The Modern Woman's Rights Movement Part 9

Its chief object must be the establishment of a secular school that will prepare women for entrance to the universities.

GERMAN AUSTRIA

Total population: about 7,000,000.

Women: about 3,750,000.

Men: about 3,250,000.

Federation of Austrian Women's Clubs.

No woman's suffrage league.

The Austrian woman's rights movement is based primarily on economic conditions. More than 50 per cent of the women in Austria are engaged in non-domestic callings. This percentage is a strong argument against the theory that woman's sphere is merely domestic. Unfortunately this non-domestic service of the Austrian women is seldom very remunerative.

Austria itself is a country of low wages. This condition is due to a continuous influx of Slavic workers, to large agricultural provinces, to the tenacious survivals of feudalism, etc. Therefore women's wages and salaries are lower than in western Europe, and low living expenses do not prevail everywhere (Vienna is one of the most expensive cities to live in). The "Women's Industrial School Society," founded in 1851, attempted to raise the industrial ability of the girls of the middle cla.s.s. In accordance with the views of the time, needlework was taught. Free schools for the instruction of adults were established in Vienna. The economic misery following the war of 1866 led to the organization of the "Woman's Industrial Society," which enlarged woman's sphere of activity as did the Lette-Society in Berlin. Since 1868 the woman's rights movement has secured adherents from the best educated middle-cla.s.s women,--namely, women teachers. In that year the Catholic women teachers organized a "Catholic Women Teachers' Society." In 1869 was organized the interdenominational "Austrian Women Teachers' Society." This society has performed excellent service. The women teachers, who since 1869 had been given positions in the public schools, were paid less than the men teachers having the same training and doing the same work. Therefore the women teachers presented themselves to the provincial legislatures, demanded an increase in salary, and, in spite of the opposition of the male teachers, secured the increase by the law of 1891. In 1876 a society devoted its efforts to the improvement of the girls' high schools, which had been greatly neglected. In 1885 the women writers and the women artists organized, their male colleagues having refused to admit women to the existing professional societies. In 1888 the women music teachers likewise organized themselves. At the same time the question of higher education for women was agitated. In Vienna a "lyceum" cla.s.s--the first of its kind--was opened to prepare girls for entrance to the universities (_Abiturientenexamen_). Admission to the boys' high schools was refused to girls in Vienna, but was granted in the provinces (Troppau, and Mahrisch-Schonberg). Girls were at all times admitted as outsiders (_Extraneae_) to the examinations held on leaving college (_Abiturientenexamen_). In this way many girls pa.s.sed the "leaving"

examination before they began their studies in Switzerland. Until 1896 the Austrian universities remained closed to women. The law faculties do not as yet admit women. The women's clubs are striving to secure this reform.

Those women that had studied medicine in Switzerland previous to 1896, and wished to practice in Austria, required special imperial permission, which was never withheld from them in their n.o.ble struggle.

In this way Dr. Kerschbaumer began her practice as an oculist in Salzburg. However, the Countess Possanner, M.D., after pa.s.sing the Swiss state examination, also took the Austrian examination. She is now practicing in Vienna.

As the Austrian doctors have active and pa.s.sive suffrage in the election to the Board of Physicians (_arztekammer_)[72] Dr. Possanner also requested this right. Her request was refused by the magistrate in Vienna because, _as a woman_, she did not have the suffrage in munic.i.p.al elections, and the suffrage for the Board of Physicians could be exercised only by those doctors that were munic.i.p.al electors.[73] Thereupon Dr.

Possanner appealed her case to the government, to the Minister of the Interior, and finally to the administrative court. The court decided in favor of the pet.i.tion. It must be emphasized, however, that the Board of Physicians favored the request from the beginning.

