MEN AND WOMEN.

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 92, 12 January 1929, Page 16

MEN AND WOMEN.

The fear that women with the best brains were concentrating on work which men could do equally well and neglecting work which only women could perform adequately was expressed by Miss Eleanor Rathbone, presiding at the Equal Citizenship Conference in Oxford (states an English writer). Even when the time came that women had obtained complete equality with men, said Miss Rathbone, the women’s movement would not come to an end. There would never be a time when women would not want to get together as women. They should learn to stand on their own feet and think for themselves about their own tasks. Miss Rathbone said she did not want women to give up doing what used to be considered entirely men’s jobs, such as engineering and architecture, but she did not want them to do these to the exclusion of the other equally if not more important ones. “There are many exceedingly clever women suited to deal with domestic science subjects,” she said, “but they seem to be suffering from a complex against it, and so deliberately turn their abilities elsewhere. This is a great pity.” Referring to the conflicting points of view of men and women, Miss Rathbone said: “A woman will regard her home as her workshop; for a man it is merely his dormitory. A short time ago I was watching a peacock and his mate. The beautiful male bird strutted across the lawn, followed by a very dishevelled and bedraggled little wife. A woman friend remarked that from appearances the peacock did not give his mate a very good time. Soon afterwards her husband came up. He said, ‘That peacock has not much of a wife, has he?’ ”