The Woman and the Right to Vote

Part 1

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Philippine Senate Fifth Philippine Legislature First Session The Woman and the Right to Vote

Address Delivered By

Hon. Rafael Palma Senator for the Fourth District

In support of Bill No. 23 of the Senate in the sessions held by said body on the 22d and 25th of November, 1919

Manila Bureau of Printing 1919

THE WOMAN AND THE RIGHT TO VOTE

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Senate:

I have seldom felt so proud of being a representative of the people as now, when it gives me an opportunity to advocate a cause which can not be represented or defended in this chamber by those directly and particularly affected by it, owing to the leven of prejudice that the beliefs and ideas of the past have left in the mind of modern man. The cause of female suffrage is one sure to strike a sympathetic chord in every unprejudiced man, because it represents the cause of the weak who, deprived of the means to defend themselves, are compelled to throw themselves upon the mercy of the strong.

But it is not on this account alone that this cause has my sympathy and appeals to me. It has, besides, the irresistible attraction of truth and justice, which no open and liberal mind can deny. If our action as legislators must be inspired by the eternal sources of right, if the laws passed here must comply with the divine precept to give everybody his due, then we can not deny woman the right to vote, because to do otherwise would be to prove false to all the precepts and achievements of democracy and liberty which have made this century what may be properly called the century of vindication.

Female suffrage is a reform demanded by the social conditions of our times, by the high culture of woman, and by the aspiration of all classes of society to organize and work for the interests they have in common. We can not detain the celestial bodies in their course; neither can we check any of those moral movements that gravitate with irresistible force towards their center of attraction: Justice. The moral world is governed by the same laws as the physical world, and all the power of man being impotent to suppress a single molecule of the spaces required for the gravitation of the universe, it is still less able to prevent the generation of the ideas that take shape in the mind and strive to attain to fruition in the field of life and reality.

It is an interesting phenomenon that whenever an attempt is made to introduce a social reform, in accordance with modern ideas and tendencies and in contradiction with old beliefs and prejudices, there is never a lack of opposition, based on the maintenance of the statu quo, which it is desired to preserve at any cost. As was to be expected, the eternal calamity howlers and false prophets of evil raise their fatidical voices on this present occasion, in protest against female suffrage, invoking the sanctity of the home and the necessity of perpetuating customs that have been observed for many years.

Frankly speaking, I have no patience with people who voice such objections. If this country had not been one of the few privileged places on our planet where the experiment of a sudden change of institutions and ideals has been carried on most successfully, without paralyzation or retrogression, disorganization or destruction, I would say that the apprehension and fears of those who oppose this innovation might be justified.

However, in less than a generation our country, shaken to its very foundations by the great social upheavals known as revolutions, has seen its old institutions crumble to pieces and other, entirely new institutions rise in their place; it has seen theories, beliefs, and codes of ethics, theretofore looked upon as immovable, give way to different principles and methods based upon democracy and liberty, and despite all those upheavals and changes which have brought about a radical modification in its social and political structure, or rather in consequence of the same, our people has become a people with modern thoughts and modern ideals, with a constitution sufficiently robust and strong to withstand the ravages of the struggle for existence, instead of remaining a sickly and atrophied organism, afraid of everything new and opposed to material struggles from fear of the wrath of Heaven and from a passive desire to live in an ideal state of peace and well-being.

In view of the fruitful results which those institutions of liberty and democracy have brought to our country; and considering the marked progress made by us, thanks to these same institutions, in all the orders of national life, in spite of a few reactionists and ultra-conservatives, who hold opinions to the contrary and regret the past, I do not and can not, understand how there still are serious people who seriously object to the granting of female suffrage, one of the most vivid aspirations now agitating modern society.

I remember very well that in the past, not so very long ago, the same apprehension and fears were felt with regard to higher education for our women. How ridiculous--the same people argued--is it for woman to study history, mathematics, philosophy, and chemistry, which are not only superior to the assimilating power of her deficient brain, but will make her presumptuous and arrogant and convert her into a hybrid being without grace or strength, intolerable and fatuous, with a beautiful, but empty head and a big, but dry heart! However, we admitted the women to our high schools and universities and made it possible for them to attain to the degree of bachelor of arts and graduate in law, medicine, and other professions. Can it be said that those women have perverted the homes of their parents or that, when they married, they were a source of disgrace or scandal to their husbands? We are now able to observe the results, and if these results are found to be detrimental to the social and political welfare of the country, it is our duty to undo what we have done and to return to where we were before.

Fortunately, nobody would think of such a thing. From the most cultured centers of population to the remotest villages, public opinion fervently approves and applauds the education of women, and even the most backward peasants send their daughters to the cities and go to the greatest sacrifices imaginable in order to make it possible for them to ascend to the highest pinnacles of knowledge. Though ignorant rustics, they reason in their own rude way that woman and man are made of the same clay, and refuse to believe that because it has been their fate to have daughters instead of sons, they must condemn them to bear the chains of ignorance, incapacitating them from being useful to their families, society, and their country.

Education has not atrophied or impaired any of the fundamental faculties of woman; on the contrary, it has enhanced and enriched them. Far from being a constant charge to the family, the educated woman has often been its sustain and support in times of great need. The educated woman has not become a blue-stocking, that fatuous creature imagined by certain elements, nor has she lost any of her feminine charms by being able to argue and discuss on every subject with the men. On the contrary, it seems to lend her an additional grace and charm, because she understands us better and can make herself better understood. Thank God, people are no longer ready to cast ridicule upon what some used to consider the foolish presumption of women to know as much as the men, and this is doubtless due to the fact that the disastrous results predicted by the calamity howlers, the terrible prophets of failure, have not materialized.

Very well; if you allow the instruction and education of woman in all the branches of science, you must allow woman to take on her place not only in domestic life, but also in social and public life. Instruction and education have a twofold purpose; individually, they redeem the human intellect from the perils of ignorance, and socially they prepare man and woman for the proper performance of their duties of citizenship. A person is not educated exclusively for his or her own good, but principally to be useful and of service to the others. Nothing is more dangerous to society than the educated man who thinks only of himself, because his education enables him to do more harm and to sacrifice everybody else to his convenience or personal ambition. The real object of education is public service, that is, to utilize the knowledge one has acquired for the benefit and improvement of the society in which one is living.

In societies, therefore, where woman is admitted to all the professions and where no source of knowledge is barred to her, woman must necessarily and logically be allowed to take a part in the public life, otherwise, her education would be incomplete or society would commit an injustice towards her, giving her the means to educate herself and then depriving her of the necessary power to use that education for the benefit of society and collective progress.

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