STATUS OF WOMEN

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 74, 29 March 1932, Page 10

STATUS OF WOMEN

IN MODERN TIMES The Auckland Rotarians recently had aa address from the Eev. Wilna Constable, who shares a parish in that city with her husband, on the "Status of Women in Modern Times." Mrs. Constable traced interestingly the various stages of women's lives along the ages. In the times of t\"\ Greek and Eoman supremacies women were not given full citizenship, and cv.en Aristotle who had a mind far in advance of his times, classed women with slaves. When, machinery took the place of home arts and crafts the competition of women with men began, and then also a great evil, which still continues, the acceptance by women of lower wages than men for doing the same work. It was thought that political agitation would solve the problem, and there was an increasing feeling that women should have a new kind of equality, neither a position of inferiority nor one of privilege. With the war new factors entered, and women had to take positions such as they had never filled before, and, on the whole, proved themselves equal to the occasion. The curious part about it was that they found some of the tasks which they had imagined difficult, were quite easily accomplished, and they were able to do the work, not only well, but without much effort. The great idea after the war was over was that the women should automatically return to where they were before, but that was not the case. In great numbers of cases there wero no homes for them to return to, husbands, sons, and other relatives had been killed; there was a great army of women literally stranded, and they could not fairly be asked to fade "out of the picture." Mrs. Constable was of opinion, that it was a wrong doctrine to try to keep women within home doors, for houses no longer occupied the whole of women's time. If men were not willing to allow women to share in the work of the world there would be created a leisured class of women who would constitute a real danger to society, as too much leisure was degrading to the character. She was of opinion that men and women were complementary to each other, and the world was really a great family, but it would be a poor kind of place if either sex had dominance over the other. Personal choice should be a right, and co-operation the essence Pi ik? boad between th« sexes,