Women preachers and women lawyers are as yet unknown in Austria. As in former times, the teaching profession is still the chief sphere of activity for the middle-cla.s.s women of German Austria. According to the law of 1869 they can be appointed not only as teachers in the elementary schools for girls, but also as teachers of the lower cla.s.ses in the boys'

schools. Their not being munic.i.p.al voters has two results: if the munic.i.p.ality is seeking votes, it appoints men teachers that are "favorably disposed"; if the munic.i.p.ality is politically opposed to the male teachers, it appoints women teachers in preference. But to be the plaything of political whims is not a very worthy condition to be in. If women teachers marry, they need not withdraw from the service (except in the province of Styria). More than 10 per cent of the women teachers in the whole of Austria are married, more than 2 per cent are widows. The women comprise about one fourth of the total number of elementary school teachers, of whom there are 9000. Their annual salaries vary from 200 to 1600 guldens ($96.40 to $771.20). The ordinary salary of 200 guldens is so insufficient that many elementary school teachers actually starve. The compet.i.tion of the nuns is feared by the whole body of secular school teachers. In Tyrol instruction in the elementary schools is still almost wholly in the hands of the religious orders. The sisters work for little pay; they have a community life and consume the resources of the dead hand.

Of the secondary schools for girls some are ecclesiastic, some are munic.i.p.al, and some private. The lyceums give a very good education (mathematics is obligatory), but as yet there are no ordinary secondary schools whose leaving examinations are equivalent to the _Abiturientenexamen_ of the _Gymnasiums_. The "Academic Woman's Club" in Vienna is demanding this reform, and the Federation of Austrian Women's Clubs is demanding the development of the munic.i.p.al girls' schools into _Realschulen_. The state subsidizes various inst.i.tutions. The girls'

_Gymnasiums_ were privately founded. Dr. Cecilia Wendt, upon whom the degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred by Vienna University, and who took the state examination for secondary school teachers in mathematics, physics, and German, was the first woman appointed as teacher in a _Gymnasium_, being appointed in the Vienna _Gymnasium_ for girls. Since 1871, women have been appointed in the postal and telegraph service. Like most of the subordinate state officials, they receive poor pay, and dare not marry. The women telegraph operators in the central office in Vienna are paid 30 guldens ($14.46) a month. "The woman telegraph operator can lay no claims to the pleasures of existence." "These girls starve spiritually as well as physically."[74] During the past twenty-eight years salaries have not been increased. Every two years a two-week vacation is granted. Since 1876 there has existed a relief society for women postal and telegraph employees.

The woman stenographer, to-day so much sought after in business offices, was in 1842 _absolutely excluded_ from the courses in Gabelsberger stenography[75] by the Ministry of Public Instruction. In the courts of chancery (_Advokatenkanzleien_) women stenographers are paid 20 to 30 guldens ($9.64 to $14.46) a month. They are given the same pay in the stores and offices where they are expected to use typewriters. They are regarded as subordinates, though frequently they are thorough specialists and masters of languages. In the governmental service the women subordinates that work by the day (1.50 guldens,--73 cents) have no hope for advancement or pension. The first woman chief of a government office has been appointed to the sanitary department of the Ministry of the Labor Department, in which there is also a woman librarian.

It is not easy to imagine the deplorable condition of workingwomen when women public school teachers and women office clerks are expected to live on a monthly salary of $9.64 to $14.46. The Vienna inquiry into the condition of workingwomen in 1896 disclosed frightfully miserable conditions among workingwomen. Since then, especially through the efforts of the Socialists, the conditions have been somewhat improved.

In Vienna, efforts to organize women into trade-unions have been made,--especially among the bookbinders, hat makers, and tailors. Outside Vienna, organization has been effected chiefly among the women textile workers in Silesia, as well as among the women employees of the state tobacco factories. The most thorough organization of women laborers is found in northern and western Bohemia among the gla.s.sworkers and bead makers. In Styria, Salzburg, Tyrol, and Carinthia the organization of women is found only in isolated cases. Everywhere the organization of women is made difficult by domestic misery, which consumes the energy, time, and interest of the women. The organized Social-Democratic women laborers of German Austria have a permanent representation in the "Women's Imperial Committee." Of the 50,000 women organized in trade-unions, 5000 belong to the Social-Democratic party. The _Magazine for Workingwomen_ (_Arbeiterinnenzeitung_) has 13,400 subscribers. Women industrial inspectors have proved themselves efficient.

