FOR WOMEN’S EQUALITY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 291, 8 September 1928, Page 18

FOR WOMEN’S EQUALITY

VOTE WON, BUT FIGHT NOT OVER

Before the passing of the Equal Franchise Bill becomes only a memory (says “Public Opinion”), a correspondent of ‘ “Time and Tide” is anxious that a fair share of the credit for this final triumph of the cause of Women’s Suffrage ! should be given where it is due. The article, from which we quote, gives that credit to the militant group and notto the “sweetly reasonable" women. The contribution is .not without importance ns a sidelight on the history of the movement. _ “It is of the very essence of the position society has allotted to women, i writes the correspondent of “Time and Tide,” “that they should above all feel it incumbent upon them to agree with their fellows, to be gentle, sweet, reasonable, yielding, amiable, popular, that they should avoid above all things ugliness in word, deed or appearance. “In the past they have not found it easy to take —without reference to men -—group decisions that involved tempo- ; rary unpopularity and placed them in > an unfavourable light. The value of milii fancy (apart from the fact _ that it achieved what it set out to achieve) lay actually in its ugliness. For militancy was ugly, it was at times outrageous, and for all the complete logic of the case upon which it was built it often [ appeared surfacely utterly unreasonable. “There can have been no militant to whom at moments it did not seem more outrageous, unpopular and distasteful than she could bear. No one, man or woman, likes to be thought violent, unreasonable, ugly in word or deed, and because of their upbringing this is an even harder thing for women to bear than it is for men. But on occasions it is necessary. , , . “It is very easy for the descendants of those who twenty 1 years ago had not the courage to allow themselves to be thought violent and outrageous, or the insight to realise that the time had come when that sacrifice was demanded of . them, to suggest to-day that it was they, who through thick and thin remained sweetly ..reasonable, who really won the vote. ■ , “And it is very easy for us who, like the rest of the world, prefer sweet--1 ness and reason to ugliness and combativeness to accept what they say. But the vote was not won by sweet reasonableness, it was won by self-sacrifice and courage, and —above all—by that most difficult of all forms of courage, the courage to appear violent, unreasonable, ugly. “If we deny this we are not merely betraying those who served us, we are showing that- we have failed to learn the lesson that those nine years of stress and sacrifice should have taught us; the lesson that we must stand complete! on our own feet, so completely, as to be ready, if necessary, to make withI out flinching group decisions which involve real unpopularity. “It is a thing which neither men nor women'find easy, but until people can do that they are not complete human beings. Until women, as well as men (and even, if need be, when occasions arise upon which their interests are temporarily apparently severed, apart from men), can do that, the community is made up as to half its constituents not of people but of parasites—of those who cannot stand alone without support. That is not a safe thing for a civilised society. “The vote is won but the fight is not i over—neither the fight for equality nor ' the fight, with ourselves,• to achieve the ' point of view of the equal, which is perhaps the hardest of all. That is why & we need to-day the courage to give the credit where the credit is in fact due. “Has ‘a real equality’ been nearly achieved?” asks Miss Eleanor F. Rath-

bone in the “Woman’s Leader. Of status—very nearly, except in the diplomatic, civil, and municipal services, the Church and a few minor spheres. Ut opportunities—emphatically . not. in scarcely any profession or industry are opportunities really equal. “Even the. ground already won is continually threatened by .the forces of reaction, as exemplified at the moment by the London Medical Schools and the National Association of Schoolmasters. Ut liberties —it depends what you mean by liberty, has a working housewife and mother equal liberty with her husband when she possesses not a penny in tne world except what he chooses to give her; when the amount he can or will spare barely suffices for a household ot three? • “To many of us it seems that her position in such a case is one of serfdom rather than liberty. Or has an industrial worker liberty when she is kept out of nearly all the more skilled and better-paid jobs not by legislation, but by the impregnable forces of trade unionism in unnatural alliance with the hoary sex prejudices of employers? Even if ‘equality’ could be proved in all such cases, many of us would not be satisfied that the task of the women’s movement is over. We are beginning to use a new terminology. “The word equality, suggesting a measuring tape or a pair of scales, is beginning to mean less to us. When we perceive some good thing which women urgently need for themselves or their children or the world, the question we ask ourselves is not, ‘Do men need itr Have men got it?’ But ‘How can women best work to secure this good thing, whatever men may do about it?’ . “Further, not merely the terminology, bnt the boundaries of the women s movement are changing. Like . other movements, it is becoming more international, especially within the bounds of the British Empire. Some of us are Imperialists; some of us are not. But so long as Imperialism is an unescapable fact, its responsibilities are also an unescapable fact, and these, for the women of this country, include the welfare of all those women in India and the East whose wrongs, as compared to the worst wrongs of our past, are as scorpions to whips. “With such a programme before us we cannot write ‘The End’ to the store of the women’s movement. So long as men are men and women are women, and human nature is human nature, shall we ever be able to write it?”

