I see male and female everywhere,
The female equally with the male I sing,
I know that the woman is to be equal to the man,
And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the other.
I have been asked, Which is the greater, the man or the woman?
Yes, I tell you, with the same answer that I tell whether time is greater than space.

A man is a great thing upon the earth and through eternity,
But it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
The daughter, and she is just as good as the son,
The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father,
The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband.

They are not one jot less than I am,
They are tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
They are ultimate in their own right,
They are calm, clear, well-possess’d of themselves. 

The woman is not less than the man, but she is never the same;
Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best womanhood?
The gross and soiled she moves among do not make her gross and soiled,
She knows the thoughts as she passes, nothing is conceal’d from her,
She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor,
She is the best-beloved, it is without exception,
She has no reason to fear, and she does not fear.
Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp’d songs, smutty expressions, are idle to her as she passes,
She is silent, she is possessed of herself, they do not offend her,
She receives them as the laws of nature receive them, she is strong,
She too is a law of nature—there is no law stronger than she is.

As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,
The female I see,
She is both passive and active,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance.

Have I not said that womanhood involves all?
The female contains all qualities and tempers them—she is all things duly veil’d,
The creation is womanhood, mistress and source of all,
Whence life and love and aught that comes from life and love.
Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

Now comes a new age, new recognitions—the age of the mothers—
Bearers of children, tender helpers of children,
Greater than man through their divine maternity, always their towering, emblematical attribute;
Nothing is greater than to conceive children—to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters—and bring them up well.

Unfolded out of the folds of the woman man comes unfolded, and is always to come unfolded,
First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself,
Every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman—
Unfolded out of the folds of the woman’s brain come all the folds of the man’s brain, duly obedient,
Unfolded out of the justice of the woman all justice is unfolded,
Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy.

If the woman have not the grand attributes in herself, the man cannot have them afterwards,
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth is to come the superbest man of the earth,
Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman can a man be form’d of perfect body,
Unfolded out of the friendliest woman is to come the friendliest man,
Unfolded only out of the inimitable poems of woman can come the poems of man, (only thence have my poems come.)

Oh! I think the sweetest, sanest, perfectest, whollest, majesticest of all characters are the mothers of children,
Patient, considerate, self-denying, mother!
The mother of many children,
Unspeakable is the charm of her illuminated face,
She beams sunshine out of all these duties, and makes them illustrious,
She is clean and sweet and simple with immortal health.

O the mothers’ joys!
In them, and of them, natal love—in them that divine mystery, the same old beautiful mystery.
The mother with mild words, clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by,
The limitless sweet love and precious suffering of mothers,
The watching—the endurance—the precious love—the anguish—the patiently yielded life—
The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go, and does not wish to go,
The justified mother of men. 

It is lucky for me if I take after the women in my ancestry, as I hope I do. They were so superior, so truly the more pregnant forces in our family history.
My darling dear mother, she and I—oh! we have been great chums, always next to each other, always. How much I owe her! It could not be measured—be put even in the best words. She had great faith in me—felt sure I would accomplish wonderful things. “Leaves of Grass” is the flower of her temperament active in me.
(But she stood before “Leaves of Grass” mystified, defeated. She would put her hand in mine—press my hand—look at me—all as if to say it was all right though in some ways beyond her power to explain.) 

Thanks be most to the mother, that greater, more important individual,
Blessed is the home, blessed are the children, where such as you are found,
Envelop’d in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
Who knows through the centuries what heroes may come from you?

It would seem about time to dwell upon the lives of noble big women. History teems with accounts of big men, but the women go unmentioned. I have in mind the noble plain women I have met—many of them—mothers of families, mistresses of households, on farms, in the villages—marvellous managers, tender, wise, pure, high—the salt of our civilization. How much they deserve! 

You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks, often it has come to me, the brutishness that gives man any monopoly he chooses with woman—that excites in him such a passion, frenzy, of monopoly, as breaks and wrecks her best sympathies and hopes.
You womanhood divine, do you suppose you have nothing waiting for yourselves to do, but to embroider, to clean, to be respectable and modest, and not swear or drink? I consider it the glory of this age that it dares throw off restrictions—throws them right and left—demands to go free. And this freedom must be for the women as well as the men. 

I expect to see the time in politics, business, public gatherings, processions, when women shall not be divided from men, but shall take their part on the same terms as men, both sexes teaching, commanding, equally electing and elective.
Women approach the day of that organic equality with man, where women walk in public processions in the streets the same as the men,
Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men,
Erecting therefor a lofty and hitherto unoccupied framework or platform,
Broad enough for all, the female equally with the male—
Without which, I see, men cannot have organic equality among themselves. 

Women shall mix in healthy games, the same as men,
Run, leap, ride, swim, play at outdoor plays, the same as men,
(Women can have capital times among themselves, with plenty of wit and jovial abandon,)
Great, at any rate, as man, in all departments—
Or, rather, capable of being so, soon as they realize it. 

O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Experienced sisters and inexperienced sisters!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
By my side or back of me Eve following,
Or in front, and I following her just the same.

To the movement for the eligibility and entrance of women amid new spheres of business, politics, and the suffrage, the current prurient, conventional treatment of sex is the main formidable obstacle. Why should there be these modesties and prohibitions that keep women from strong actual life? Most of what is called delicacy is filthy, or sick, and unworthy of a woman of live rosy body and a clean affectionate spirit.
Only when sex is properly treated, talked, avowed, accepted, will the woman be equal with the man, and meet his words with her words, and his rights with her rights.
I only feel sure of one thing: that we won’t go back, that the women will take care of sex things—make them what they choose—man has very little to do with it except to conform. 

Woman portray’d or outlin’d at her best, or as perfect human mother, does not hitherto, it seems to me, fully appear in literature. I look to see woman take her place in literature, in art—show what are her innate potencies, powers, attributes.
A new founded literature is what is needed, achieving the entire redemption of woman out of these incredible holds and webs of silliness, millinery, and every kind of dyspeptic depletion—and thus insuring a strong and sweet female race, a race of perfect mothers. New words are needed to answer the modern, rapidly spreading faith of the vital equality of women with men, and that they are to be placed on an exact plane, politically, socially, and in business, with men.
“Leaves of Grass” is essentially a woman’s book. It speaks out the necessities, its cry is the cry of the right and wrong of the woman sex—of the woman first of all.

NEXT: JUSTICE FOR BLACK SLAVES AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

The texts in this anthology should NOT be cited as direct quotations from Whitman. If you want to quote from this site for something you are writing or posting, please read this first (click here).