different.

And she tries to ease a world-old human curse by imitating the
occupations, points of views, and methods of a radically different
being. Can she realize her quest in this way? Generally speaking,
nothing is more wasteful in human operations than following a course
which is not native and spontaneous, not according to the law of the
being.

If she demonstrates her points, successfully copies man's activities,
can she impress her program on any great body of women? The mass of
women believe in their task. Its importance is not capable of argument
in their minds. Nor do they see themselves dwarfed by their business.
They know instinctively that under no other circumstances can such
ripeness and such wisdom be developed, that nowhere else is the full
nature called upon, nowhere else are there such intricate, delicate,
and intimate forces in play, calling and testing them.

To bear and to rear, to feel the dependence of man and child--the
necessity for themselves--to know that upon them depend the health,
the character, the happiness, the future of certain human beings--to
see themselves laying and preserving the foundations of so imposing a
thing as a family--to build so that this family shall become a strong
stone in the state--to feel themselves through this family
perpetuating and perfecting church, society, republic,--this is their
destiny,--this is worth while. They may not be able to state it, but
all their instincts and experiences convince them of the supreme and
eternal value of their place in the world. They dare not tamper with
it. Their opposition to the militant program badly and even cruelly
expressed at times has at bottom, as an opposition always has, the
principle of preservation. It is not bigotry or vanity or a petty
notion of their own spheres which has kept the majority of women from
lending themselves to the radical wing of the woman's movement. It is
fear to destroy a greater thing which they possess. The fear of change
is not an irrational thing--the fear of change is founded on the risk
of losing what you have, on the certainty of losing much temporarily
at least. It sees the cost, the ugly and long period of transition.

Moreover, respect for your calling brings patience with its burden and
its limitations. The change you desire you work for conservatively, if
at all. The women who opposed the first movement for women's rights in
this country might deplore the laws that gave a man t