What Women Should Know/Introduction

The writer of this book—a book designed for women exclusively—is a woman, a wife and a mother. These facts alone, with the experiences they involve, seem to give her qualifications for the work she has undertaken superior, in many respects, to those possessed by any man, professional or otherwise. She has passed through all or nearly all the experiences possible to a woman in the exercise of the maternal functions—passed through them with thought and watchfulness, taking careful note of everything, in an earnest endeavor to acquire a knowledge that might be of benefit both to herself and to others of her sex. She has felt, observed, reflected and studied. The conclusions arrived at are so different, in some respects, from those recorded by the majority of writers on the subjects indicated, that, impressed as she is with their absolute correctness, she has felt it her duty, in a measure, to make them public.

The larger class of writers in regard to womanly ​functions, capabilities and incapabilities, have been men. From Michelet, who regards the normal state of womanhood as one of pretty and useless invalidism, to the unnumbered hosts of English and American authors and essayists, they all set up before us a purely ideal creation, eliminated from their masculine brains, and differing as widely from the reality as—well, say, as man from woman.

Michelet's idea of the invalidism and mental and physical incapacity of woman, however absurd and ridiculous it may appear in his statement of it, is, after all, the masculine idea, and is present in essence, at least, in most masculine writings. Even social and political questions in which the interests of women are involved cannot be discussed without this [assumed] invalidism being thrown at our heads. We are expected to relapse into silence and submission at the slightest hint of it, partly overcome by modesty, and partly by the [equally assumed] unanswerableness of the charge.

Men have had their say. It is but fitting now that a woman should have hers, especially as the woman, who assumes to speak does so with an authority man cannot venture to claim.

But another—and, I hope, my strongest—motive for writing is the desire to bring some message of relief ​to suffering womanhood—to womanhood suffering unnecessarily through ignorance and the perverted teachings of others.

This has been called, and not without reason, "the woman's century." Women are striving to do, and claiming the right to do, many things that have heretofore been considered entirely beyond their physical and mental capabilities. Even the most reluctant conservatism is gradually yielding, not so much to the force of their arguments as to the convincing power of their acts, which speak louder than words.

It is not my purpose, in this book, to indulge in any discussion in regard to women's right to enter any field of labor they may see fit to select. My aim is, rather, while making this a complete handbook of general knowledge for women concerning all the special physical functions of their sex, to try to find what bearing these functions, and the duties resulting from their exercise, have upon the ambitions and desires of the representative women of to-day.

One fact all candid women will admit, that their sex now labors under physical disabilities which, if no means be discovered for their removal, must prove an effectual bar to any general prosecution of the plans devised for woman by those who are seeking to ameliorate her condition. Mentally, too, as well as ​physically, our women and girls fall far below the standard they should reach. To tell the truth, when I think over all their shortcomings, I am ashamed of them. Now, please do not set this down as an especial disparagement of my sex. No doubt were I to give an equal amount of thought and consideration to the failings of men, I should be equally ashamed. But it is women of whom and to whom I am now talking, and men may go unmolested for the present.

However, when I see the frivolity and narrowmindedness so often exhibited by women; when so many evidences of their general ill-health meet my observation on every side; it does not seem strange to me that conservatism, as regarding the widening of "woman's sphere," should find so many champions, and such apparently strong arguments upon which to base its objections. It is only when these champions insist upon making this weakness of mind and body constitutional—something inherent in the sex—that I become exasperated. And this exasperation, so long felt, so frequently provoked to activity, I may give as an additional and by no means slight motive to the writing of the present book.