Here are my notes on Part Three of "Three Guineas".
Back to the original letter! Reiterates that we can sign a pledge, join a society, or contribute to a society to help prevent war. We can also protect “culture and intellectual liberty.” Relates them to the photographs. But those are “rather abstract terms.” Again, I’m surprised to be asked for help since I am a woman.
Ok, back to “Arthur’s Education Fund.” “We have already contributed to… culture and intellectual liberty” by contributing money that could have gone to our educations. We’ve paid for their educations with ours. When we finally got “the right to some paid-for education,” there weren’t any women “who had received enough paid-for education” to teach us. And NOW I’m finding, through your letter, that all of that money and education “has been wasted or wrongly applied.” (I assume because we’re coming up to war). Weren’t the unis supposed “to protect culture and intellectual liberty?” “We must assume that the money so spent was wasted.” So what makes you think that your society is going to be able to help? Shouldn’t you investigate why the “universities have failed?”
But, that’s your worry. How can we (daughters of educated men) help “you in protecting culture and intellectual liberty”? We have no education. We’re not “thought capable of teaching”. Talks about Whitaker. Ok, so even if we have no training, we have to think about what we can do “to protect culture and intellectual liberty.” First – what do those words mean? Eh, let’s not waste time and just agree that we know what they mean.
Turn to the daily paper. A “conference of head masters” decided that women “were not fit” to teach “boys over the age of fourteen”. If we tried to “reform the education of our brothers” there would be chaos. “We can only help you to defend culture and intellectual liberty by defending our own culture and our own intellectual liberty.”
We can suggest our ideas to the women’s societies we support. But for women, culture is still obtained “outside the sacred gates”. So, women have to read and write as a way of protecting their own culture and intellectual liberty. Literature has never been shut to women, partly because of “the extreme cheapness of its professional requirements.” But since it’s open, there’s no “honorary treasurer” asking for donations to whom we can dictate the terms of a donation. So how do we pressure readers and writers? There’s no “head of the profession”. We can’t bar women from libraries or deny them the use of metaphors. Any woman can write under a man’s name.
So “we have very little power over those who earn their livings by reading and writing, we must go to them humbly.” Ask them to “practise the profession of reading and writing in the interests of culture and intellectual liberty.”
Ok, so now we do need to clarify the terms a little more. If we consult male authors, “their definition would apply to paid-for culture.” For our purposes, culture will be “the disinterested pursuit of reading and writing the English language.” Intellectual liberty will be “the right to say or write what you think in your own words, and in your own way.” So our letter might say: ok ladies, this guy says war is coming, and we’re asking you “who earn your livings by reading and writing…” but wait. There are facts. Here’s Mrs. Oliphant’s autobiography. She wrote, earned a living, and “educated her children.” Read her books – did they lead you “to respect disinterested culture and intellectual liberty”? Or do you “deplore the fact” that she sold her work and “prostituted her culture” to “earn her living and educate her children”? We know that poverty sucks and that if you have kids you have to take care of them, so we “applaud her choice and… admire her courage.” She may be on our side personally, but she has to make a living; a brewer might not drink, but his signature on a temperance manifesto would be worthless b/c he’s “inducing his customers to drink more beer.” You don’t need an opinion, you need actual help. So they will have to “pledge themselves not to write anything that denies culture, or… infringes intellectual liberty.” So we can only appeal to women who have enough money to live on. “How many of them are there?” They might ask us to define terms; what is “’disinterested’ culture,” and how are we to protect those things in actuality? Compares to selling your body “without love,” instead of giving it to your husband; so it’s wrong “to sell your mind without love, but right to give it to the art which you love.” So don’t write what someone tells you to just because it pays. “Adultery of the brain.” Anticipated response: so I should turn down everyone who wants me to write/say something I don’t believe, even if they’ll pay? Yup. Also, you should call them out just like you would someone who tried to solicit you to protect yourself and others. But money’s not the only adulterer (using the other definition) – Advertisement and publicity also corrupt. So don’t “appear on public platforms… lecture… allow your… face to be published”. Don’t accept “medals, honours, degrees.” They may reply that these terms are too hard. “Loss of money… of fame… censure and ridicule.”
Ok, let’s go to the photographs. Can we make a “connection between them and prostituted culture” so that these photos represent it, and women would rather reject money and fame when they see what it causes? Let’s try.
