FEMINIST UNREASON

Evening Star, Issue 19298, 10 July 1926, Page 21

FEMINIST UNREASON

HAVING YOUR CAKE AND EATING IT Many feminists have studied logic, oven taken honors in it. They have trained—-in some cases robust-—intel-lects, and they can grapple with abstruse problems as successfully as Dr Johnson grappled with whole libraries. Yet (writes “An Everyday Woman,’' in the 1 Argus ’) with all their logic they expect the privileges of men their equals—and at the same time the homage men paid women in the olden days. Thus, in the matter of the minor courtesies of life, women still expect men to be introduced to them, not they to men. -They still expect men who are walking with them to take the outside of the footpath and to carry their parcels. They do not permit men to raise their hats to them till they have bowed themselves, and, if a man be near, they still expect a train or tram door to ho opened for them—because they are women. They regard as boors—or at least as wanting in self-respect—the young man of the house at which they have spent the evening who does not offer to see them to their train or tram; the men anywhere who sit while they stand, who shoulder their way past them, or who omit to take off their bats when in the lift with them. Feminists, however extreme, still expect from men traditional courtesy. They still expect to be served first at the table and take anything in the way of a delicacy given them—because they are women.

By an unwritten law, when it comes to harrowing, nerve-racking things, all decent men to whom old chivalrous *nstincts cling still try to save _ women from contact with them, and in spite of their “equality” slogan women generally allow themselves to bo saved. Unless from choice, women, however advanced, are never expected to go to funerals. A woman without male relatives, if a funeral is to bo arranged, is almost invariably saved Irom seeing to the ghastly details herself by the kindness of some man. In a wreck the attempt to save women and children first is made as a matter of course, and in all situations ol great danger women are the first to be considered. Women instinctively still expect the nearest man to kill the snake they see, tackle the burglar, catch the bolting horse, shoot the mad dug—even kill the mouse or rat. Of tonrsc,, there are women who could tackle a snake, a burglar, a bolting horse, a mad dog, oven a rat or a mouse singlehanded and in rotation, and never turn a hair. But when it comes to tackling any one of them most women are feminine rather than feminist.

Offer the young man who at a dance or entertainment wrestles with the crowd to get his partner a cup of coffee or tea is aware that his partner is as well, at times even better, able to wrestle for it herself. He knows, too, that she—usually a strong, healthy young woman—is as fit, or fitter, to stand than himself, but his courtesy being ingrained he rarely rests nil he gets her a scat. Sometimes she has played tennis or golf most of the day, and is able apparently to dance with ixndirainished vigor most of the night; yet she takes the seat, as well as the attention shown her, as her right. Where her comfort is concerned even the most advanced feminist is feminine. Though it has been dinned into men’s ears for more than fifty years that women are their equals, to many men apparently they are still “things onsky’d and sainted.” Certainly men humor them at every turn. Their tolerance, for instance, with women who grab the positions they want and avoid those they cannot fill suggests that of a much older brother for a small, somewhat aggravating sister to whom, whatever happens, he has been told he has to ho polite. Mon rarely remind women that when it comes to jobs it is they who pick the plums. Nor do they point out that feminists never seem to resent “the grey preeminence of man” in_ unattractive occupations—in emptying corporation dust-tins, for instance. That many of the young women whose much-exposed and athletic-looking limbs show that they would be an asset in any football team could empty dust-tins as well as most men is a fact to which men never allude. Neither.dq they mention that these and other women _ who _ shrink from contact with material dirt and flee from unlovely garbage by seeking to fill some of the positions now filled by men —justices of the_ peace among them—would often be liable to come in contact with moral dirt. Nor do they point out that from this men, if possible, would save them. The most marked characteristic of feminists is certainly not sincerity. If, for instance, their demands for equality were taken seriously; if it were suggested that they should be coalheavers, stokers of engines, undertakers, wood-cutters, hearse-drivers, grave-diggers, coffin-makers, scavengers, blacksmiths, and builders, or that they should take their turn in the slaughter yards with the men, bo stone-hroakers, or deliver milk between 2 and 6 a.m.—the most extremely feminist would indignantly protest. They would at once point out that in some cases their strength and in others their nerves would not permit them lo do these jobs. Men, they would probably add, arc so unreasonable! The situation is one of which anyone, except perhaps an extreme feminist, should see the humor. It is one to which Moliere, to whom the absurdities of the ■women of his day were >,urh sheer joy, could alone do justice.