GIRLS V. MEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 139, 15 June 1938, Page 21

GIRLS V. MEN.

• — FEUD AT OXFORD. STUDENTS' COUNTER CHARGES. OXFORD. Girl students at Oxford University appear to have stirred up a hornet's • nest in their campaign to smarten up their boy friends. Bitterly resentful of charges that they are slovenly and lack "dress consciousness," male students are hitting back, and a regular feud has developed between the two sides. Co-eds, who bemoaned the passing of the "well-groomed gentleman friend" of former days, are told that they themselves lack charm, tact and poise, wear dowdy clothes, and spend half their time trying to snare men. Heading the counter offensive is Woodrow Wyatt, editor of the "Oxford Comment." "In Oxford the women want it both ways," he declares. "They want to be recognised as. equal in every way to the men, but tliey also want to be treated as deferentially as normal women. They bridle at any suggestion that intellectually they are inferior. They are furious if you treat them as casually as you would treat a male acquaintance. They expect to be taken to cinemas, , given meals and generally entertained ( without doing anything in return. , Most of them are devoid of womanly qualities. They have no charm, tact or ! poise, and their clothes are appalling." Drawing a contrast between the average city girl and the average co-ed. ; Wyatt states: "The former is smart, I tidy, and if not pretty, she makes the , most of her appearance. Tlie latter is | wearing ill-fitted clothes, has a shiny i face, untidy hair and a sloppy, ungainly [ walk." * Gold-Diggers. 1 Girl students, he charges, spend half 1 their time working and the other half s talking about men and getting hold of 1 them. "Once she has got hold of her wretched victim she either waits until he falls in love with her, then drops him, or else she falls in love with him ' and insists on the young innocent . marrying her. f "If women want to come to Oxford, „. they must come as women, not imitai tion men. Let them cultivate grace and i beauty and charm, and leave men i students' afTairs alone." 2 Wyatt's attack merely fed fuel to the - flames and brought an immediate reply t from the women's camp through Miss 1 Jean Cameron-Douglas, beautiful 20i> year-old blonde co-ed. "Every year co-eds come up looking ; . prettier and better dressed," she asserts. s "Oddly enough, the prettier they are the e sooner everybody begins calling them t gold-diggers. v "We fall between two stools. If we f do not do something l to make ourselves t attractive they call us "blue-stockings' - and if we do they call us 'gold-diggers.' o "If young men waste their money on t us. it is their own look-out. Ood did e not give us beauty for nothing."