representative of what? of the common will, they say; the will of the
majority;--never thinking that it is the common good, the common
welfare, that government should represent.

It is the inextricable masculinity in our idea of government which so
revolts at the idea of women as voters. "To govern:" that means to
boss, to control, to have authority; and that only, to most minds. They
cannot bear to think of the woman as having control over even their own
affairs; to control is masculine, they assume. Seeing only
self-interest as a natural impulse, and the ruling powers of the state
as a sort of umpire, an authority to preserve the rules of the game
while men fight it out forever; they see in a democracy merely a wider
range of self interest, and a wider, freer field to fight in.

The law dictates the rules, the government enforces them, but the main
business of life, hitherto, has been esteemed as one long fierce
struggle; each man seeking for himself. To deliberately legislate for
the service of all the people, to use the government as the main engine
of that service, is a new process, wholly human, and difficult of
development under an androcentric culture.

Furthermore they put forth those naively androcentric protests,--women
cannot fight, and in case their laws were resisted by men they could not
enforce them,--_therefore_ they should not vote!

What they do not so plainly say, but very strongly think, is that women
should not share the loot which to their minds is so large a part of
politics.

Here we may trace clearly the social heredity of male government.