Reviews

The Future of the Women's Movement by Helena Swanwick

djoshuva's review

5.0

"Some of us do not like change. When did older people ever like change? Change implies thinking, and if there is one thing the majority of people hate more than another it is thinking. There is always in most of us a pathetic hope that some day we shall come to a state where the machinery of life will go of itself and we shall be safe and free from the necessity—so exhausting—of eternal vigilance. Free also from the terrible necessity of judging for ourselves and from the difficult task of loving our neighbour as ourselves. But those who hate change—the catlike people with whom I have every sympathy—should ask themselves, “Am I going to stop just here? And, if so, why? Is this really the warmest, prettiest spot, and is there room for the others here?” Most people who know even a corner of life, as it is for the less fortunate, would admit that the present does not offer the most perfect conditions imaginable for all. “But it might be worse, and so we will not move, for fear of worse befalling. All the efforts of our forefathers, all their mistakes and sacrifices and heroisms we will accept, but this generation will not add one brave deed to the record of time.” If this opinion were universal, this generation would be dead, and rotting fast."