It is to be expected as a result of the wretched economic conditions of the workingwomen that prost.i.tution with its incidental earnings should be widespread in German Austria. Vienna is the refuge of those seeking work and seclusion (_Verschwiegenheit_). The number of illicit births in Vienna is, as in Paris, one third of the total number of births. For these and other reasons the "General Woman's Club of Austria" (_Allgemeine osterreiche Frauenverein_), founded in 1893 under the leadership of Miss Augusta Fickert, has frequently concerned itself with the question of prost.i.tution, of woman's wages, and of the official regulation of prost.i.tution,--always being opposed to the last. The International Federation for the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prost.i.tution (_internationale abolinistische Foderation_) was, however, not represented in German Austria before 1903; the Austrian branch of this organization being established in 1907 in Vienna.

The middle-cla.s.s women are doing much as leaders of the charitable, industrial, educational, and woman's suffrage societies to raise the status of woman in Austria. The most prominent members of these societies are: Augusta Fickert, Marianne Hainisch, Mrs. v. Sprung, Miss Herzfelder, v. Wolfring, Mrs. v. Listrow, Rosa Maireder, Maria Lang (editor of the excellent _Dok.u.mente der Frauen_, which, unfortunately, were discontinued in 1902), Mrs. Schwietland, Elsie Federn (the superintendent of the settlement in the laborers' district in North Vienna), Mrs. Jella Hertzka, (Mrs.) Dr. Goldmann, superintendent of the Cottage Lyceum, and others.

These women frequently cooperate with the leaders of the Socialistic woman's rights movement, Mrs. Schlesinger, Mrs. Popp, and others. The disunion of the two forces of the movement is much less marked in Austria than in Germany, the circ.u.mstances much more resembling those in Italy.

In these lands it is expected that the woman's rights movement will profit greatly through the growth of Socialism. This is explained by the fact that the Austrian Liberals are not equal to the a.s.saults of the Conservatives. Universal equal suffrage, which does not as yet exist in Austria, has its most enthusiastic advocates among the Socialists. With the Austrian Socialists, universal suffrage means woman's suffrage also.[76]

During the Liberal era two rights were granted to the Austrian women: since 1849 the women taxpayers vote by proxy in munic.i.p.al elections, and since 1861 for the local legislatures (_Provinciallandtagen_).[77] In Lower Austria the _Landtag_ in 1888 deprived them of this right, and in 1889 an attempt was made to deprive them of their munic.i.p.al suffrage. But the women concerned successfully pet.i.tioned that they be left in possession of their active munic.i.p.al suffrage. Since 1873 the Austrian women owners of large estates vote also for the Imperial Parliament through proxy. The Austrian women, supported by the Socialist deputies, Pernerstorfer, Kronawetter, Adler, and others, have on several occasions demanded the pa.s.sive suffrage in the election of school boards and poor-law guardians; they have also demanded a reform of the law of organization, so that women can be admitted to political organizations. To the present these efforts have been fruitless. When universal suffrage was granted in 1906 (creating the fifth cla.s.s of voters), the women were disregarded. In the previous year a Woman's Suffrage Committee had been established with headquarters in Vienna. It is endeavoring especially to secure the repeal of paragraph 30 of the law regulating organizations and public meetings. This law (like that of Prussia and Bavaria previous to 1908) excludes women from political organization, thus making the forming of a woman's suffrage society impossible. For this reason Austria cannot join the International Woman's Suffrage Alliance.

During the consideration of the new munic.i.p.al election laws in Troppau (Austrian Silesia), it was proposed to withdraw the right of suffrage from the women taxpayers. They resisted the proposal energetically. At present the matter is before the supreme court. In Voralberg the unmarried women taxpayers were also given the right to vote in elections of the _Landtag_.

The legal status of the Austrian woman is similar to that of the French woman: the wife is under the guardianship of her husband; the property law provides for the amalgamation of property (not joint property holding, as in France). But the wife does not have control of her earnings and savings, as in Germany under the Civil Code. The father alone has legal authority over the children.

Here the names of two women must be mentioned: Bertha v. Suttner, one of the founders of the peace movement, and Marie v. Ebner-Eschenbach, the greatest living woman writer in the German language. Both are Austrians; and their country may well be proud of them.

In Austria the authorities are more favorably disposed toward the woman's rights movement than in Germany, for example.

HUNGARY[78]

Total population: 19,254,559.

Women: 9,672,407.

Men: 9,582,152.

Federation of Hungarian Women's Clubs.

Woman's Suffrage League.

