WOMEN'S CORNER.

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 123, 27 May 1922, Page 16

WOMEN'S CORNER.

INTERESTING NOTES AND COMMENTS.

gE&L RULER OF THE RACE

MAN MERELY "A PROMOTED

REPTILE"

■While most of the numerous women's organisations in England are valiantly struggling to remove tho obstacles which stanr1 in tho way' of the promotion of ■woman to equality with man in modern civilisation, the Feminist League has set 'itself the higher task of placing mam in his proper place sis the inferior of ■woman. Afc a lecture delivered in London recently) Mr. Elliott O'Donnell, who has hitherto been known mainly as an authority or ghosts, haunted houses, 'and other psychical, phenomena, warned man of the danger in which he .stands. , There are in Englaid, and particularly in London, said Mr. O'Donnell, cliques of persons who, by reason of their words, sentiments, and general bearing, ' might be said to" form a class by themselves. People who belonged to this class could' not be termed women at all; . he saw in them little likeness psychologically to women, and some of them claimed that they were not bilogically, women. They were of three main types. The first was the type that aped the masculine, a hard-featured, bony, virile type, who often affected a mannish style of dress; they, were, as a rule, intolerant and domineering in their hostility towaa-ds man. From this type most of the leaders of the secret anti-man movement were drawn. The second type wore generally fragile-looking, were thoroughly restless and dissatisfied with in general. A third type of ultra-feminists dressed } untidily, showed lack of balance, and some abnormality ■ was often much in evidence. The "man haters" to which he took exception wer-e to be found chiefly among the educated classes. They •were to be found -all over London, but the majority hailed from Chelsea and tho adjoining neighbourhoods. Secret meetings, from which men were rigidly ■banned, were held in different parts of

London, where the doctrine of male hatTed was subtly propounded. Th« movement was thoroughly well organised; it had apparently - recognised meeting places, and its own literature. In the latter ihe doctrine was proclaimed] that life was really feminine; that ther« was ewidenca of degeneracy in man; that his eca was ended; and that in future the feminine sex must be paramount. Every pffort was made to -poison the minds, of •women and girls against men,"'and love •was ridiculed as a temporary ■ madness. In. one of their- booklets man was described as "not a father god, but a promoted reptile." ;,_';: ;_ .; ■*'..' Mts. Abadam, president of the Feminist League, denies that there is -any Becrecy about her organisation, and she also denies that it preaches sex hatred. tßnt she admits that the league does hold as a foremost article of faith that the tfaminirrei element is the dominant element iof Dfe, that life began with the female, and thai the male was brought into the i.vrorld as an afterthought on the part of 'Nature. It waa » man, Mr. Lester (Ward, an American professor, who made 'the discovery that Kfe began with the .female, and in. consequence he has the of being regarded by the ■members of the Feminist League us deserving a better fate than that of belonging to the male sex. The aims of the. [league, according "t# the president, are do restore to women ■ (1) all • that she ißhould know; (2) all that she should Sfliave; (15) all that she should be. Miss Petti, an. ardenfc member-of the (3eague, is moro explicit regarding the. Jiask'-tfte'league lias set itself. : ','lt has. l-been scientifically cstabEshed," . she .states,-.."that -man is one of a-;, million ['humble- fertilisers, and that Nature intended -woman, to xeign. supremo. The iiornaJe was. mistress supreme in the beiginning erf organio life. Women createdman, and ruled, him. He was her. para!site and slave. Primitive woman, how- : ever, • allowed this parasite to develop, (and become her* physical superior, and that was her fatal mistake. The,history ■of wife-beating began with man's first 'coirsciousuffis of his physical superiority. To-day-woman occupied precisely thst same parasitic position of pi-imitiu,e man. But we.are out to reinstate woman in her rightful place as ruler of the race. VV'e ai-e sick of'..this'man-made world."