Fatherhood Cannot Be MotherhoodBy Ada M. Kassimer(From Introduction to “Representative Women.”)
By Ada M. Kassimer
(From Introduction to “Representative Women.”)
Womanhood now as always recognizes motherhood as its highest duty, its greatest obligation; and the present awakened womanhood sees its mission of motherhood—not only in the narrowed home immediately about it, but in the large human family, in the world of activity, it sees how the affairs of men, women and children need the true mother instinct, which in every phase of nature is one of unselfish devotion, of unlimited service, of freedom from combat for financial, social and personalsupremacy. The inherent attributes of motherhood must combine with those of fatherhood to square the balance of justice for childhood.
The world needs woman, her ideas, her way of reasoning, her insight, her sense of justice, her tender hands and her loving heart. The children of the world need her; for a long time they have been governed by the masculine mind which has made laws for them, established educational plans for them, opened juvenile courts for them, founded factories, mills, mines, in which little hands have hardened, little bodies have dwarfed, young minds and hearts grown prematurely old—and this, not because the masculine mind and the masculine heart would intentionally be drastic, but because men are not women, and fatherhood cannot be motherhood.