WHY DO THEY DO IT?

Evening Star, Issue 20316, 26 October 1929, Page 27

WHY DO THEY DO IT?

WOMEN AND BARE KNEES Opposite me in the railway carriage sat a young woman. “ one size young woman,” as the Chinese say. She was large all over. Her face was one, of those wide, good-natured faces which suggest a dairy and homeba'-- 1 scenes (w-’ites Hamilton Fyfe). ; Her figure was broad, and from her feet I should say she took tens. ■ But it was her knees that gave an impression of the monstrous more than anything else. They were largo-boned and fleshy. Clearly they were not meant by Nature to be exhibited. They were, to put it plainly, repulsive. Now why. did this young woman wear a skirt so short as to let them be fully seen—nay, not “to let them be seen,” but to force them on our attention? This thing has puzzled me often. When women revolted against the long skirt, hampering and unhealthy, they improved their appearances as well as their physique. When they raised their frocks half-way up to their knees, they looked very nice if they had decent ankles. Still a little higher so as to reveal the curve of the calf; the effect was still pleasing—if they had decent calves. What mischievous demon persuaded them to carry the process further? Why do they show their knees? The male knee is not beautiful. No sculptor delights to model it. It has a deformed look, and it is a deformity. Once, when we walked on all fours, it was turned the other way. “ What you see is the back, the front is behind,” as the Irish car-driver told a visitor to Dublin whpn they passed the Four Courts. But deformity of the male knee is nothing to that of the woman’s knee. Is has developed with special bulk and strength throughout the ages. But it has also become disagreeably shaped. It should be concealed, screened from observation, never displayed. 1 recollect having this stamped on my notice a very long time ago. 1 went to see an actress play Viola in ■Twelfth Night.’ So long as she wore her skirts she was graceful and charm ing. When she appeared in her boy s dress I was conscious at once of something wrong. It was her knees. They made her look clumsy, awkward, and dumpy. Before she had seemed lissom and slim. If you are interested in sculpture, you must nave seen how sculptors do their best to dodge knees when they do figures of women. They slightly bend them, or make the model stand slightly a-tip-too. They show that they are making the best of a bad job. I know scupltors, and painters, too, who deplore the change in fashion from long dresses to short. They say that woman’s knees are so unshapely that they should be camouflaged as skilfully as possible. That seems to mo exaggeration, _ , The women of ancient Greece were delightful to look at, and 1 do not think there has been any period since theirs in which women have dressed as To-day they look better than they have at any time in between. I mean the sensible ones—those who know how far to go and who go no farther. What is it that makes others disregard the golden mean—and show their knees? I am not suggesting that there is any harm in showing the knee. We have travelled a long way, it is true, since the days when it was considered immodest, and even immoral, to show so much as an ankle. Think of the care that girls who rode on the tops of omnibuses used to take to gather their skirts round their feet when they went up and down! One can sympathise with the impatience of the conductor who said t;o one of them: “You needn’t worry miss Ankles ain’t no treat to me.” Nown days ankles ain’t no treat to anyone A man can sit in a public conveyance with knees all round him. No injury to public morals results. My plea Js msthetic rather than virtuous, Virtue in these matters can look after itself. There hqs been no diminution of it, I believe, since the days when our parents (if we are mid-dle-aged) thought it perfectly dreadful to wear skirts lifted even a few inches from the ground.