WOMEN’S LIBERATION Prejudices Aroused

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 2

WOMEN’S LIBERATION Prejudices Aroused

An American who has worked for 35 years to improve the status of women thinks the Women’s Liberation Movement is arousing male prejudices against women.

Miss Margaret Hickey (in private life Mrs J. T. Strubinger, of St Louis)—lawyer, journalist, humanitarian—disagrees with the “hostile, antimale attitudes the movement has injected into the human rights struggle. “I’ve worked to create bet> ter women-male relationships, and that’s a much more positive approach," said Miss Hie key in Christchurch last evening. “I don’t see this idea of antagonising men,” she said. “I think they have injected an unlovely, old-time feminist approach just when we have such Insights from the social sciences into what makes men think the way they do.” However, Miss Hickey is hopeful that through the publicity the movement is gaining young women will become

1 Interested in status-of-women problems. “This is a world-wide effort. It is occuring in almost everj country I visit. Equality in law is one thing, using it is another. Through her work as senior editor of the public affairs section of the “Ladies’ Home Journal,” Miss Hickey is “trying to open doors, and get people to walk through them.” “Millions of women have achieved equality by working to improve their knowledge and skills. And I include home leadership in this—that’s a profession,” she said. Miss Hickey believes women should be aware that government affects every aspect of life. She thinks there should be far more women seeking elective office. “Until women get into the high councils, they will not get high appointments. It’s a tragedy that women, and youth, constitute untapped leadership potential. I sympathise with the young who want a piece of the action, and I want women to have a piece of it too,” she said. Miss Hickey 1s a life-time honorary president of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs.

Her husband is a lawyer, and Miss Hickey herself practiced law from 1928 to 1933. In 1933 he founded Miss Hickey’s School of Secretaries in St Louis, serving for many years as the director of the school.