Moving the Mountain Quotes

“That is the worst of it,” he said. “There isn’t any.” I sat up. I stood up. I walked up and down. “No prostitution! I— I can’t believe it. Why, prostitution is a social necessity, as old as Nineveh!”. Owen laughed outright. “Too late, old man; too late ! I know we used to think so. We did use to call it a ‘social necessity,’ didn’t we ? Come, now, tell me what necessity it was to the women?” I stopped my march and looked at him. “To the women,” he repeated. “What did they want of prostitution? What good did it do them?” “Why — why — they made a living at it,” I replied, rather lamely. “Yes, a nice, honorable, pleasant, healthy living, didn’t they? With all women perfectly well able to earn an excellent living decently; with all women fully educated about these matters and knowing what a horrible death was before them in this business; with all women brought up like human beings and not like over-sexed female animals, and with all women quite free to marry if they wished to — how many, do you think, would choose that kind of business ? “We never waited for them to choose it, remember ! We fooled them and lied to them and dragged them in — and drove them in — forced them in — and kept them as slaves and prisoners. They didn’t really enjoy the life; you know that. Why should they go into it if they do not have to — to accommodate us?”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Moving the Mountain