MAINLY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1929, Page 9

MAINLY FOR WOMEN

ITEMS OF INTEREST

(Notes by

Marjorie)

VAMPS OF BOTH SEXES. DON JUAN AND THE SIREN. “It sounds a terribly cynical thing to say,” declared Frances Doble, the well-known young actress, in the course of an interview, “but the sort of men all women love are delightful, unreliable, and .... everything that a really nice man should not be. Good? -women, charming women, women who ought to know better, and who do know better in rare flashes' of clear-sightedness—they are all the same. The bad man gets them almost every time. He may be graceless, and his principles either deplorable or conveniently absent; his word not his bond except when it pleases him to keep it, and his heartlessness only equalled by the scheming heartlessness of the female vamp. But all those shortcomings appear to make no difference, and only seem to add to his attraction for the opposite sex. Women love the people who cause them the most heart-ache. The nicer and more guileless the woman, the better she will adore the male creature who plays on her feelings and susceptibilities and rockets her about from happiness to grief, and then to a return of complete faith, and even to spasms of self-reproach for having doubted her beloved one’s single-hearted devotion. Of course, I must say there are certain types of women who see through cads —and they are not the nicest and most charming types of femininity. Which seems a pity, but it is an undoubted fact. The cold, scheming type of women who invariably tries to use everybody as a stepping-stone for her own advancement sees through the male butterfly, and has no use for him. It, does not mean that she is not fascinated by his personality at times in her calculating way, but she is very much on her guard, and so is he. It is a case of “When Vamp Meets Vamp!” Did I once hear somebody say that there were no male vamps. Don’t you believe it. There are plenty of them, and I assure you when two of the kind of the opposing sex meet, there’s generally no love lost between them. They know too much about each other.

That antagonism existing between similar types of men and women probably accounts for the incongruity of the couples one meets. For instance, where married people are concerned, one often finds that one of the parties is delightful, while the other is absolutely detestable, and not at all the sympathetic and congenial companion one would imagine the former would have chosen for a life partner. A reason why the female vamp cannot stand the male variety is because the latter sees through her charm, for we must remember that the vamp’s charm is carefully built up. A woman may be a vamp by nature, but she won’t succeed unless she -weaves a clever web of enchantment around her personality. She is not born with it. It is not I inherent in her mental and psychological make-up. Well, the ■sophisticated, suave male who is' her counterpart knows all about that. He s familiar with the whole process. For it is so similar to his own methods of charm tactics.

As you have undoubtedly noticed, the typical Don Juan never directs his attacks on one of those huhdred per cent, sirens who would be a match for him at any time. Ho centres his attention on something sweet and very youthful. Likewise, the female vamp will focus her attention on the helpless man who has had little to do with women on the whole. She makes him believe in her. Sometimes, if he’s unfortunate, he w’ill believe in her angelic qualities forever. “Surely,” someone once told me, “a woman must be born with great charm if she can always hold or bring back a man?” But that does not follow. There are two kinds of charm, you see. There is real charm, the magnetic -ittraction born in a woman, and there is synthetic charm, which, as its name implies, is acquired after careful study. I have often noticed that when a male vamp falls with a flop, he never falls for the synthetic charmer, but with the guileless enchantress who was born with her witchery, which is all the more powerful because most of the time she forgets about it.

JAPANESE MEDICAL WORJEN. A charming Japanese woman, married to a European, is visiting London just now. Though she wears the national dress of her country, she says that many .Japanese women, especially those who work outside their own homes, adopt Western costume as more convenient, states a London writer. , Speaking of a book which has just been published by Dr Yakoi Yoshioka, she remarked that women doctors are popular, more particularly for children. • Dr Yoshioka’s career is very interesting, for* she was a pioneer in the women’s movement, and it was owing to her initiative and persistence in demands for educational opportunities that so much progress was made. This woman doctor graduated In 1892, but was not the first to ask for admission to the schools of medicine. As early as 1868 a woman made application foi’ admission to the gynaecological. classes at the Imperial Government School. Her request jyas not granted, and it was not until ISB4 that women got the right to qualify for a medical career the first having graduated a year later. Something similar to. the state of affairs in London is going on in Japan, for men- are not all willing to admit women to the schools, and a good deal of controversy goes on concerning the facilities granted to .them. Dr Yoshioka has a medical college for workmen- which she hopes to have joined to a university. Meantime, something like 1500 women are in practice. Some have gone to work in Korea, China, Formosa, and the United States. Government offices have women doctors appointed to look after their female staff. In great factories there are women in charge of the workers of their own sex, and in connection with the silk industries many thousands of women are employed in well managed factories, as well as in their own homes, looking after, the silk worms. Hospitals, schools, and charitable institutions are staffed to the usual ; extent by women, and women are apI pointed to look after them.