Imagine a girl reading newspapers because she is “interested in politics, and wish[es] to know the facts.” Ok, so why more than one newspaper? Aren’t facts facts? Girl points out that papers are owned by people, so you have to read “at least three different versions of the same fact, and come… to your own conclusion.” She feels the same way about book reviews, theater reviews, etc. So there’s no “pure fact, or pure opinion, but adulterated fact and adulterated opinion”. So we have to “strip each statement” of its various motives – money, power, publicity, vanity, and more. And if someone with no such motives gave you his opinion, would you believe him (allowing for human error, of course)? Girl says yes. Now, if there was a group of people with no motive; couldn’t we know “the truth about war”? Wouldn’t that strip it of its glory? And the truth about art? Wouldn’t that make art “so desirable” that war would be “a tedious game”? If newspapers told only the truth, we would not believe in war, but in art.
Lady might reply to this argument; well, duh. But how does she do this stuff in practice? In the real world, not an ideal one? Well, there is a private printing press that’s not TOO expensive. Typewriters, duplicators. You can be free from the “pressure of… editors.” But how do we reach “the public”? Think that the public is made up of individuals.
You could even give honest reviews to the artists, in private, without affecting their sales. (she seems to be assuming that the woman’s opinion is worth this). If you’re more of a reader, don’t buy “papers that encourage intellectual slavery”. Once writers can write what they want, won’t they refuse anything else? Once readers have read something a writer enjoyed writing, wouldn’t they prefer it to something that was “written for money”?
Refers to paid writers as “slaves” (NOT COOL Woolf). Culture (personified) would become free and adventurous. Don’t just sign, lady; do something.
Whether rich ladies will listen, I cannot say. But this seems to be the way to go. Women are the ones who have to do it – “to protect culture and intellectual liberty” will result in “ridicule and chastity, loss of publicity and poverty.” But women are used to that. Since the high-level jobs aren’t open to us, we can be more disinterested. “We will sign [your manifesto] if we can keep these terms.”
Ok, you want money. So define your aims and means. To prevent war “by protecting the rights of the individual; by opposing dictatorship; by ensuring the democratic ideals of equal opportunity for all.” Ok. Here’s your guinea, “given freely.”
BUT… what does “free” actually mean? Because I can make a living, I can give you a guinea “without asking for anything in return.” That’s a BFD. Let’s celebrate. Let’s kill the word “feminist”. It no longer has a meaning because we can earn a living. Let’s write it and burn it. “the air is cleared.” Yay, “men and women [are] working together for the same cause”. Women in the 1800s were fighting the same cause you are. We’re all working for the same thing! Let’s kill more words, like Tyrant and Dictator! Oh. They’re not obsolete yet. We’re seeing it overseas. You’re feeling, as a Jew, what your mothers felt, as women. (Wow. That kind of statement would not fly today, although I guess this was before people really knew how bad the holocaust was). Yay, we’re all working together.
Ok, now you want me to be a member of your society. Sounds easy. BUT. We’ve determined that the sexes are different, and that difference is what lets us help, so if I join your society do I “lose that difference”? So, a society is a group “joined together for certain aims,” but you are an individual. We respect you (the individual) as in private individual men and women respect each other. But can we do so in public, in a “society relationship”? So far it’s been the “society relationship” that’s been keeping us down. She fears that societies can bring out (or impose on) the worst of men, while excluding women. “It seems… wrong… and impossible… to… join your society”.
“We believe that we can help you most effectively by refusing to join your society.” We’d rather work for the same aims from the outside.
Anticipated response: so you won’t join ours but you’ll start your own? What kind of society will you start that can work with ours but outside it? We wouldn’t have an office or need funds. “It could be called the Outsiders Society.” They would swear “not to fight with arms” (which is easy since women aren’t allowed). They wouldn’t work in factories to produce munitions, or tend to wounded soldiers. Wouldn’t encourage or dissuade brothers to fight; would remain indifferent. She can’t understand the desire to fight (just as he can’t understand maternal instinct) so she can’t judge it. When he says he’s “fighting to protect our country” she has to ask what “our country” means to her as an outsider. How much of England actually belongs to her? How much does the law protect her? What kind of physical protection does she have? If he’s protecting against foreigners, she has to think that “for her there are no ‘foreigners’, since… she becomes a foreigner if she marries” one. So she’ll decide that she doesn’t really have “much to thank England for.” History tells us Englishmen are superior to others; let’s check with French or German historians and see what they say. Intellectual superiority? Compare the music and literature of countries. “She will find that she has no good reason to ask her brother to fight on her behalf to protect ‘our’ country”. If she still has some drop of patriotism, let it be used to help bring peace to England.
