WOMEN IN ART

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 2 June 1928, Page 11

WOMEN IN ART

JX a speeen at the Authors ’ Club, on the position of women in literature, Lord Birkenhead, while not ungenerous in his appreciation vf women writers, reached a rather disinheriting conclusion. He remarked: “Women writers are not in any way comparable to men writers of distinction. ’ ’

The “Morni-ngf Post’’ admits that the judgment is unanswerable according to the record of the past, but the argument from the past is not conclusive. There are a shore of reasons, c,ocial, political, and traditional; which have in earlier ages deterred women from author,ship. The real emancipation of woman is a very recent phenlomchon. In liberty, in leisure, and in range of experience, she has been crib'bed, cabin’d, and confined since the stone age, and the marvel is that, under such conditions, women should have written, not so little, but so much that the World dares to remember, writes the lion don 'correspondent cf the Wellington ‘ ‘ Post. ’ ’ It is irrelevant, besides (continues the commentator) ho point put that no woman lias written a “Hamlet” or a “Paradise Lost.” Woman’s genius is not man’s genius. .She has her own “metier,” and it is answer enough to this argument to reply that no man living or dead could have written Jane Austen’s novels.

It is unnecessary to rehearse the list of famous women writers of • arlier times; the significant fact is that in authorship, both of prose and verse women have become increasingly successful during the last hundred years. Their achievements to-day are not less remarkable for being accepted as a matter of'Course. We have travelled a long way since the days of George Eliot and “Ouida,” and Miss Braddon. The ai-t of fiction lias been almost "transformed, and yet who shall say that at least one book by Miss May Sinclair and one by Mis’s Sheila Raye-SmSth are not as notable an,] distinguished as those of any living author, except one or two? Who will say what Miss Katherine Mansfield, lrad she lived, might not have achieved? With such capacity in evi

PLACE AMONG AUTHORS

LATE WON FREEDOM

dence, it is impossible to isct pounds to its possibilities. 'Clearly there is nothing inherently lacking in the sex which can produce such literature, and as today there is nothing to prevent the career from opening to the talents, it is reasonable to conclude that in 'ho future the temple of literary fame is likely to follow the example of so many of our exclusive clubs ami open its doors to women. LACK OF OPPORTUNITY. Various well-known wotiwn writers have since expressed briefly tlieir views. Miss Sheila, Have-Smith, whose books Lord Birkenhead said he never .Viewed to pass Without attention, did not nOc the necessity for sex distinct ions in lit. eraturc. “It seems to mo idiotic to compare in on and women writers,” she said. “I can’t see that you can divide them like that. They are ioth writers, and some 'are better or worse than ethers —it is not a matter of sex at all. There are more eminent ruen writers becaus more men than women have written up ho now.” “Give 'the women .time, ’’ said Mrs Baillio Reynolds. “Women have been put back for generation after generation, until a couple of generati ins ago —put back to the beginning of things. They were never allowed to nrogres". They have Wad only two generations m which to develop, and look what thev have clone in - that short t ime. They have Taken high palecs in business, in politics, 'science, and various careers, and gained'high degrees at ihe universities, and surely, in a ,generation or two, they will be able to give more time to ‘pl l^oSlo P li y> aiid thought, and literature. It seems absurd to me to compare at present 'the performances of women in such a sphere as writing with those of men, who have had everv facility-for centuries.” Miss Ciclev• Hamilton agreed with Lord Birkenhead 'that women in art did not. with rare exceptions, approach men. “Women have been brought t.p as a parasitic race, and you don’t get fine thoughts . from a par.isiti; race.” she said. “As long as women continue

bo prefer to see things through other people’s eyes, they will rcr. get the entirely free and independent outlook that is absolutely necessary.’ Mrs .Belloc Lowndes: “When it comes to any form of .art, women are just as good as .men —when they get the same opportunity. Up to now ♦ beyhave not had the same opportunity. 1 consider Emily Bronte was as good a woman poet as any man poet of the last century.” PROOF OF .HISTORY. The “Evening Standard” maintains ■that all the replies have suffered from one essentia 1 flaw —the fact that what Lord Birkenhead said was demonstrably true, and that no amount of talking can make it untrue. A certain amount of writing might, but not a less amount than would occupy several generations. “The overwhelming bulk of the world’s literature in the past has been written by men. This is no matter on which the male sex anay congratulate itself. It is true, but it is a pity that it is true. To the lover of literature, a good book is a good book, no matter who .may have written it, and the fact that we have had few great women authors means only that we have fewer good book's than we might have had, and that literature in general is poor in a valuable element. For, whatever a woman has written well, she has not aped men, but has written as no one but a woman could write. “If one traces t'he feminine stream in letters from its beginning this becomes obvious. Sappho, Erinna, and t'he rest, of whom there are fragments sufficient for a judgment, betray their sex as much by their sentiments as ever by their dress. When we 'conic to later times, the best English poetesses, from the Countess of Winchilsea on, through .Mrs Browning and Christina Rossetti to Mrs Mcyncll, are all markedly feminine. It is a quality as unm'istak'ablo in them as the tone of a voice, as charming as the sound of women ’s voices, but, unfortunately, so much rarer.”