TRYING TO BE AN INTERESTING PERSON

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30944, 28 December 1965, Page 2

TRYING TO BE AN INTERESTING PERSON

Argentine women want to be well informed. Even if they do not take up a career and marry early, they feel it is important to be able to take an intelligent interest in current affairs and to be knowledgeable about their husband’s work.

“Like my sister here, they want to be interesting companions for their husbands, able to exchange ideas and opinions with them,” said Miss Maria Padin of Buenos Aires, in Christchurch yesterday.

Her sister, Mrs W. F. Kugler, is married to the Argentine Secretary of State for

Agriculture and Livestock. Miss Padin is his personal secretary. The three visitors are now in New Zealand in the course of a world tour.. Mrs Kugler, who does not speak much English, let her sister talk for her.

“My sister reads and reads about agriculture and the three of us go into the country most week-ends to visit farms,” Miss Padin said in crisp English with an attractive Spanish accent. Though she only works five

days a week, Miss Padin’s daily hours would horrify most private secretaries in New Zealand Government departments. She starts at 9 a.m., takes 1J hours for lunch and works on till 10 p.m. most nights. Even her weekends in the country would hardly be termed recreation. Her duties include looking after Mr Kugler's correspondence, his appointments and entertaining his visitors when he is busy. “I love to paint and design book jackets when I have time, but that is not very often now,” she said. A graduate in fine arts from the University of Buenos Aires, Miss Padin did a special secretarial course before taking up her present post

Higher Education

Most girls go to the university’ now for higher education, whether or not they take up a career, she said. Office work is still the most popular occupation for women and many of them hold high executive positions. Though she could not say that women had equal status with men in Argentina, they had plenty of opportunities to advance in their careers and most careers were open to them. There were many women professors and teachers, doctors and nurses, lawyers and architects. A woman held the second highest post in the Ministry of Education; there were two women members of Congress, she said. Mrs Kugler’s interests are centred round her husband, her home, four grown-up children and four grandchildren. She is something of an expert on flowers and plants, loves gardening. Artistic like her younger sister, Maria, she finds expression for her talents in interior decorating. She has done her own home often. In a quiet aside, Miss Padin added: “In fact, she is changing it all the time.”

Mass On Carrier.—Cardinal Francis Spellman celebrated mass for 650 sailors on the hanger deck of United States aircraft carrier Ticonderoga in the South China Sea today. The cardinal, aged 76, landed on the deck of the carrier after flying from Saigon.— Saigon, December 26.