So. She can’t participate “in patriotic demonstrations,” praise her country, avoid military displays. “For psychology would seem to show that it is far harder for human beings to take action when other people are indifferent and allow them complete freedom of action, than when their actions are made the centre of excited emotion.” It’s kind of like ignoring a child’s bad behavior instead of giving him attention, however negative.
You have to agree that men couldn’t use those methods.
Women need to earn their own livings – push for a living wage. “create new professions”. Wage for non-working women (instead of allowance). Push for wage to be paid “to the mothers of educated men.” Wage for the professions of “marriage and motherhood.” This would increase the birth rate “in the very class where births are desirable – the educated class.” (Wow.). Points out that since it’s unpaid it’s devalued. And because she made money too, you wouldn’t have to slave at your job and could enjoy life. BUT… since we’re spending 300,000,000 on weapons, guess we don’t have the money to do that.
We’d have to earn our livings in a way that if we stopped, it would affect others. Would have to commit “to reveal any instance of tyranny or abuse in their professions”. And they couldn’t work for money but for “love of the work itself” once they’d earned enough money to live on. Also couldn’t work in any profession that benefited war. Wouldn’t take honour from any society that restricted liberty. Would “investigate the claims” of societies that benefit from their taxes (church, schools) as carefully as they would any private society they choose to donate to. Criticize education and religion. Their “freedom from unreal loyalties” and outsider status would help them be able to do that.
We want “freedom, equality, peace” like you, but we’ll go about it in our own way. Not critical but creative. We will “dispense with pageantry” of gowns, medals, etc.
“Extinguish the coarse glare of advertisement and publicity” it acts as a headlight to rabbits (deer). Doesn’t this “limelight” paralyze “free action of the human faculties” and inhibit people’s ability “to change and create new wholes”?
Back to facts. How can we do this? Was this a waste of my time? But there is a model already. A female mayor recently said she wouldn’t even mend a sock to help a war. Sure, it was tactless. But brave, especially if other female mayors follow suit.
Second example from the newspaper: women’s teams don’t get medals or awards - people will play sports for the love of them, even if they don’t get awards. Article about girl’s soccer gaining popularity while men’s is losing it. Plus, women could get hurt.
See, it’s harder for men “to experiment freely in altering current values.”
“Experiment in passivity” – vicar talked about how the church was to “make civilization moral.” Needed everyone’s help, not just men. Historically, 3x more women had gone to church than men. But young women are moving away from the church. It’s an experiment you can do “with very little difficulty or danger”. We should keep an eye on this experiment and see if it has any effect. Well, the church is getting worried. Point out that women’s colleges don’t usually have a chaplain b/c women can’t afford to volunteer. One bishop warned that “men do not value ministrations which are gratuitous”. Women can make at most £150 as a deacon, but that’s not enough. So this experiment “is highly encouraging”. It shows “that to be passive is to be active.” “By making their absence felt their presence becomes desirable.” And there may be more experiments of this sort that haven’t been documented. But this movement has to fly under the radar. Jobs are short, and we can’t piss off the bosses. “those who are economically dependent have strong reasons for fear.” There are still subjects that men and women don’t talk about. (War?).
Let’s look at the Archbishop’s commission on women. The church ranks higher than other professions. In 1935 women wanted to join the church; priests looked at the New Testament, and found that Jesus (whose disciples were from the working class) said men and women are equals. There were female prophets. Women could preach. Then priests went to the Church, namely St. Paul, who saw women as forbidden from teaching in the Church or from holding any position where she’d have authority over a man. In the church men can be promoted but women can’t. Religion seemed to go from a voluntary, unpaid calling to a profession, and at that point women women were excluded.
“The Church… has to give spiritual and not merely historical reasons for its actions.” Has turned to psychology, and revealed “the origin of the fear” that’s keeping women from acting out freely against war. Psychology reveals that men are dominant but not superior, so there’s no precedent for barring them from Holy Orders (I think – the original phrasing is convoluted).
People are hostile about women joining the Church. Because of an “infantile fixation”. Blames the “general acceptance of male dominance, and… feminine inferiority” on it.
It’s a “non-rational sex-taboo.” A professor has found evidence of this. “There is no theoretical reason” why women shouldn’t be priests – just “emotional and practical” ones. “To pay women more would be to pay men less”. Implies that a married priest can do his job well because his wife takes care of the housework and family.
So if a woman brings up the topic of her admission to the Church or Stock Exchange in a private conversation with a man, she’ll feel his “strong emotion” from the subconscious. This raises her fear, and her instincts to change the subject or to shut up.
