WOMEN'S POSITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 187, 9 August 1930, Page 4 (Supplement)

WOMEN'S POSITION.

THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

SEX QUALITY SHOULD BE

REMOVED.

(By ATJRIOL BABRAN.)

"Women's Emancipation" as a phrase which echoes throughout the world today. The columns in the papers are full of women's freedom and the equality of the sexes.". Every day over my breakfast tray t read an article or two on this same subject. What does this so-called emancipation of the fair sex exactly mean, -I ask myself? v , ( Have we got real equality? -No! Since women,who hold.peerages in their own right are not allowed to hold the privilege of having a seat in the House of Lords. I fail to understand why this should be so, since the flappers'' vote and the invasion of the House of Commons by women. If a woman can be elected a member of Parliament, why can she not take her seat in the House of Lords? There are not many peeresses in their own right, so that one must presume that the only insuperable obstacle -to this innovation is due to an old-fashioned prejudice. I go further. Why shouldn't women be made peers in recognition of services rendered? Women have been knighted, or the equivalent. I refer to those who have been made a Dame. Then why should higher titles only be conferred on men for the same services rendered? Women Peers. During the past decade a great number of new peers have been created in the realms of industry, finance, the law, politics, in. the army and navy in peace and wartime. Women have not yet become sailors and soldiers, I don't mean to imply that they ever will—though instances of women fighting in the ranks as soldiers have occurred! Yet, many held an excellent war record. Some of tliese were actually under shell fire. Nurses m hospitals in the immediate war zones, drivers of ambulances, and others who out of their own private incomes furnished and equipped field or base hospitals, and organised and equipped themselves before the official Red Cross units had become properly organised. Everyone who remembers the hopeless muddle and lack of proper hospital equipment or expert care for the wounded in 1914, must remember, too, , what useful work these women performed. And there were those who carried on the good work during the whole duration of the war. We are all proud of Florence Nightingale and regard her rather in the light of a national heroine. If Florence Nightingale had been a man, she would have been made a peer. Those were Victorian days, you may say, yet, I think it is safe to conjecture- that a modern Florence Nightingale would only have received the order of Dame. There were many Florence Nightingales in the past war, perhaps too many for each one to be individually noticed, yet those who figured in the limelight didinot receive the honours which would have been conferred on a man in similar circumstances. And there were probably many women who deserved the Victoria Cross! Scientific Achievement. Then there are women who, like Madame Curie, have done valuable work in the scientific world. Others, who slave indefatigably in the cause of charity. And I think it is not too sweeping a statement to make that in every rank of the social ladder there are members of the female sex who give up a great deal of their time and energy, of their health and money, to help the poor. „ Deserving of a peerage is Miss Maud Royden, the preacher, whose bright and happy sermons and helpful advice draw crowds of eager listeners, and whose good work and cheerful personality has done invaluable service to innumerable people. . And now we come to these intrepid women—pioneers. Women who can be favourably compared to explorers like Stanley and Livingstone. Women who to-day, had they been men, would have received the highest honours. I think Lady Bailey deserves a peerage for accomplishing a breathless exploit. When one considers the iron nerve, efficiency, and endurance required for such a daring feat as hers, it seems surprising that she should have received so little recognition. Lady Drummond Hay was the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a Zeppelin—the only woman passenger who, even at the most critical moment, did : not lose her nerve, and helped to keep up the moral of everyone present; added to which her journalistic record is one that no male journalist would be ashamed of.

Woman will always be, physically, the weaker sex, but they havt. shown, in spite of their various handicaps, that they can play their part in the State as well as men. Then why should they not be worthy of the same recognition? Battling ever against disadvantages, surely they are deserving of higher honours than men, since whatever is ■accomplished by a woman is achieved under greater difficulties than those encountered by a man. And one of the greatest of these difficulties is the oldfashioned prejudice that a woman loses her femininity and is a bad wife and mother if she is not content to remain by the fireside for the whole of her natural life!—(Anglo-American N.S. copyright.)