FRENCHWOMEN IN JOURNALISM.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 15 October 1914, Page 2

FRENCHWOMEN IN JOURNALISM.

A^ INCPvEASING INFLUENCE

.. Iri view of the recent article in Tke Times on "Women in the Press,".;it niay be of value by way of. comparison to give soice account of the position of I'rench women in journalism. To be quite correct, there are: no women journalists in France, and the word "journaliste" applied to a woman would be considered more or less of an insult. The moment a woman writes tveli chough to.hiiv&lier. work published m a monthly, weekly, or daily paper in -1 ranee, she as a "femme de lettres" or a "collaboratnee,'' and although, m comparison with England, Fran.ce has few women writers, .their standard of work is higher and their number is increasing, for Frenchwomen are slowly but firmly making themselves felt m the Press as well as in memoirs, romance, and poetry. -

PHILANTHROPY AND FEMINISM. There are women editors, x women critics, women leader writers on several of the Paris daily papers, and a great many of the minor personalities on the staff of both weekly and daily publicalions are women. Fashion and advertisements in connection with feminino things are chiefly, managed by women, ;. and the. practical, economical purposeful mind of'i*©.' Frenchwoman is quite at its best when called upon to organise the conflicting elements T>t*i , mako up a .newspaper office. 1 hilanthropy and feminism are opening out still wider opoortunities to women in the French Press, and althfugh they still remain a "power behind the y.hrone" in finance, and politics, their influence in both is immense, and danr demonstrations of it are not wanting, A leading woman in .the Press told me., only this week that it would make very little difference in the existing state of things if women were accorded .th evote, because "en France la temme est-presque omnipotente." ;She is so closely allied to the man, so much a part of him, body and soul, that be is. "helpless without her, and her -power is as much a tradition with T?im p.*-his infidelity is wifch her. . A 'Frenchman lives for a. woman, not •"necessarily—iivdee,d, very rarely—for the same .woman' long together:; but always the influence1, ot a woman marks his life, and it is to her he makes his speeches, plays his l>art, writes his books, and accounts for ms existence. She is his strength and his weakness, and gradually, imperceptibly she is working.her way into public Me,.where she intends to make a place for herself, not by putting men out of theirs, but by creating new ones specially suited to feminine activity.

INFLUENTIAL PERSONALITIES. _ There are women in French journalism to-day who are doing quite remark able work in the things which touch -on woman's work. There is Mme. Bnsson, editress o£ Les Annales, whose eftorts in the education of girls through her paper and her lecture hall have produced amazing results. There is Mnie. De Broutelles, editress of La Vie Heureuse and La, Mode Pratique, by Whose energy a most admirable scheme •tor dowermg a number of poor girls every year has been proved successful and beneficial where benefits are dueand there is Mile. Valentine Thomson whose paper La Vie Feminine, promises to be an organ of great importance m the world of women's work, especially in those branches which deal with hygiene and philanthropy. Already Mile. Thomson is a personality in the lans Press, and.her paper is a voice tor women workers of all classes. Amon«the women leader writers who have made their name in literature and can' command equal payment with men of the same literary standing are Gerard d Houville, Foemina, Mme. Severine, Mme. Marcelle Tinayre, and 'Mile. Thomson. The number of women who write about clothes, furniture, cooking hygiene, and household matters generally is rapidly increasing; and ; t n ust

be recognised that Frenchwo-non w-ite with admirable precision «nd ssome sense of style on any subject, no matter how -trivial, if they write *t all. They have the -gift of criticism Ix-i n =in them; they -see" .heir vibjeot as .'a whole, and they attack it \vit;i method Ihere is nothing tattered or vpguo about a Frenchwoman's article. Her ideas are lucid and. tar mannor of expressing them is concise,' so that whether she writes of a philosophic abstraction or a cooking stove thenr pi r>ssion she leaves of it is clear a; d decided.

The subjects dearest to the -Frenchwoman's- pen in the Press are those which deal with struggles against alcoholism, tuberculosis, and lack of maternai education. The eloquence of plain facts is theirs in the women's plea for the fighting of the evils which come from drink and disease. No timel and energy is lost in sentimental reflections, and there is no attempt to bide ugly truths; so that a? one reads the facts and statistics of the conditions under which wen and women live and bring forth children in the "workers' " quarters of the city, the "sting of sudden tears" comes without any attempt at literature on the part of the woman writer. The pictures drawn of the creches and the baby cliriiques can also be painfij: b"t they can also be the reverse, and if anything were needed to justify the nower of women in the Press the £or>(l it hns done for the Tiothf"-* nnd cT"Hren of the poor woxild be sufficient. —Times.