ACADEMIC ROLE FOR WOMEN

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28983, 26 August 1959, Page 15

ACADEMIC ROLE FOR WOMEN

Need For Changed Attitude

"The Press" Special Service AUCKLAND, August 25.

In some countries women appeared to contribute much more than they did in New Zealand to the tasks of carrying on work of public importance, yet New Zealand’s women in general must be just as naturally intelligent as the women of other countries, said the Chancellor (Sir David Smith) in his address to the University of New Zealand Senate.

‘‘The trouble may lie basically in the subconscious attitudes we have towards the place which women should fill in our society, subconscious attitudes which affect the environment of mentally quick and able girls both at home and at school,” he said. “It may be that it is because of these attitudes or for some other reason that a substantial supply of potential intellectual power 1 think must exist among the women of our country is never fully developed and realised. If so, then the outlook of our society may need to be radically changed. “Specifically, in the interests of the universities, girls of intellectual quality should be encouraged in their schools more than they are at present to look upon the rendering of service in the university as a duty which they should undertake and should be trained at school accordingly. “Marriage, with children, will at least interrupt the work which any qualified woman might undertake in the university. Domestic help is hard to get. Nevertheless, it seems to me that it should be possible to organise society so that single women and married women without children or with few children should play a larger part than they do in university teaching,” Sir David Smith said.