WHY YOU NEED TO BE A FEMINIST

Do not think that I intend to repeat the thesis supported by the director, Mr. Guslave Téry; I simply want to show you that the forbidden fruits are not only the children that the law rejects in the name of morality, but all children, natural or supernatural, sorry! legitimate or illegitimate. Since the war ended, without peace being established, we only talk about repopulation and we complain bitterly that the number of births is constantly decreasing. Obviously it is. Women are solely responsible for this deplorable situation. Everyone knows that men have nothing to do with the depopulation crisis that is happening almost everywhere, but in France more than elsewhere! However, some of our readers are not entirely of this opinion and they ask me to make it known.

Women no longer want children, we constantly repeat, when it would be much more accurate to say: the French no longer want children. Understand this in the broadest sense. I do not need to recall the desire of owners to see their houses inhabited only by sterile households - this is not new, moreover; but now some bosses show the same phobia and do not hesitate to fire pregnant women who are on their staff.
On this subject, I was informed of an event which occurred to an officer of the justice system, and this is absolutely unacceptable. All those who legally enjoy a privileged situation should understand that they, more than anyone else, are prohibited from not fulfilling this social duty of protecting maternity. Since the law obliges the future mother to maintain a burden that is often very heavy, at least it would be fair, in compensation, to grant her some guarantee.

A letter from a civil servant shows that M, Ubureau is not always a round of leather as indifferent as he is ignorant. A man thought of the misery of abandoned mothers. War veterans receive, in addition to their pension, an allowance for their children. However, when the husband and wife are separated, in the process of divorcing or divorced, it is the man who always continues to receive what is given to him for his family, even if he forgets to pay the alimony that he he must judicially. Magistrates, anxious to ensure the lives of poor children, gave the mother the right to directly receive the additional allowance granted by the State; unfortunately, this measure not being strictly legal remains without effect. The children's share can only be given to a guardian, during the father's lifetime, if the latter has been deprived of paternal power. It is quite obvious that the right of custody conferred by the court on one of the separated or divorced spouses does not amount to forfeiture for the other, so that the administration finds itself, in order to respect the law, in the obligation not to execute a court decision.

What can we do about this? My correspondent indicates the remedy, after having pointed out the problem. He declares that a three-line text, stolen by Parliament, would be enough to make orders and judgments drawn up according to the strictest fairness enforceable. Certainly, but those of our parliamentarians who shout the loudest in favor of repopulation are far too busy propagating the idea of family voting to be interested in a question of such minimal importance. Let us hope, however, that we will find in the House or in the Senate one of our feminist friends who will be willing to take charge of submitting a proposal, which should be voted on quickly and without debate, unless our adversaries oppose the rights of the child with the rights of father.

Should we therefore be surprised that serious, honest, hard-working young girls hesitate when faced with the risks of marriage. If they did not want children, they would accept the hazard more easily, telling themselves that a single woman who is used to work always manages to get by; but it is because they want to start a family that a horrible and distressing question mark stands before them. What happens if you lose your job when you need money the most? What happens if the husband, tired of a life made difficult by the birth of several children, leaves for other, more joyful loves? What happens if the father leaves the mother alone to feed and raise the children? Who to complain to? Where to find support? since the law is made by man and for man.

Alas! alas! too many women today struggle, suffer and cry, for young girls not to say to themselves that, despite speeches, brochures and the distribution of virtue prizes, the child is for many a forbidden fruit, since it cannot can be, most of the time, more than a luxury item.

Maria Vérone, Présidente de la Ligue Française pour le Droit des Femmes.

NOTEBOOK OF A FEMINIST
The two morals

Two young girls were attacked on the same day this week on a road by a satyr. Reading this news item brings to mind the multitude of past and present victims of the same crime, and one wonders what civilization has done to protect women from it.
The answer is long: it is the whole history of morals, that of the harem, the cloister, chivalry, quintessential gallantry and... the white slave trade. On the one hand, we have sometimes sheltered female purity within walls, sometimes surrounded it with ideal defenses; on the other hand, dedicated, as compensation, a lot of women to the authorized impurity of men. Current opinion, even today, maintains the strange contradiction that, to teach men to respect women, certain women must be offered to them, like a commodity. No wonder their well-cultivated instincts become exasperated and often get lost among reserved hunting grounds. It is as if, to ensure respect for property, some properties were expressly abandoned to pillage, so that poor people maddened by covetousness would find an outlet for their attacks. Gribouille thus threw himself into the water to prevent the rain from getting him wet.

If this sophism only generated exceptional violence, it would be too much, much too much. But it does worse, it poisons the entire life of people. The licenses granted to half of the beings inevitably lead in the long run to general degeneration. If we want to stop the current debacle, it is time to invite men to come to the aid of women, who for a very long time have been left alone as guardians of morality.
And I see with joy that the idea of ordering chastity to young men as well as young girls is gaining ground since it came of its own accord to readers who write to me on this subject. We do not know enough that, for more than twenty years, the National Council of Women has been campaigning in France for what is called: "the unity of morality" that this principle is, moreover, at the basis of struggles against the regulation of prostitution; and that it gave birth to the project of introducing into education this “biological teaching” which will inform young people of their responsibilities regarding the transmission of life. It was a feminist deputy, Mr. Justin Godart, who, as a minister, did not hesitate to write in an instruction to soldiers: “Only imbeciles find chastity ridiculous. » —

JANE MISME