An “Emancipated” Womanhood – Sunday, May 09, 1943
Each year, on this second Sunday of May, a nation pauses from its hurried and sometimes thoughtless ways, to do honor to its mothers. It is an occasion for the outpouring of sentiments and thoughts which are always close to our hearts, but which all too often fail to find outward expression. But today we should like to look for a moment beneath the surface of sentiment, to consider an insistent question: Woman’s struggle against discrimination has been a long, stubbornly contested crusade.
From being inventoried among the properties of man to being accounted equal with him in legal, social, and professional rights is a distance that has been traveled uphill, consuming generations of time, and necessitating the overcoming of many traditional obstacles. But now the goal would seem suddenly to have come in sight. In much of the world at least, seemingly a woman can go anywhere her ability and persistence will take her, in the professions, the vocations, or in the civic life of the community. This is as it should be. That woman should occupy a place by the side of man, equal in the sphere for which she is qualified, is fundamental. But somehow the suggestion of a cloud seems to have appeared on the horizon. Is it possible that this new-found freedom has come so fast as to over-balance some of our thinking?
Is it possible that freedom to a certain well-known type of “emancipated” womanhood means the freedom of letting down—freedom to assume the vices as well as the privileges? There are some items of disturbing and highly accredited evidence that suggest such questioning. Whether it be blamable to war and all its consequences, or whether it be merely the acceleration of an already established trend, is perhaps a matter that remains to be decided, but whatever the causes, let it never be forgotten that equality of the sexes, a cardinal principal of an enlightened day, must necessarily imply equality on an ascending scale, and not a lowering of the standards of women.
The time-honored and protected status of womanhood must not be done away, and he who, for any cause whatsoever, would reduce the mothers and potential mothers of the race from their high pedestal or who would abolish any of the safeguards with which womanhood has been surrounded, has already paid an installment on future disaster. The emancipation of woman is fundamental to progress—but virtuous, intelligent, devoted motherhood is still woman’s highest obligation, most blessed privilege, and greatest career.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, May 9, 1943, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1943.
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May 09, 1943
Broadcast Number 0,716