WOMAN

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 81, 5 April 1923, Page 3

WOMAN

AS SEEN BY LADY RHONDDA PLAIN TALK ABOUT FEMINITY WOMEN'S NEGLECTED CHANCES. We are getting very wary about' the way we talk of Woman, says Edith Shackleton in. the London. "Standard." It is not so long since almost any article or speech about Woman could be reduced to nonsense by the application of what became known as the Chesterton test. Mr. Chesterton had a charwoman, whom we may call Mrs. Gummidge, and when, he wished to test the reliability of any statement about Woman he substituted "Jlrs. Gummidge" for, "Woman." Mrs. Gummidge, "caring only for the admiration of the crowd" or "playing through the ages with the hearts of men;" for example, was a diverting and steadying image. But the Chesterton test has done its work. Soon only the people who write film titles will be left to present WoI man: everybody else apologise for and qualify their generalisations. Viscountess Rhondda was "billed" to speak on "The Character of Modern Woman" to the Ethnological Society recently, but began by saying that her subject "did not exist." She doubted very much whether there was any peculiar characteristic which belonged specifically to the modern woman and to nobody else. She even doubted whether (here were any big differences of character between men and women. Moreover, she wished to make it clear that she was talking of the well-to-do women of Britain only, of the 15 or 20 per cent, of the better educated classes who, to an extent, set the fashions in thought. Lady Rhondda'knows ali about Mrs. Gummidge. There mamy be many people who, after a glance at Lady Rhondda's headlines, have complained wearily that women never get any further on, that Woman is. still a Subject, even in her own eyes, but there is a jpod deal of rubbishy statement left lying over from the suffrage campaign, when we blew our own trumpets en very high but expedient notes, to be cleared up, and Lady Rhondda does well to express her uncertainties about diiferences in character between men and women. "If," she said, "there are big inherent differences between men • and women we shall see certain alterations in our method of Government and in the whole carrying on of the business of the State, due to the influence of the women. Any big influx of a pew element in Government is bound to affect the direction of Government. "On the other hand, if there is not a very big difference in character and intelligence between men and women, we should not expect to see the Government taking a different direction, but only a very gradual improvement due to the fact that we shall draw upon the whole ability of the nation instead of, as formerly, on the half." This is more honest and more healthy talk than the old fluent and impassioned presumptions of an ethical superiority in' women which, given political expression, would bring about the millennium in twenty minutes or so. There are fundamental differences between men and women. To me at least it seems only reasonable to suppose that women have a conservative principle, a leaning towards staying where they are, instead of building bridges to get to some possibly less comfortable place, in opposition to the adventuring principle in man. If it were not go the race • would not have survived. But this conservative habit may have been only periodic, and most modern, reasoning women may not be influenced by it at all. Women, undeniably,, are. physically more gentle than men, more given to selfsacrifice of the sort which, entails physical discomfort and endurance, but where is the evidence for their ethical supremacy ? Often the feats of self-sacrifice done by mothers and -wives and daughters, the outcome of blind personal devotion, are anti-social and even evil in their effect*. . . _ There has long been a' hazy assumption that Woman was a sort of new. feature of civilisation, a sort of healing, beautifying element which had never been tried before. The plain fact ie that we were here all the time. The cruelties and injustices which have racked the ■world through the ages went on before the «yes of women. To follow Lady Rhondda's plan and keep only to the Englishwoman of the well-to-do classes, we may ask what Woman was doing . during the black time when the industrial system was at its worst. Is it conceivable that the gentle creatures in the tarlatan flounces did not know that there were children crawling in thenfathers' coal mines or being kicked awake in their husbands' factories? These women had not ote, no rights over property; they may have been helpless in the legal sense, but if they had been the ethical swells the more flamboyant feminist likes to think all ■ women are they would have starved rather than live on the fruits of such labour. People who get their notions of the Life Beautiful from the pictures of Maude Goodman may think this an appalling and desolating .conviction, but ■why should it be so? "Whatever souls are made of," cries Catherin Earnshaw in the best novel of human passion in the English language, "his and mine are the same"--and what woman of sense or reason or nobility of character wishes to say more of her lover, or to feel a sneaking sort of spiritual superiority over her sons and brothers? Lady Rhondda probably surprised some of her audience" when she said that the difficulty of judging between men and women to-day is that they axe still absolutely differently brought up. They have a different education and different things are still expected of them, different truths are inculcated drop by drop and word by word." It is usual, because so comfortable, to suppose that all is well with the upbringing of the modern little girl, and that she gets exactly the same treatment that her brother gets. Actually ahe gets nothing of the kind. She may have heavier school bills; she may even po to, the same school, but the entire w.orld, apart perhaps from an ultra-conscientious, modern mother, will treat her differently. No amount of oare can prevent her from being urged in the nursery to be " a little beauty," while her brother is more bracingly urged to be "a little man." Besides, women'are still the holders and preservers of family lore and ritual. From mother to daughter pass all the secrets and subterfuges that are the families' defences" against the outer world, and women for ages have been lightly labelled as being fundamentally deceitful, owing to this early training in discretion, which is rarely imposed on boys. " Half of a girl's training," said Lady Rhondda, " goes towards making her adaptable," and she might have added that often it goes further than its mark, and makes her subservient and inexpressive. Education and training for boys and girls can never expediently be exactly the same. Educated women of the _ better-off classes are beginning to realise that the bearing and nursing of a modern-dimensioned family is not, on its practical side, a life job, but it is still too important to bo disregarded .when one speculates on "The Girl—What will, she become?" On the whole, it seems unreasonable to expect that " The Character of Modeqj ,

Woman"'' "is" "going"to flbo<r tfie political world suddenly with a sweetness and light such as men have never been able to dream of themselves. And this, surely, i» no matter for disappointment, but foi comfort and congratulation.