It is of no use to argue about this state of things. Facts are facts.
Men make no secret of the kind of women they want us to be. We get
preached at from pulpits and lectured at from platforms and written
about by "The Saunterer" and "The Man About Town" and "The One Who
Knows It All," telling us how to be womanly, how to look to please
men, how to behave to please men, and how to save our souls to please
men, until, if we were not a sweet, amiable set, we would rebel as a
sex and declare that we thought we were lovely just the way we were,
and that we were not going to change for anybody.

You lords of creation ought to be very complaisant, or else very much
ashamed of yourselves. You send in an order: "The kind of girl that I
like is a Methodist without bangs." And some nice girl begins to look
up Methodist tenets and buys invisible hairpins and side combs. Or you
say, "Give me an athletic girl." And, presto! some girl who would much
rather read buys a wheel, and learns golf, and lets out the waists to
her gowns, and revels in tan and freckles. We do what you men want us
to. And, then, when you complain about our lack of brains, that we
cannot discuss current events, and that you have to give us society
small-talk, I feel like saying: "Well, whose fault is it? If you
demand brains, we will cultivate them. If you want good looks, we will
try to scare up some. If you want nobility, we will let you know how
much we have concealed about us."

Often it is not that we are not secretly much more of women, and
better and cleverer women, than you think us. But there is no call for
such wares, so we lay character and brain on the shelves to mildew,
and fill the show-windows with confectionery and illusion. We supply
the demand. We always have supplied it, and we always will.