submitting, but not _after_ they have gained a clear perception of the
intensity of those sufferings, for then the first stage of rebellion
has already begun. Not one of us who has grown to middle age but can
remember, looking back to her own girlhood, how meekly and as a matter
of course women of all classes accepted every sort of suffering as
part of the lot of woman, especially of the married woman, whether it
was excessive child-bearing, pain in childbirth, physical overwork,
or the mental suffering arising out of a penniless and dependent
condition, with the consequent absolute right of the husband to the
custody and control of the children of the union. And in all nations
and classes where this state of affairs still continues, the women
have as yet no clear intellectual perception of the keenness and
unfairness of their suffering. They still try to console themselves
with believing and allowing others to suppose that after all, things
are not so bad; they might be worse. These poor women actually
hypnotize themselves into such a belief.

Have you not heard a mother urge a daughter or a friend to submit
uncomplainingly to the most outrageous domestic tyranny, for is not
hers after all the common fate of woman?

No clear perception there!

This argument in no way touches the exceptional woman or man,
belonging to an oppressed class. Such a woman, for instance, as the
Kaffir woman spoken of by Olive Schreiner in this passage, is the rare
exception.

But so far Olive Schreiner is undoubtedly right. When the revolt at
length takes place it is in answer to an immediate and pressing need