“VAMP” AND “HE-MAN”

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 December 1929, Page 10

“VAMP” AND “HE-MAN”

REAL EQUALITY OF SEXES Every journalist knows that certain things are news and other things are not. There is no technical or arbitrary Question of ■’tvlia.t -interests the people ivho buy and read the :papers, writes GOralfl Gould in a London journal. £dlitiijs is sometimes news. Crime is generally nfews. Weather is always Hews But tlib oddest distinction is this—thst «en, as meh, are never news, and women, as. wOmen, are news everywhere and all the time. An act performed by a man may be interesting 6r dull; but if it does interest people, it has to do so on its own merits. It cannot get any special splash or sparkle out of the fact that a infin performed it. But let a woman do something less remarkable, and she leaps straight into the headlines! The explanation is simple. Full equality between the sexes is not yet established. Some argue that the scales are weighted one way; some, that they are weighted the other. Some, that women are privileged, and some, that women are still oppressed. But, wherever the inequality lies, it is a faCt - . x , • XT. Women are still associated m the public mind with privacy, domesticity, and subordination. Their emergence into the public eye is considered to be remarkable, because it is expected to be rare. lam not referring here, however, to the legal anomalies which still remain to be smoothed out; for these are admittedly trivial in comparison with the main advance. It is absurd, for instance, that women who are peeresses in their own right are not allowed to sit in the House of Lords; and, no doubt, if I were a woman and a peeress in my own right, I should feel very bitter about it. • But nobody could pretend that that absurdity is important, as compared with the fact that women can sit in the House of Commons. The law needs amending in detail in the interests of men as well as of women; but for once, public opinion lags behind the law. In the old days—anad not such very old days either —when the greater part of public. life was definitely closed to women, they used tb be told that they enjoyed Special privileges to make up for their disabilities. To which the more spirited of them replied: “Down with privilege! We want our rights!”

It was no use putting woman on a pedestal—and cutting the ground from under her feet. It was no use opening the door for her into a drawing-room —and slamming the door of the professions in her face. It was no use giving her your seat in an omnibus when what she wanted was a seat in Parliament. Too often has mankind salved its conscience for refusing to do what it ought by doing something else that Was not wanted! A great deal of the superficial deference paid to women has beefi really a cloak f6f cbntempt.. “We are pleased to compliment ourselves,” sdid Charles Lamb', “upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness ,br deferential reflect, Which we are supposed to pay to fbhiales as females.” And he added: “I shall begin to believe that there is somb such principle influencing our conduct when more than one half of the drudgery and course servitude of the world shall cease to be performed by women.” That was written just over a hundred years ago. MUch has been remedied since then. But is “gallantry any more a reality now than it was then? And, anyhow, is “gallantry” what we need? ‘ It is possible to argue that, with their new liberties and their, old privileges, women are getting the best of both worlds. It is equally possible to argue that, since the new liberties are only partial and the old privileges were largely pretence, women are not getting anything of the kind. But the true issue lies elsewhere.

COMRADES IN BATTLE What if women do not want to have it. both ways? What if they choose to be neither Queens of Beauty on the one hand or drudges on the other? What if they ask simply to share work ah'd rewjjrdL fairly and honestly—to be comrades, sharers, equals jn the battle of life? Are we men really prepared to yield that claim, and all that it implies for the future? I hope we are; but it is sometimes a much greater challenge to a man’s vanity, a much greater tax on his generosity to accept a woman as a fellow worker than to worship her as an angel.

if real equality of the sexes is going to be admitted, We shall all of us — women as well as men —have to adjust our habits of mind, oiir acts, our conventions, to new conditions. Many types of. women familiar in film and fiction —the “vamp", the “cat”, the helpless, “fluffy”, clinging, adoring little thing, who cannot pick up her oWn gloves or look up her own trains —will disappear! But so will the corresponding types of the male—the “masterful” man, the “he-man,” the “sheik”! A lot of false sentiment and romance will go. Will a heartier, happier relationship between the sexes arise? When we see the clean, simple, straightforward companionship that often exists among young men and young- -vyomen to-day, it is permissible to hope so. • But the reform of the divorce laws and a whole host of other social changes will almost certainly follow. Take the crucial matter of the guardianship of children. Up till a little while ago, £he 'father was the undisputed legal head of the family. He could, decide absolutely about the training and education of his children. Now, the mother is recognised in law as a parent with equal rights. But many men continue to regard themselves as really the masters. Does not many a father still think that his will ought to be law, even though the law no longer endorses his will?

It is in short, extremely difficult to form a mental picture of the world as it will be when the equality of the sexes has been made a governing principle of conduct. It is still more difficult to fit our instincts and ideas into the picture. But it is towards that state of things that the world advances.