one legally free can be.

Now this disparity between the rewards of man's and woman's labor
at the base of the social edifice, is carried up to its very
pinnacle. Of a brother and sister equally qualified and effective
as teachers, the brother will receive twice as much compensation
as the sister. The mistress who conducts the rural district
school in summer, usually receives less than half the monthly
stipend that her brother does for teaching that same school in
winter, when time and work are far less valuable; and here there
can be no pretence of a disparity in capacity justifying that in
wages. Between male and female workers in the factories and
mills, the same difference is enforced.

Who does not feel that this is intrinsically wrong? that the
sister ought to have equal (not necessarily identical)
opportunities with the brother--should be as well taught,
industrially as well as intellectually, and her compensation made
to correspond with her capacity, upon a clear understanding of
the fact that, though her muscular power is less than his, yet
her dexterity and celerity of manipulation are greater?

Where does the wrong originate? Suppose that, by some inexorable
law in the spirit of Hindoo caste, it were settled that negroes,
regardless of personal capacity, could do nothing for a living
but black boots, and that red-haired men were allowed to engage
in no avocation except horse-currying; who does not perceive
that, though boot-blacking and horse-currying might be well and
cheaply done, black-skinned and also red-haired men would have
but a sorry chance for making a living? Who does not see that
their wages, social standing, and means of securing independence,
would be far inferior to those they now enjoy?

The one great cause, therefore, of the inadequate compensation
and inferior position of woman, is the unjust apportionment of
avocation. Man has taken the lion's share to himself, and
allotted the residue to woman, telling her to take that and be
content with it, if she don't want to be regarded as a forward,
indelicate, presuming, unwomanly creature, who is evidently no
better than she should be. And woman has come for the most part
to accept the lot thus assigned her, with thankfulness, or,
rather, without thought, just as