WOMEN UNDER FASCISM. CHANGES. SINCE THE WAR. The question is often asked: How are Italian women faring under Fas ci§m? How are they affected by the mass of new syndicalist legislation regulating the interests of workers of all classes? i • So far as the syndicates are' concerned it must be said at once that women have nothing to complain of, for they are placed on a perfect equality with men. Signor Bottai, Undersecretary of State for spoke of this recently in an interview granted to a group of American business women visiting Rome. “Italian men,” Signor Bottai said, “greatly appreciate feminine initiative in organisation which tends to raise the level of the different classes and bring about economic well-being. It is obvious that every nation has its own special methods of organisatioi l dictated by transition, tendencies and the very nature of the country in question. In Italy we believe that we have solved the problem by bringing women into the syndicalist and corporative movement on a footing of equality with men. Women who labour in workshops or factories or who have gained a professional degree, are entitled to be enrolled in a syndicalist and enjoy the same protection through the syndicate as men. In this sense, as workers, there is no difference between the two.” Fascist legislation provides for privileged treatment for female workers in cases where such treatment is for the benefit of individual women, and through them of the community in general. Thus mothers who are factory hands or employees are to leave off work one month before childbirth and not resume it until a full month after, it being incumbent on employers to keep their places open for them. This two months’ rest is made possible by the Maternity Insurance Benefit, which frees women from financial care during the period of enforced unemployment. It is now proposed to extend this measure to women engaged in heavy agricultural labour.

An attempt is being made to grapple with the thorny question of female domestic servants, who cannot for obvious reasons, be enrolled in a syndicate under a regular labour contract. It is proposed that protection for this class should come under the head of welfare work and be entrusted to the ’’Fasci Femminili,” who will see to it that women—Specially young girls—are well treated and not overworked while in domestic service, while servants on their side, will be provided with a medical certificate ( guaranteeing their health and capacity for work and a further certificate of honesty and good conduct. Women have not the political vote in Italy. In 1925 Parliament passed a law granting them the vote in municipal elections on the same terms as men, but before they could enjoy their new rights these were snatched from them by fresh legislation abol ishing administrative elections alto gether. This check, which was much felt by the small group of educated women who had for years consistently fought for female suffrage, could hardly be called a general grievance, for the average Italian woman displayed the utmost apathy about the municipal vote and nine-tenths of them refused to take the very small trouble of placing their names on the list.

The Rome correspondent of the London “Observer” says:—“ltalian women all ovei- the country, but especially in Northern and Central Italy, are very different to-day from what they were some 20 or 30 years ago. They have developed; they have a broader outlook; they have multiplied their interests and become independent in a way which, to most impartial observers seems wholly for good. But it is not Fascism that has done this; it is the war, which broke up all the life they had known, and taken for granted for generations and thrust them suddenly into a new atmosphere where they were faced with new duties. “The women had to work, and they did it; painfully at first, afterwards increasingly well. They worked in banks, in offices, in businesses, in a way hitherto barred to them; they acquired freedom, and, broadly speaking, in acquiring it they learned to use it and make the best of their lives, married or unmarried.

“Gone are the days when girls of the middle-classes passed their best years in waiting at home for a husband, condemned to idleness because work —except under great restrictions and limitations —was ‘infra dig.’ and drifting into a dreary middle-age if the hope of marriage was not realised. Active, intelligent girls tend more and more toward work or a careei' of son;e kind; their earnings help the family budget, and Prince Charming is met just as easily by mixing with the world as within the walls of a secluded home.

“Pendulums have a tendency to swing too far, and the fact that the high cost of life obliges many women to continue work after they are married has been publicly deplored more than once by Signor Mussolini, though he accepts it as a necessity under present circumstances. In his fanioiis speech in the Senate on May 25 this year, in answer to the Pope’s thesis that education belongs to the family rather than to the State, Signor Mussolini said: “To say that education belongs to the family is to say something wholly at variance with contemporary reality. The modern family, harassed by economic needs and the daily struggle for life, can no longer educate anyone.’ It is stated that so far as State employees are concerned there is some idea of giving extra salaries to married ifien with families, so that the wives may be able to stop at home.

“The careers that chiefly attract Italian women are teaching—in which they excel —medicine and Idw. , Women doctors, especially for children, are beginning to increase in number, and the few women lawyers practising at the bar give a good account of themselves. Women are also beginning to take to journalism—rather tentatively—and to business careers. “The one profession which educated women practically bar is the nursing profession and that in spite of much official propaganda, for Queen Elena and the Duchess of Aosta are’ keenly interested in nursing, and the Queen especially has done all she can to encourage women to take to a pro-

fession for which —in Italy—the best class of woman is .still greatly needed.”