f 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 u