HAS WOMAN CHANGED?

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 57, 8 March 1930, Page 19

HAS WOMAN CHANGED?

OLD AND NEW COMPARED

: Has woman' changed in essence and character, or does she stand where she did, say, five or ten thousand years ago? The fact that her clothes vary slightly from decade to decade, or that she shows her knees or cuts; her hair, or drives a motor-car, attends board meetings and is interested in dividends, is no real proof of real progress, states a writer in an English newspaper. Do you imagine that the leading women in tho courts of the ancient world had less vital influence upon the men around them than the most modern of our politicians? Do you think that there is any real difference between the.motive that urges the modern young woman to buy her rouge and lipstick, her powder and raiment of delicate texture, and the motive that moved tho ladies of the court of the beautiful Queen Ncfertiti, thousands of years ago, to call for the gossamer fabrics of the Indus, the perfumes of Arabia, and the* entrancing wonders from Samarkand for their personal adornment? , The exterior conditions of life have changed, and woman responds to them with varying degrees of feeling. Our need of bread and our protective laws of possession keep us as dwellers in the jungle. This, in a measure, explained the- ~ locked compartments- of the mind in which man roves, a troubled animal; haunted by memories of struggles and dangers.

. In this realm lies woman's opportunity, but her conquest has yet to be niade. Until she has brought forth a change either in 'her ideals or control of the mental forces that make us what we are, it is unquestionable whether her progress can be admitted. Woman, in extending the range of lier activities, may, discover how far. material tilings arc really material, and at what points spiritual forces begin. She has it in her power to remould this world nearer to perfection. Just what is perfection is the 'real problem. Woman may discover new laws relating to the reaction of our mental forces. If she docs this, and in so doing-rids us of some terrors and tyrannies, and provides us with new delights and freedoms, she will have added another jewel to her crown.