Hear Ellen Key:--
"Doing away with an unjust paragraph in a law which concerns woman,
turning a hundred women into a field of work where only ten were
occupied before, giving one woman work where formerly not one was
employed--these are the mile-stones in the line of progress of the
woman's rights movement. It is a line pursued without consideration
of feminine capacities, nature and environment.
"The exclamation of a woman's rights champion when another woman
had become a butcher, 'Go thou and do likewise,' and an American
young lady working as an executioner, are, in this connection,
characteristic phenomena.
"In our programme of civilization, we must start out with the
conviction that motherhood is something essential to the nature of
woman, and the way in which she carries out this profession is of
value for society. On this basis we must alter the conditions which
more and more are robbing woman of the happiness of motherhood and
are robbing children of the care of a mother.
"I am in favour of real freedom for woman; that is, I wish her to
follow her own nature, whether she be an exceptional or an ordinary
woman ... I recognize fully the right of the feminine individual to
go her own way, to choose her own fortune or misfortune. I have
always spoken of women collectively and of society collectively.
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