Selected Writings of Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and Eugenics

Chapter Twenty: The Scare-Crows of Sexual Slavery

ChapterTwenty The Scare-Crows of Sexual Slavery This speech was delivered at the Silver Lake Camp Meeting of the American Society of Spiritualists in August 1873, when Victoria Woodhull was still president of the organization. As Mary Gabriel notes, while some responded well to the speech, “there was a growing faction of dissenters in the crowd who were not sure that Victoria C. Woodhull and her radical social theories were what the spiritualists needed” (Gabriel, Notorious Victoria, 215). The speech was published in Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly on September 27, 1873. The concluding paragraphs are omitted here. My Brothers and Sisters.— I am going to tell you some plain truths to-night. I know I shall not please all your ears. I value the good opinion of you all, but I value the truth more, and if to gain the former I must withhold one iota of the latterIshallfailinsecuring it.YourgoodopinionIcrave, forIfeelthat you are my friends—friends to the great human race, and he or she whoisthis,thoughtheyhatemewithadeadlyhatred,ismyfriend;but publicopinionIstampinthemud.Itisastenchinthenostrilsoftruth, forwhich,ifanycare,hemustsay,“Gettheebehindme,Satan!”1 Iwill not so much as vary a single hair’s breadth from what I conceive to be myduty,thoughpublicopinionshouldturnthefacesofeverymanand womanagainstme.Iwill speakthetruth,Iwill beheard; butyoumay kill me afterward if you will. I have but one sentiment in my soul, and thatistodowhatinmeliestoliftupthedown-troddenandenslavedof | 199 the scare-crows of sexual slavery earth,andtoinaugurateequalityandhappinessintheworld.Ihaveno kindred,lessthanthehumanrace,whodemandorcanhaveserviceof me. My life is dedicated to this work, and I come to you to speak such words as will make your souls sink in horror and your curses to rest upon yourselves, that you have so long quietly permitted these things to go on unrebuked. I would, if it were possible, wring from you the declaration that you would know no rest again until these wrongs be righted.Itmustcometothis.Theworldistobemadefreeandbeautiful, andhappybecauseso,andmethinksIcanseeinthenotdistantfuture, a time when misery and heartaches and poverty and all unhappiness shallbebanishedtheearth,andtheentirehumanfamily,bothinearth andspiritlife,fullyandharmoniouslyunited,singingthegladsongsof the redeemed. But before this can be, other and terrible things must be.Somuchsufferingasthesoul-sicksonsanddaughtersofearthnow suffer,cannotbetransformedtobrightandhappyconditions,without the atoning blood of, I had almost said, millions of martyr souls. Let thesacrificebewhatitmay,however,itmustbepaid,andheavenhelp all of them, who love their brothers and sisters all over the world, to endure what must be endured. Having thus briefly alluded to what I shall say to you, I will proceed to speak upon the scare-crows of sexual slavery IfastrangervisitthefarmingdistrictsoftheNewEnglandStatesinthe monthofJune,hewill observeinmany newly-planted corn-fields the most hideous-looking objects, fashioned after the human form. . . . But now observe upon what the efficiency of these men of straw depends.Theretheystandmotionless,withnotsomuchasthepowerto raiseahandforharmorgood;butthecrows,havingjustsenseenough toseeinthemtheresemblancetotheirgreatenemy—man—carefully avoid coming within their domain; and thusthroughignorance is the young corn saved. But scare-crows are found in other than corn fields, and for other purposesthantosaveyoungcorn.Theyarefoundinthereligiousfield. Those who have commanded here, in order to save their realm, hold up a hell-fire and the Old Nick himself as scare-crows, to prevent the 200 | the scare-crows of sexual slavery ignorant and the foolish from invading their possessions, or rather from exploring beyond them. . . . Inthefieldofpoliticstherearethesameclasswhoinventscare-crows withwhichtofoolthepeople—theirserfs—oneofthemostterribleof which,atthepresent,isthatofawomanvoting,andtheideaofjustice forindustry.Theseare,indeed,terrificsights,enoughtoblanchtheface of such as, all their lives, have lived under the rod of male domination andthemoneygod,andthebeliefthatmanisthenaturallordofcreation altogether,wheneverysensiblewomanknowsshebeliesherselfbythe admission, since she also should know that she may be the absolute monarch over man, able to compel him upon his knees to supplicate for,insteadofpresumingtograntfavor.Oh!woman,hastthounotyet learnedthysubtleyetpotentpower,thatthoudothstillgrovelinmean servility at the feet of thy serf, if thou wouldst have him so! This naturally introduces the social field, whose scare-crows it is our special province at this time to consider. I know them all to be “men of straw” merely, that the lightest puff, the slightest breath of truth will topple over and expose to the world, if it will but look on them as they fall. Before we begin this destruction, to pull them in pieces to learn of what they are made, let us if we can, and may, what is the occasion that has called the pretended lords of this field to erect them, and alsoforestall thecriticismthat wouldotherwisebeclutchedfromour simile of the corn field, the distinction to be made between which and the field of sexual freedom being this: While those who plant the corn and erect the straw men to preserve its growth in the former instance, in the latter, reverse the order. The enemy invade...