THE GIRL OF TO-DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 224, 20 September 1924, Page 22

THE GIRL OF TO-DAY.

The young woman of to-day can be I in no danger of imagining she is a saint. 1 Not if she reads. For it is not only the Aunt Tabitiias of our generation who tell us they never did so. There has arisen among ua a new race of prophets, . confident ladies and gentlemen who fore- j tell the future as easily as ordinary j mortals drink tea. And, curiously enough, these people have got it into their pows that their mission in life is to reform modern woman. With a fine gesture they give us to understand that they will never rest satisfied until you and. I and the girl over the way are built like angels, j or what they consider to be angels. j And, according to their way of it, j modern woman is going to the bad, ■ quickly. With dope and sport, with j education and independence, with cosmetics and love of finery, with votes and ! the desire for power, she is dancing i down the broad road over wliich there j is no returning. Woman shattering the peace and sanctity of the home, and— this the unkindest cut of all—woman pervertedly and wickedly and working for financial independence. It is useless, dear madam, quite useless for you to point out that you work j as hard and harder than your mother j or grandmother did before you; that you ! do not drink or dope or gamble, nor do j you know any woman who does; that j dances and theatre parties and other | pleasant frivolities lie far enough apart in your life for each to win an anticipatory thrill and a backward bow of thanks; that you find, especially since the Great Peace, a marked absence of young men, chivalrous or otherwise, i offering themselves as husbands, and that you earn your own living because nobody has offered to do it for you. The cream of the jest for us, of. course (■writes Bean Denholm), is that thousands of nice men think they believe I all the rubbish that is written about us. They fume and snort, and get quite J worked up over articles about women I smoking in public or golfing in plus fours. ; .They will tell you, of course, that their j women folk are all right and that their i daughter is coming out for a doctor because she is a particularly bright girl, but as regards women in general, and their ongoings, they think it is high time something was done about it. The poor dears really think they would like us to be the backboneless, under-educated, oversexed, unhealthy, parasite creatures they admire in the abstract. But we know different. Can you imagine a young man's face •if hia wife or his fiancee suddenly developed the traits he long for? If she could not play golf because the grass was damp, or tennis because it was too violent an exercise and the sun might coarsen her skin? If she preferred not to go walking with him because walking tired her, and told him gently but firmly that she did not consider a public dancing hall or a vaudeville theatre a nice place for him to take her? Or a middle-aged man's feelings if his wife suggested that they keep their five strapping daughters quietly sheltered at home on on allowance for dress and pin money, instead of sending them out into the rough and tumble of the market place to earn their bed and keep. Now I know very well that people who feel their mission in life is to give advice to others are not likely to take kindly to someone giving it to them for a change, but even, at the risk of incurring wrath I will venture to make a suggestion. Why should not the prophets change their tactics? They might get better results. Why not a complete volte face, so that woman, like the contrary creature we are told she is, might become angelic through being told she is angelic. Auto-suggestion practised by the strong for the benefit of the weak. Then you and I might open our favourite paper or magazine and road with pleasant surprise a brilliant article from the pen of young Mr. So-and-So congratulating our sex on the fact that it never tightlaces nowadays or gives way to the "vapoors," or a contribution cal-j ling attention to the fact that woman is healthier in mind and body than she .ever was before, and so on. Can't you hear the indignant chorus from the prophets, united for once, "Yes; we have: no intention of taking .your advice?"