At first the Hungarian woman's rights movement was restricted to the advancement of girls' education. The attainment of national independence gave the women greater ambition; since 1867 they have striven for the establishment of higher inst.i.tutions of learning for girls. In 1868 Mrs.

v. Veres with twenty-two other women founded the "Society for the Advancement of Girls' Education." In 1869, the first cla.s.s in a high school for girls was formed in Budapest. An esteemed scholar, P. Gyulai, undertook the superintendence of the inst.i.tution. Similar schools were founded in the provinces. In 1876 the Budapest model school was completed; in 1878 it was turned over to a woman superintendent, Mrs. v. Janisch. A seminary for women teachers was established, a special building being erected for the purpose. Then the admission of women to the university was agitated. A special committee for this purpose was formed with Dr. Coloman v. Csicky as chairman. In the meantime the "Society" gave domestic economy courses and courses of instruction to adults (in its girls' high school).

The Minister of Public Instruction, v. Wla.s.sics, secured the imperial decree of November 18, 1895, by which women were admitted to the universities of Klausenburg and Budapest (to the philosophical and medical faculties). It was now necessary to prepare women for the entrance examinations (_Abiturientenexamen_). This was undertaken by the "General Hungarian Woman's Club" (_Allgemeine ungarische Frauenverein_). With the aid of Dr. Beothy, a lecturer at the University of Budapest, the club formulated a programme that was accepted by the Minister of Public Instruction. By the rescript of July 18, 1896, he authorized the establishment of a girls' gymnasium in Budapest. It is evident that such reforms, when in the hands of _intelligent_ authorities, are put into working order as easily as a letter pa.s.ses through the mails.

In the professional callings we find 15 women druggists, 10 women doctors, and one woman architect. Erica Paulus, who has chosen the calling of architect (which elsewhere in Europe has hardly been opened to women), is a Transylvanian. Among other things she has been given the supervision of the masonry, the gla.s.swork, the roofing, and the interior decoration of the buildings of the Evangelical-Reformed College in Klausenburg. A second woman architect, trained in the Budapest technical school, is a builder in Besztercze.

Higher education of women was promoted in the cities, the home industries of the Hungarian rural districts were fostered. This was taken up by the "Rural Woman's Industry Society" (_Landes-Frauenindustrieverein_). Ap.r.o.ns, carpets, textile fabrics, slippers, tobacco pouches, whip handles, and ornamental chests are made artistically according to antique models (this movement is a.n.a.logous to that in Scandinavia). Large expositions aroused the interest of the public in favor of the national products, for the disposal of which the women of the society have labored with enthusiasm.

These home industries give employment to about 750,000 women (and 40,000 men).

Hungary is preeminently an agricultural country and its wages are low. The promotion of home industry therefore had a great economic importance, for Hungary is a center of traffic in girls. A great number of these poor ignorant country girls, reared in oriental stupor, congregate in Budapest from all parts of Hungary and the Balkan States, to be bartered to the brothels of South America as "Madjarli and Hungara."[79] An address that Miss Coote of the "International Vigilance Society" delivered in Budapest resulted in the founding of the "Society for Combating the White Slave Trade." The committee was composed of Countess Czaky, Baroness Wenckheim, Dr. Ludwig Gruber (royal public prosecutor), Professor Vambery, and others. The recent Draconic regulation of prost.i.tution in Pest (1906) caused the Federation of Hungarian Women's Clubs to oppose the official regulation of prost.i.tution, and to form a department of morals, which is to be regarded as the Hungarian branch of the International Federation for the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prost.i.tution. Since then, public opinion concerning the question has been aroused; the laws against the white slave traffic have been made more stringent and are being more rigidly enforced.

A new development in Hungary is the woman's suffrage movement (since 1904), represented in the "Feminist Society" (_Feministenverein_). During the past five years the society has carried on a vigorous propaganda in Budapest and various cities in the provinces (in Budapest also with the aid of foreign women speakers); recently the society has also roused the countrywomen in favor of the movement. Woman's suffrage is opposed by the Clericals and the _Social-Democrats_, who favor only male suffrage in the impending introduction of universal suffrage[80]. On March 10, 1908, a delegation of woman's suffrage advocates went to the Parliament. During the suffrage debates the women held public meetings.

