Misuse of Freedom by Women

A free man or woman is one who can dispose of his or her person without let or hindrance, without reference to any master. If you, being a woman, resolved to be free in this social sense, to go out into the world as a woman in freedom, how would it fare with you?
For a time you might wander unhindered, elated by thoughts of liberty, but very soon you would find that you cannot dwell forever on the heights. Let us suppose that you feel tired and that you enter a tea-shop in default of a better place of rest. The shop looks sordid and dingy, and you shudder slightly as a vision of true repose comes to mind – something with green fields and running water and the scent of grass and flowers in it. But, alas! you are not free to that extent; here there are no Elysian fields – here is London with all its dreary grey buildings and endless discomfort. So you enter the shop. A pale, grim young woman comes up as you choose a seat, and asks what she will bring. You desire only rest, but once more you are reminded that you are not free to choose; rest of a kind you may have, but at the same time tea and buns will be forced upon you. You settle yourself in your uncomfortable corner, sip some of the nasty tea, taste a bun, and ruminate dubiously about your determination to be free. The grim young woman presently brings the bill for tea and cakes, and you realise in a flash that here again in the person of the shop-girl is a limitation of freedom – you are not free from her. To the extent that your needs have been satisfied by her service, to this extent your life is dependent upon that service. At this point where you and she have met in life, the one as receiver and the other as the giver of service, each is to a certain degree dependent upon the other.
And in a flash you recognise the social nature of freedom: how none stands alone in life, but the life of each is dependent upon the lives of others and affected by the lives of others; how the poor are dependent upon the