WHAT WOMEN LIKE TO READ IN THE NEWSPAPERS

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 171, 7 April 1923, Page 15

WHAT WOMEN LIKE TO READ IN THE NEWSPAPERS

QUICKENING INTEREST IN GENERAL EVENTS.

Mrs. H. A. L. Fisher is discontented with the literary fare tho newspapers are providing women, and in the “Cornhill Magazine,” after making her case as to the number of women who are now keen newsjiaper readers, says: “Practically every good newspaper now is taking a great deal of trouble to provide what it thinks likely to interest its women readers. But apparently they do not find it quito easy to know what to provide. What does interest women? What do they actually read ? “Here is the problem, and she, or he, who 'ould solve it would probably not only earn the undying gratitude of the editor or other power to whom tho solution was imparted, but might fairly expect due reward. But the sad truth is that, like a good many other problems, thaie is no one solution. Women in the mass are as different as men. Some women are absorbed in housekeeping, others do it but do not want to read about it. Hardly anyone supposes that cookery receipts and fashion designs will entirely satisfy the reading appetite of the average woman, though they are still provided in remarkably large quantities in the woman’s page of many newspapers. “Housekeeping, not only cooking, but other aspects cf that difficult subject, scientifically and sensibly treated, is sure to appeal to many of us. For after all, most of us spend much time in wrestling with some branch of it, if not with several. Many papers are developing this side of tneir women’s page, and one docs occasionally find a really sensible and up-to-date article upon modern labour-saving methods, or new implements, or the comparative cost, both in cash and in trouble, of different methods of lighting and heating.

mg. “We are interested in many other things besides 'housekeeping,' for example in our children, and in other people’s children too. Many of us would like to know something of the child welfare movement, and of tho vast work that it has achieved in the last twenty years. “It is surely right not only to tell them of the steady and tremendous fall in the infant death-rate, but to explain something of what that fall means, not only in the diminution of human sorrow and human suffering but also in the sheer waste of effort, and above all. perhaps, in the hone for the future. It is the most familiar of truisms to many xhat a high infant death rate moans a high damage-rate among tho children who survive, but it comes often as a real surprise to others. It is well that we should all understand that the causes which kill some babies maim many more, and that the removal of those causes means not only a saving of life but also the growth of a new generation with an increased, largely increased, chance of long life, and of health and strength. It is surely right too that women should have a chance of learning what yet remains to be done, to be told of the weak places in our defences. “That women are keenly and genuinelv interested in educational questions no one who has addressed audiences of Women Citizens, Women’s Institutes, and similar organisations, will :loubt. Yet the woman’s page of the iverage newspaper seldom deals with educational topics. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that a very large lumber of women have but the slight-

est idea of the work that is actually done in our schools. “Another topic upon which there is very little written, and which seems likely to be of absorbing interest to many of us, whether upon our own bedhalf or upon that of our daughters, is that of the varying possibilities of women’s professions or industries. Mothers living near big schools or universities can probably get all the information they want; but there are many others, watching their girls develop, and wondering how best to prepare them for the business of life, who would be deeply interested, and perhaps deeply grateful, to anyone who could give them reliable. information as to the possible careers for girls, and the best ways of obtaining the necessary training. This, again, is a matter for the expert. “The fundamental principles of politics, too, not party or personal politics, but politics in the broadest sense of the word, appeal to many women. “We should like to know more about government, and local government, about who is responsible for our drains and our dustbins, and how to influence them, about those who decide what we have to pay, and why, in rates and taxes. The fundamentals of our economic life interest us, so too do prices, and we should like to learn why they behave in the remarkable fashion they nave adopted of late years. “It has been eaid, and upon gcod authority, that there is a genuine demand among women for clear, intelligible reading matter upon economic questions, not only upon such obviously I pressing problems of applied economics as taxes and prices, but upon the elementary and fundamental economic truths. “Again, some of us would like to know more than we do about the law as it afficts children. The by-laws which regulate the industrial employment of school children, for example, are a constant source of bewilderment, and many people might be glad to have it explained to them by whom these bye-laws are made, and what ar« the general principles upon which they are constructed. The laws as they touch assaults upon children are very imperfectly known, and might well be better known.' Even such an everyday problem as school attendance might be worth writing about. “We might even like to know something more about the law as it affects ourselves. Some of us might be surprised if we did. Many married women know little of the laws which determine their powers over their own earnings or property. And few pieces of information seem to astonish the average married woman more than to bo told that she, unlike her unmarried sister, has no legal rights over her own children, or, rater, that her legal rights are extremely small. “Meanwhile it is all to the gcod that the newspaper Press should be taking trouble about us, and trving to provide for our needs. Good luck attend it.”