RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30411, 9 April 1964, Page 26

RANDOM REMINDER

STAMP DUTY

This may seem an odd place for a discussion on genetics, but we have been ordered into it by a Rangiora housewife who reminded us that we once stated we would say anything for money, and has sent us a postage stamp, valued at 2Jd, with a request that we get involved in family argument. Apparently the Rangiora housewife and her husband read in “The Press” a review of “Ascent of Woman” by Elisabeth Mann Borgese, a book which we have not seen, but which apparently reads a little like “Brave New World” in parts, but introduces diverting theories about sex reversals. She (the Rangiora housewife) says that the curls and sometimes peculiar voices

of many teenage boys today can be seen as evolution, while her husband sees these phenomna as a reversal of the sexes. And here we are, fingering the 2}d stamp, and wondering what on earth to do. It seems clear enough that if there is not a reversal of the sexes taking place, it is not for the want of trying by a good many of those concerned. Women today, more than ever before, are not content merely with equal pay, suffrage, domination of bowling clubs, and the increasing level of skill in the domestic sciences being shown by the husbands. They are fonder, year by year, of wearing trousers, and bowler hats, smoking cigars, even pipes, and even in summer, calling them-

selves batsmen. By the same token, one must sympathise with the view that the long waved hair of many young gentlemen argues a leaning towards effeminacy. And so does the masculine use of jewellery, sun-tan lotion and fancy waistcoats. There is of course another possibility, a survey of the material available in Cathedral square at weekends prompts the thought that perhaps the tendency for the sexes to merge is producing something neuter. It is difficult indeed, at times, to tell which is which, as they go about the streets. And if that is a superficial survey of what might well becomt an important social problem, what on earth does she expect for 2Jd?