la politica se sanea
y se purifica un poco con la presencia y la intervencion de la mujer,
de la misma manera que la presencia de esta en una reunion cohibe en
cierto modo la licencia de las palabras y de la accion de los hombres!

El monopolio ejercido por el hombre sobre las funciones publicas,
ha sido, como otras tantas instituciones ahora desaparecidas, basado
en la fuerza y violencia y con el fin de perpetuarlo se parapeta
detras de la muralla de prejuicios levantada a costa del tiempo y
del orden de cosas establecido, lanzando de alli los dardos de la
satira y del ridiculo contra aquellos que demandan la cesacion de ese
estado de violencia. Asi, ridiculo es la mas fuerte arma que ahora
se esgrime contra la mujer que pretende reclamar justicia y obtener
la reivindicacion de los derechos de su sexo, alguno de los cuales,
como el gobierno de los pueblos, no ha sido negado ni aun en muchas
de las sociedades primitivas.

Por esto, la idea que muchos tienen de la sufragista es muy curiosa. Se
la representa como una mujer que odia los quehaceres de la casa y
esta constantemente fuera de ella, de dia y de noche. La pintura mas
comun es aquella en que la mujer arenga en una especie de asamblea a
algunas de su sexo, mientras su marido se dedica a barrer la casa y
entretener al bebe que llora. Esa es la idea que ha sido vulgarizada
por los cines y revistas y la que esta fijada en la mente de las
muchedumbres que no se paran a reflexionar elevandose por encima de
la superficie de las cosas.

Nada hay, sin embargo, mas lejos de representar la realidad. La
sufragista es una mujer, producto de nuestros tiempos de libertad;
instruida como el hombre, conoce y no rehuye las responsabilidades que
tiene en la familia; pero a la vez esta libre de preocupaciones y cree
sencillamente en el deber de compartir con el hombre los trabajos
concernientes al mejoramiento social, al bienestar publico de la
comunidad en que vive; cree que por lo mismo que en el hogar hay
deberes asignados a su sexo, tiene asimismo deberes que desempenar
en la vida publica. En la vida domestica y familiar no surge ningun
conflicto entre los dos seres por estar repartido el trabajo entre
ambos; no hay motivo tampoco para temer ningun conflicto en la vida
publica si se sabe asignar a cada sexo los deberes que le corresponden
segun su naturaleza.

La sufragista, por el hecho de serlo, no es antagonica a los deberes
de la familia, antes bien comprende que el bienestar de la familia
es el fundamento del bienestar de la sociedad, y tiene conciencia de
que las miserias y vicios sociales afectan a la familia y ella puede
y debe acudir a remediar con el hombre esas miserias y esos vicios.

iNo! la idea que se tiene de la sufragista es erronea; y es hora de que
por lo menos las personas inteligentes y educadas corrijan su propia
impresion basada en prejuicios y en una mentalidad atrasada. No podemos
impedir que el vulgo piense a la manera que pensaba hace medio siglo
atras, pero el que muchas personas serias y por demas progresivas se
contenten con la opinion del vulgo da idea de que aqui no analizamos
bien el fondo de las cosas y nos dejamos llevar simplemente de las
impresiones del momento.

El sufragismo es una aspiracion legitima, un ideal de nuestro
siglo. Tiene su raiz de vida en la filosofia e instituciones del
mundo moderno y en las condiciones cada vez mas dificiles en que
pone a la mujer la lucha por la existencia. Ella necesita protegerse
y organizarse no para crear la rivalidad y armarse contra el hombre
sino para ser un activo sumando en el progreso social y evitar ser
victima de la explotacion y de la iniquidad de los demas grupos
sociales por su indiferencia y absentismo en la vida publica.

No sere yo, hombre de ley y legislador, quien me oponga a que esta
aspiracion fuera satisfecha. La considero tan natural como el derecho
a la vida y el derecho a la propia defensa. Y por ser natural no
considero prematuro el que la mujer filipina reclame ese derecho,
como ya lo han reclamado y obtenido sus congeneres en otras partes
del mundo. Me es indiferente que el grupo que ahora lo reclama sea
pequeno e insignificante: aun mas, me seria completamente indiferente
si la mujer de este pais no lo pidiera o deseara. Para otorgar,
para reconocer derechos fundamentalmente concordes con el espiritu
de nuestras instituciones y con los ideales de nuestra epoca no
consultaria con quien tuviera opcion de reclamarlos, los daria,
los concederia porque es de justicia y es el plan de Dios que se
realice la justicia en el tiempo y en el espacio. No soy juez sino
legislador y mi primer deber es dictar la justicia, no administrarla,
no esperar que haya quien la pida y quien se oponga a ella.

