IS WOMAN TO OBTRUSIVE?

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 152, 29 June 1926, Page 8

IS WOMAN TO OBTRUSIVE?

DEBATE BY MAN AND WOMAN M.P.'S "Is woman becoming too obtrusive?" This was the subject of a discussion at the-London-School of Economics, Houghton Street, Aldwych, • between Major. Walter Elliot, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Health, Scotland, and Miss Ellen Wilkinson, the Socialist M.P. Major Elliot .said that the modern woman seemed to think that only by constant screaming about herself could she attract sufficient attention to her case. "I don't know whether it is because of the work they are doing," he said, "or because-of the.pressure exercised by the- million surplus women in this country; but when they, talk of equality it is high time they accepted the subordinated position.of equals instead of the position of a superior which they are attempting to esercise." Miss Wilkinson declared that men were to blame for the prominence given to women's activities. Referring, to chaff by Major Elliot about women's clothes, Miss Wilkinson said: "I have never regarded plus, fours as an unobtrusive garment, but I would ask any sensible person who has seen the wide skirts and puffed sleeves worn in the 19th century, whether the hygienic garments worn by the modern woman are not infinitely more unobtrusive. Women have been the beasts of burden of our modern civilisation. I wish they were more obtrusive." Major Elliot replied: "When 1 hear a woman like Miss ;Wilkinson say that silk stockings, sleeveless blouses, and the general cutting away of .their clothes are in the .cause of hygiene, I blush at the hypocrisy of women:" (Laughter.) Miss Clemence Dane, who presided, said that, the difference between men and women was that men did not bate war and women did. but the duel between the sexes was the craziest of all wars.