“What possible satisfaction can dominance give to the dominator?”
We have to analyze “our fear and your anger.” They prevent freedom in the public and private worlds. They may even cause war. Let’s look at this “infantile fixation” through biographies and newspapers!
Mr. Barrett. Wouldn’t let his kids marry. Daughter Elizabeth eloped, dad never forgave her. His emotions were extreme and obviously subconscious. Charlotte Bronte’s love was too scared to ask her dad for her hand in marriage. Rev. Bronte disapproved of marriages, and couldn’t stand Mr. Nicholls. She turned him down and stayed in Haworth with dad. Jex-Blake. Sophia’s wish to earn a living tutoring aroused a strong, subconscious emotion in dad. She wanted the money and the pride of earning.
Finally we can figure out that he didn’t like her to take money from or be dependent on anyone but him. Also, it gives him right to approve who she marries. In his argument, Mr. Jex-Blake appealed to her emotions, to her womanhood, not to her reason. Sophia replied by mentioning other “ladies” who earned money. Sophia had to “kill the lady; but when the lady was killed the woman still remained.” Bronte and Barrett had to kill the woman. (I get that this is theoretical but I’m having a hard time understanding it).
SO, this infantile fixation could stand against human love. Could make people “quail before it; to cheat the father, to deceive the father, and then to fly from the father.”
“Nature, law, and property were all ready to excuse and conceal [infantile fixation]”. If the dads wanted to keep their daughters at home, “society agreed that they were right.” If she fought, “nature came to their help”. If she left, law made sure she “had no means of supporting herself.” We see this story time and time again. Mr. Smith loved his children, “objected to schools,” kept them home. He brought in teachers, took them on field trips. Educated his sons and daughters the same. Gave daughter an allowance of £300 a year. She founded a school for all sexes, classes, religions. Started an art class (drawing nudes). She worked on laws, and married women were allowed to own their own property. All that because one father “was immune from infantile fixation.” (She uses the language of disease). So we see why most dads wouldn’t.
Infantile fixation was a strong, concealed force. But they were met with a force – called feminism or emancipation of women. We don’t like those names though. None of the names accurately convey the emotions, the bitter tears. Girls wanted to learn, to love, to travel, to play music, to paint naked bodies. We are “suspicious of labels; they kill and constrict”. Not “freedom” – we don’t want to break laws.
So, whatever, no word for it, but it fought fathers with “tremendous power”. Women got out of the house, onto the sports field, into jobs and more comfortable clothing.
But that’s not the end of the story. It’s the beginning. In private, dads may have yielded, but in public, they became even more susceptible to this disease. Desire to support a family is connected to manhood. If you can’t support your family, you’re a failure as a man. If a scholar protests the admission of women to his school by refusing to go, or a hospital declines an endowment made by women for women, aren’t these actions “inspired by that sense of shame” of the “non-rational sex taboo?” Nature made women’s brains too small! But finally we passed exams. Ok, but our brains aren’t creative enough to earn higher salaries! All we can do professionally is write.
Also, our bodies. Men enjoy, we endure. Until recently, medical literature on childbirth was sadistic. Finally girls stepped in, saying “wouldn’t some training help develop our minds and bodies?” Reply: no because childbirth. Rebuttal: dude that’s like a fraction of our time. Didn’t we work during the war? Dudes: war is over.
The radio is talking about the home being women’s place. Give jobs to men. Two worlds. Women have failed. Let’s go back to Creon and Antigone.
Creon: “you have to obey the law. Disobedience is evil. Women go home”. Antigone: the gods haven’t set these laws, men have”. Creon: “let’s bury her alive.” Then he “brought ruin on his house” and caused lots of deaths. Let’s look at the pictures of Spanish children. Things are the same today.
As we’ve thought about this, another figure as appeared in the picture; Man. Virile. In uniform. Medals. He is a dictator. We want to suggest a connection between the public and private worlds. “the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other.” We have to fight to change that figure. And we have to see that the ruined houses could be ours if the “public abstractions” and “private emotions” forget each other.
But you, sir, recognize the connection between the public and private. We can’t just dream of peace and freedom; we hear the guns. We’ll leave dreams to the poets and focus on the facts: the photograph. The picture is of evil. We have to work to destroy it, “you by your methods, we by ours.” We have to create new words and new methods. We have to remain “outside your society but in cooperation with its aim.” We won’t join yours. But here is your guinea: the third of three given to different societies but the same cause.
Sorry for how long the letter was, how small the contribution, and for writing at all. But you asked for it.
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