Me satisface que haya un grupo de mujeres que representando la
aspiracion de todas las de su sexo, se atrevan a acercarse a las
gradas de nuestra Legislatura para llamar la atencion sobre una falta
en nuestros estatutos. Esto me indica que ha nacido y se ha revelado
la conciencia de ese derecho en la mujer filipina y no necesito mas;
no necesito  contar el numero y la clase de las que estan en esa
condicion. Rizal en su tiempo al abogar por los derechos politicos de
nuestra raza, estaba con muy pocos companeros; en la mayoria de sus
compatriotas, la conciencia de esos derechos estaba dormida. Pero
mentiria y erraria quien dijera que aun en aquel tiempo la voz de
Rizal no representaba la causa de toda su raza y porque el y los
que con el trabajaban eran muy pocos, no debia prestarse atencion a
sus demandas. El sabia en conciencia que su patria estaba oprimida,
que defendia una causa justa, que abogaba por los derechos de sus
conciudadanos y no se paraba a reflexionar si sus conciudadanos tenian
o no la conciencia de sus derechos.

Estoy satisfecho, por esto, de que las pocas mujeres que ahora hablan
de los derechos de su sexo y reclaman el sufragio representan a las
demas mujeres filipinas, a no ser que queramos inferir el insulto de
decir que las mujeres de este pais estan privadas de sentido comun
para oponerse o rehusar la concesion de derechos que pueden ensanchar
sus medios de vida y sus actividades dentro de la sociedad. Importa
poco que la aspiracion al sufragismo aparezca en su estado inicial
o tenga la forma vaga de una proposicion no definida y concreta:
desde el momento en que ha apuntado esa aspiracion, para mi es que
ha brotado la semilla a flor de tierra y es inutil ahogarla, pues
volvera a brotar. Cuanto mas retrasemos la concesion del sufragio
femenino seria tanto mas en nuestro dano, porque es lo mismo que
impedir que la semilla de ahora se convierta en planta y de a su
sazon apetitosos frutos.

No, nuestro pais no necesita imitar la lentitud con que han procedido
las viejas naciones en reconocer los derechos de la mujer. No tenemos
sus tradiciones, no tenemos sus preocupaciones para ir por lentas
evoluciones y no por subitas revoluciones. Debemos admitir todas las
revoluciones pacificas de ideas que condensan, como el vapor la gota
de lluvia, una formula de justicia social. Lo mismo que admitimos los
ultimos inventos en mecanica, industria y artes, los automobiles, las
maquinarias centrales, los aeroplanos, debemos admitir los ultimos
progresos en instituciones sociales y politicas de las sociedades
mas avanzadas.

El sufragio femenino encierra un fondo de justicia, de reivindicacion
para la aptitud de la mujer moderna y debemos enseguida adoptarla
sin necesidad de pasar por procesos innecesarios. La libertad de
cultos que engendro la tolerancia religiosa, el sufragio popular que
vigorizo nuestra conciencia colectiva, la escuela libre que emancipo
nuestras masas de la tutela de los caciques, todas las conquistas
de la democracia de que nos enorgullecemos no serian realidades
hermosas, llenas de sazonados frutos, en estos dias, si hubiesemos
tenido que hacer tanteos y dar pasos vacilantes antes de incorporarlos
subitamente a nuestra vida social y politica. Tenemos que movernos
de prisa y anticiparnos a las horas vagas aspiraciones de las masas
femeninas para ahorrarnos de ese modo agitaciones que al fin habrian
de sobrevenir y cuya justicia se ha de reconocer mas tarde.

Cuando se dice que nuestro estado social no esta preparado para
el sufragismo, que la mujer no esta suficientemente educada para
ejercer sus derechos politicos, quiero preguntar si es que hemos
necesitado decir lo mismo cuando importamos e implantamos en este
pais las instituciones democraticas que son la base y el fundamento de
nuestra sociedad actual. Nuestra educacion tradicional era enteramente
contraria al sistema popular de gobierno y hemos adoptado este por
considerarlo mejor que el otro, mas adecuado a nuestros intereses y
a los ideales del siglo, sin preguntarnos si estabamos preparados y
educados suficientemente para ello.

Hace mas de veinte anos que la escuela libre ha abierto sus puertas
a la mujer del pueblo, la educacion se ha extendido entre ellas en
la misma proporcion que entre los hombres, muchas de las mujeres
que han producido nuestras escuelas son ya ahora esposas o madres y
todavia estamos preguntandonos si la mujer filipina ha llegado o no
a la madurez necesaria para poder ser investida de sus privilegios
politicos. No creo que se pretenda exigir que todas ellas sean doctoras
y bachilleres antes de concederlas el sufragio.