Anna Pavlova, considered the world’s greatest dancer, recently announced her retirement. It remains to be seen whether this retirement is merely the first of a series of farewells, in the manner of a famous prima donna, or whether the stage is to lose for ever one of its brightest ornaments. It is now some 18 or so years since Anna Pavlova first appeared in England with the Russian ballet, shot rocketwise into fame, and has remained twinkling in the firmament ever since. She has appeared all over the world, and her feet have danced “out of England into France, out of France into Spain,” in every leading theatre. About two years ago she visited New Zealand with her partner, Novikoff, where she was received with acclamation. Madame Pavlova admits 40 to 50-odd years, but the days of a dancer’s fame are few. and. like her famous predecessor, Madame Genee, she may consider a retirement before the flame of her popularity begins to burn low.

ATTRACTIVE DINING TABLES. Brighter- dining tables will be seen in future, and an attractive-looking dinner table is a pleasure to which every woman can tretlt herself, a pleasant fact ■ convincingly illustrated at an exhibition entitled "Dine with Me” and staged in a Kensington store (states a London exchange). Here, notable hostesses have, so to speak, god-mothered dining tables set out in different ways, with the happiest results. Each table was covered with a cloth which need not necessarily be white or cream, but may be a pale apple green, a delicate oakapple shade, or even deep grey enlivened with pink roses. This is good news for the owner of, it inay be, a shabby dining table, and, incidentally, the use of a tablecloth helps the linen industry, which is important, and deserves all the support it can get. A table sponsored by Mrs. Wilfrid Ashley illustrated the decorative effect of small silver witch balls and red cherries set in a dish instead of flowers. Here red candles in green candlesticks stood on an “oakapple” cloth, with red almonds in dishes introducing a further note of colour. The bachelor’s table set on a blue cloth with a willow design, was enlivened with -red carnations to match the red handles of the knives, and on Lady Carlisle’s out-of-door summer luncheon table a buttercup-coloured cloth served as the background for glass, modern both as regards design and colouring. Try the decorative effect of a white cloth with damask patterns in fadeless colourings. Miss Nancy Beaton, choosing this as the cover for her debutantes’ table set upon it glass gaily painted with flowers and pink carnations set in glasses linked by crystal chains. XI * « OVERSEAS NOTES. “She does not attract instant attention in the manner of a male detective,” declared the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, in testimony of the work of Fraulein Lokke, of Berlin. Fraulein Lokke took up her work about 19 months ago, and though the cases she handles frequently include those concerning women and girls, her activities are not confined to that branch of police work. She has been successful where others have failed, and is likely to rise high in the profession she has chosen. Her disguises are said to be more effective than those donned by the male detective, who in trying to evade notice is more often likely to focus it upon his activities.

As in previous years, the International Alliance for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship will have a. temporary headquarters in Geneva during the four weeks of the Assembly of the League of Nations, to serve as a centre and meeting place for feminists of all countries who may be visiting the town. These headquarters are only three minutes from the assembly hall, and are open every afternoon. There various meetings and receptions will take place, and a dinner to the women delegates to the Assembly will be given. Mrs. Corbett-Ashby, the president of the alliance, will be visiting Geneva at that time, as will various members of the board of the alliance.