Ignored though it be by the feminist leaders, this is the first of
questions; and in so far as any clear opinion on it is emerging from the
welter of prejudices, that opinion is hitherto inimical to the feminist
claims. Most notably is this the case in America, where the dysgenic
consequences of the _so-called_ higher education of women have been
clearly demonstrated.
The mark of the following pages is that they assume the principle of
what we may call Eugenic Feminism, and that they endeavour to formulate
its working-out. It is my business to acquaint myself with the
literature of both eugenics and feminism, and I know that hitherto the
eugenists have inclined to oppose the claims of feminism, Sir Francis
Galton, for instance, having lent his name to the anti-suffrage side;
whilst the feminists, one and all, so far as Anglo-Saxondom is
concerned--for Ellen Key must be excepted--are either unaware of the
meaning of eugenics at all, or are up in arms at once when the
eugenist--or at any rate this eugenist, who is a male person--mildly
inquires: But what about motherhood? and to what sort of women are you
relegating it by default?
I claim, therefore, that there is immediate need for the presentation of
a case which is, from first to last, and at whatever cost, eugenic; but
which also--or, rather, therefore--makes the highest claims on behalf of
woman and womanhood, so that indeed, in striving to demonstrate the vast
importance of the woman question for the composition of the coming race,
I may claim to be much more feminist than the feminists.
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