La educacion politica no se adquiere mas que educandose como no se
llega a saber nadar mas que nadando. El argumento de la falta de
preparacion suficiente de la mujer filipina favorece y justifica la
posicion intelectual de los imperialistas de una metropoli que no
encuentran a una colonia jamas preparada o educada suficientemente
para recibir sus derechos soberanicos.

Cuando el otro dia subi a un hidroplano para experimentar la sensacion
de un viaje por las alturas, tenia--?como no decirlo?--cierta
aprension, algo asi como un vago temor a lo desconocido, a lo nuevo,
pero pasados los primeros momentos con felicidad me senti perfectamente
confortado y dichoso de sondear los espacios y escudrinar los
magnificos paisajes que se presentan a los ojos desde la altura. iOh,
que hermosura nadar en la luz, cabalgar sobre las nubes y el viento,
divisar el panorama de las ciudades, de las viviendas humanas como
un mapa de relieve sobre el fondo de cristal de las aguas, cruzar
distancias enormes en minutos, en instantes de un modo imperceptible,
emular en todo al pajaro y como el pajaro aterrizar de repente
sin fatiga y sin sufrimiento! Una vez terminado el viaje es cuando
comprendi que mi aprension y mi temor carecian de fundamento, que
no envolvia mas riesgos el volar por los aires en un aeroplano como
el correr a campo traviesa en un automovil y me hice cargo de las
innumerables ventajas que se pueden sacar de este aparato, producto
tambien de nuestros tiempos, destinado a revolucionar no solo los
medios de guerra sino tambien las artes de la paz.

Lo mismo pasa con las nuevas formulas, con las innovaciones en el
orden moral y politico. No se las adopta sin ese instintivo temor, esa
vaga aprension que produce lo nuevo y lo desconocido. Se oye hablar
mucho de sus peligros e inconvenientes para el orden establecido. Se
cree poco menos que se desquiciarian las esferas del firmamento y
que el eje del mundo se romperia en pedazos. Luego, despues que la
innovacion se ha admitido, se encuentra que parece lo mas natural
y logico porque las cosas siguen su curso normal, las estrellas
ruedan y brillan lo mismo que antes en el azul y las montanas altas
no se vienen abajo. Se sienten renacer el animo y la esperanza,
las muchedumbres se avienen con el nuevo estado de cosas y los mas
recalcitrantes se lastimarian si se les propusiera que se volviese
el antiguo estado. Asi ha ocurrido en nuestro pais. Asi se ha hecho
siempre el progreso y asi marchara siempre par nuevos caminos.

Es preciso que tomemos la resolucion de vencer nuestros temores y
escrupulos. Si hablaramos del aeroplano solamente por el numero de
aviadores que han perecido, no admitiriamos nunca esa invencion. Es
preciso que nos embarquemos en el para probarnos a nosotros mismos que
nuestros temores y preocupaciones carecen de fundamento. No hay que
perder de vista que el sufragismo no es una cosa nueva en el mundo, ya
no es un experimento sino un hecho y ha tomado carta de naturaleza en
algunos paises. Lo mismo exactamente que el aeroplano. Del mismo modo
que para conocer las ventajas de este aparato no vamos a preguntar a
los que nunca han viajado con el sino a los que han hecho experiencias
con el mismo, asi tambien para conocer las ventajas del sufragismo
no debemos dar credito a los que lo combaten por principios y teorias
sino a los paises que han hecho experimentos con el y han probado ya
sus resultados. El hecho que debemos anotar es que el sufragismo cunde
con mayor fuerza cada dia y se va generalizando en los paises en que se
ha admitido. Lo mismo exactamente que el aeroplano. Por consiguiente,
asi como seria perfectamente ridiculo en estos momentos declamar
contra el aeroplano, por los riesgos y accidentes que pueden ocurrir
y seria estupido no seguir los pasos de otros gobiernos que utilizan
sus ventajas, para la defensa o la agresion en caso de guerra o para
abreviar las comunicaciones interiores en tiempos de paz, asimismo me
parece ridiculo, sino insensato, combatir el sufragismo en el terreno
especulativo o mas bien hipotetico y no tomar la experiencia de otros
paises como guia de nuestra conducta haciendo que el sufragismo forme
parte de nuestras modernas costumbres e instituciones.

