GREAT OPPORTUNITIES

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 111, 12 May 1934, Page 8

GREAT OPPORTUNITIES

"UNFAIR TREATMENT"

"For many years women were in little better-case than wore children^ nor does one have- to search far today to discover evidence' of unfair treatment of our. sex,"'' stated Miss B. Andrews, the president, at a reception to members of the Now Zealand Women Teachers' Association.'' The tradition 'we two aro one, and I am ho,' dies hard. So we still have the anomaly of a woman losing her nationality on marriage with an alien; we still lack the obstetrical hospital which medical science tells us is absolutely necessary to help in the reduction of our maternal mortality rate; we still are faced with the fact that in an election of parents' representatives to certain of our secondary schools' boards a child is considered to have only one parent and that one the father.

"In our profession we have women of proved ability kept in inferior positions by artificial barriers based on ignorance, prejudice, and fear, and we have the calm acceptance of., such a situation by the community, because the natural result of three generations of education in such a tradition has been the creation in the adolescent mind of a belief in the inferiority of woman. In one. respect she is the inferior-of .man. Sho usually lacks his physical strength, but as yet no 'prophet has arisen to proclaim the gospel that brawn rules the world. Every now and then wo have an ebullition'of feeling in one quarter or another resulting in statements to the effect that there are certain wonderful masculine virtues which can bo implanted in the hearts o£ boys only by male teachers. I give such statements the lie. There are no masculine virtues: Neither arc- there any feminine virtues. - There is virtue, which is compounded of fine qualities such as honour, purity, and courage, and he would be a feckless creature who would claim virtue to be- the monopoly of either sex. :

"On the cover of our professional magazine appears this caption, cAs is the school, so is the nation.' Hence, just as women teachers are prevented from giving their best service in our schools, so our country lags behind many others in recognition of the necessity for women's help in affairs of State and in the provision of opportunity for women to participate fully in .the life of tho nation."