MUSSOLINI'S PLANS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 25, 31 January 1933, Page 11

MUSSOLINI'S PLANS

ATHLETICS UNGRACEFUL

The conviction that Italian women should not try to compete in the more strenuous athletics; with the "ungraceful but better suited" women of the Anglo-Saxon race, is expressed by Professor Umbertov Gabbi, director of the medical clinic of the University of Parma (states a correspondent from Rome). By doing so they would risk losing their modesty, figure, and adaptabilities for bringing healthy 'children into the world, he warns. ■ ■ ■' ■

In fact, he adds, they would imperil the future of the--nation by placing difficulties in the way of Mussolini's plans for a physically sound race.

. Gabbi's descriptions of • Anglo-Saxon women; contained in a recentarticle in the Duee's Milan newspaper,'"ll Popolo d'ltalia," takes advantage of literary license to convey the impression that their feet, hands, and general aspect are not in keeping with Italian ideas o£ beauty.

.'' They have little. grace or delicacy of form," he says. "They are often thick of neck and have Herculean arteries, peninsular hands, and territorial feet; Family life attracts them but lightly, and they are not greatly concerned with; modesty.'}

. On the other- hand, he says, Italian women "are delicate of muscle and sentiment." They-are not built, morally or physically, he asserts, to compete in the- more violent forms of exercise with Nordic women.