Quisiera, para terminar, citar algunos extractos, pertinentes a
este asunto, de un discurso que pronuncie en una velada celebrada en
el Opera House y dedicado a Rizal por varios colegios de senoritas
en 1913:


    Se ha creido que la mujer debe reducir toda su esfera de accion
    al hogar a la vida domestica, ser absolutamente la gloria y el
    encanto de su esposo y de sus hijos; y no es asi, pues que la
    mujer tanto como el hombre, nace en la sociedad y vive dentro
    de ella, y no puede, no debe ser indiferente a las miserias
    y las desgracias sociales. Pensar de otro modo seria egoismo
    y aberracion, y dejaria a la sociedad abandonada a muchos
    sufrimientos que solo la mano bendita de la mujer puede curar
    o acallar al menos. Bien haya que la mujer sea en su casa amor
    y ensueno, gloria y felicidad; pero tambien mas alla de los
    muros de su hogar debe cumplir su mision divina y hacer llegar
    a todos el secreto tesoro de bondad y dulzura de que la ha
    provisto la buena providencia. Asi como en el hogar comparte
    con el hombre los deberes de la vida, asi fuera de el, en la
    vida publica, debe compartir con el hombre la responsabilidad
    de remediar y de aliviar las desdichas publicas.

    La beneficiencia, la caridad, la moral, por algo, tienen
    nombres femeninos: y es a la mujer a quien corresponde
    el ejercicio de todas esas virtudes en el seno de la
    sociedad. Ella debe tomar parte, si es que no debe iniciar
    en todos los casos, toda propaganda y toda accion que tienda
    a amparar la orfandad, a socorrer la indigencia, a elevar la
    idea de la moralidad publica. Ella debe luchar y sufrir, en
    medio de la sociedad en que vive por cuanto hay de femenino en
    la vida para calmar con un bello gesto de piedad la furiosa
    contienda que se libra por la existencia, y durar con el
    magico esplendor de su carinosa mirada la noche eterna del
    humano dolor. La patria necesita no solo la fuerza de los
    hombres, sino tambien la piedad, la caridad de las mujeres;
    no solo requiere heroes, sino tambien heroinas. Y las hay,
    y las ha habido siempre en la historia de la humanidad: y
    las hay y las ha habido en esta nuestra tierra, cuyo especial
    privilegio consiste, en sentir de graves autores extranjeros,
    en que sus mujeres son superiores a los hombres.

    Y estas ninas de hoy que adoran en Rizal y que le dedican sus
    cantos y oraciones, manana se convertiran en las ciudadanas,
    que no seran, como la infeliz Maria Clara, victimas de las
    injusticias sociales, sino reparadoras de ellas, y sublimes
    propagadoras del bien, de la virtud de la gloria y grandeza
    de su patria.


Si; abrigo esa esperanza, tengo fe en la libertad de la mujer. No
puede permanecer una mitad de la humanidad en la parte superior y otra
mitad en la parte inferior de la escala sin producirse desequilibrios,
lagrimas y sufrimientos. Todos tienden a nivelarse en la vida como
todos se nivelan en la muerte. La humanidad ha descubierto una nueva
luz y su antorcha iluminara aunque los errores y preocupaciones
de los hombres se empenen en cubrirla de tinieblas. iAy de los que
resistan la luz! El mundo marcha, no se detiene en su progreso. Los
que quieran quedar atras se quedaran porque es dado a los seres humanos
ese albedrio, pero sera para lamentar mas tarde su culpa y su retraso.

No me es dado vaticinar la suerte que cabra a los esfuerzos presentes
que hacen las mujeres filipinas para obtener el sufragio; se sin
embargo que sus esfuerzos deben ser para ellas y para nosotros un
motivo de orgullo y de honor porque indican que ninguna parte de
nuestro pueblo es insensible a los grandes movimientos del siglo. Hay
algunos que se mofaran de ellas, muchos que se encogeran de hombros,
pero las mujeres no deben desalentarse por eso, porque ni la mofa ni
el encogimiento de hombros son razones de peso. Algun dia les daran la
razon esos mismos que ahora se rien y se encogen de hombros ignorando
probablemente la marcha del mundo y la de su propia sociedad, como
aquellos que se burlaron de Rizal en su tiempo han lamentado su error
muy tarde y le han completamente justificado y vindicado.

Lo que necesitamos es hacer la luz y propagar las nuevas doctrinas
para que las acepten las conciencias que no se niegan voluntariamente
a reconocer la justicia y la verdad, unicos e inconmovibles fundamentos
sobre los que descansan la estabilidad y el bienestar de las sociedades
civilizadas.







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