From the work of A. v. Maclay, _Le droit des femmes au travail_, I take the following statements: According to the industrial statistics of 1900 there were 1,819,517 women in Hungary engaged in agriculture. Industry, mining, and transportation engaged 242,951; state and munic.i.p.al service, and the liberal callings engaged 36,870 women. There were 109,739 women day laborers; 350,693 domestic servants; 24,476 women pursued undefined or unknown callings; 83,537 women lived on incomes from their property. Since 1890 the number of women engaged in all the callings has increased more rapidly than the number of men (26.3 to 27.9 per cent being the average increase of the women engaged in gainful pursuits). In 1900 the women formed 21 per cent of the industrial population. They were engaged chiefly in the manufacture of pottery (29 per cent), bent-wood furniture (46 per cent), matches (58 per cent), clothing (59 per cent), textiles (60 per cent). In paper making and bookbinding 68 per cent of the laborers are women. In the state mints 25 per cent of the employees are women; the state tobacco factories employ 16,720 women, these being 94 per cent of the total number of employees. Of those engaged in commerce 23 per cent are women.

The number of women engaged in the civil service (as private secretaries) and in the liberal callings has increased even more than the number of women engaged in industry. The women engaged in office work have organized. In 1901 the number of women public school teachers was 6529 (there being 22,840 men), _i.e._ 22.22 per cent were women. In the best public schools there are more women teachers than men, the proportion being 62 to 48; in the girls' high schools there are 273 women teachers to 145 men teachers. In 1903 the railroads employed 511 women; in 1898 the postal service employed 4516 women; in 1899 the telephone system employed 207 women (and 81 men). These women employees, unlike those of Austria, are permitted to marry.

CHAPTER II

THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES

In the Romance countries the woman's rights movement is hampered by Romance customs and by the Catholic religion. The number of women in these countries is in many cases smaller than the number of men. In general, the girls are married at an early age, almost always through the negotiations of the parents. The education of women is in some respects very deficient.

FRANCE

Total population: 38,466,924.

Women: 19,346,369.

Men: 18,922,651.

Federation of French Women's Clubs.

Woman's Suffrage League.

The European woman's rights movement was born in France; it is a child of the Revolution of 1789. When a whole country enjoys freedom, equality, and fraternity, woman can no longer remain in bondage. The Declaration of the Rights of Man apply to Woman also. The European woman's rights movement is based on purely logical principles; not, as in the United States, on the practical exercise of woman's right to vote. This purely theoretical origin is not denied by the advocates of the woman's rights movement in France. It ought to be mentioned that the principles of the woman's rights movement were brought from France to England by Mary Wollstonecraft, and were stated in her pamphlet, _A Vindication of the Rights of Women_. But enthusiastic Mary Wollstonecraft did not form a school in England, and the organized English woman's rights movement did not cast its lot with this revolutionist. What Mary Wollstonecraft did for England, Olympe de Gouges did for France in 1789; at that time she dedicated to the Queen her little book, _The Declaration of the Rights of Women_ (_La declaration des droits des femmes_). It happened that The Declaration of the Rights of Man (_La declaration des droits de l'homme_) of 1789 referred only to the men. The National a.s.sembly recognized only male voters, and refused the pet.i.tion of October 28, 1789, in which a number of Parisian women demanded universal suffrage in the election of national representatives. Nothing is more peculiar than the att.i.tude of the men advocates of liberty toward the women advocates of liberty. At that time woman's struggle for liberty had representatives in all social groups. In the aristocratic circles there was Madame de Stael, who as a republican (her father was Swiss) never doubted the equality of the s.e.xes; but by her actions showed her belief in woman's right to secure the highest culture and to have political influence. Madame de Stael's social position and her wealth enabled her to spread these views of woman's rights; she was never dependent on the men advocates of freedom. Madame Roland was typical of the educated republican bourgeoisie. She partic.i.p.ated in the revolutionary drama and was a "political woman." On the basis of historical doc.u.ments it can be a.s.serted that the men advocates of freedom have not forgiven her.

The intelligent people of the lower cla.s.ses are represented by Olympe de Gouges and Theroigne de Mericourt. Both played a political role; both were woman's rights advocates; of both it was said that they had forgotten the virtues of their s.e.x,--modesty and submissiveness. The men of freedom still thought that the home offered their wives all the freedom they needed. The populace finally made demonstrations through woman's clubs.