WOMEN’S PART

Hokitika Guardian, 12 August 1937, Page 2

WOMEN’S PART

IN NEXT WORLD WAR.

BY COMMANDANT MARY ALLEN, 0.8. E.

(Head of the Women’s Auxiliary Service).

Everybody nowadays is talking about the next war, how it will be fought, what its horrors will be. '

It would seem from the talk of politicians, the conversation of the man in the street, the writings of some journalists, that war is inevitable, yet between whom the next war is to be waged nobody seems quite sure ! Perhaps that is the one bright sign. Of one thing, however, we can-be sure: if war comes—and we all hope it won’t—women will have an increasingly important part to take in it. 1 am often asked whether women should be allowed to take part in the actual trench warfare, whether they could not handle a machine-gun or a rifle as effectively as men. I have no doubt that some women would make just as good soldiers as men, but, even so, I am against their going to the trenches. I am against it on psychological rataer than physical grounds.

I have not long returned from Spain. There I saw something of what happens to. women who are obsessed by lust oi combat. , They have become terribly cruel, committing the most vile of: crimes, attacks on expectant mothers, the killing of unborn children, and the mutilation of women forming part •of their de structive instincts. I can' offer no explanation of these terrible happenings. It is not a question of sex. . It may, perhaps, be a form of inhibited jealousy. 1 feel that women are still too apt to go to extremes. .; Perhaps, more than men, women wish to be either martyrs or triends. You get the self-sacrificing, self-ef-facing type, the woman who will work herself to the bone in an endeavour to serve her fellow-beings either in war or peace. , On the other hand, you get the type who considers destruction in itself i virtue. ’ . ( • I don’t think that sort of-•thing is natural in Spain. It is an imported terror,- something which has • emanateci from the brains of evil human beings but it. is, none the less, there, ami very horrible it is. Curiously enough, I think that ou of all this turmoil the Spanish woman will emerge a better citizen, one, o! whom we are likely to hear much mor< in the future. She is; certa’inly nnicl stronger than we thought; I do not want it to be thought that trench life necessarily makes a woman inhuman, and, as an example of r woman who has . emerged from it, un scathed in that way, I might mention Madame Paleolog, , who served as n soldier, and j,s now chief of the women police in Poland. Very charming and kind she is, too. We must also recognise the fact tba what is happening in'Spain is civil war. and civil war is always so much worst than any other type. Perhaps that is biie reason why the women have be come so degraded. . 1 and many oi' my members were ii Ireland durin" the “troubles” there, and women had a tremendous anioun. to do with the actual; warfare.

They- hid the guns ; they sent ou : information; they helped the liieii ii every possible way, and I doubt whetli er without them the rebellion couh have earned on.

Nfever, however, did I see or head anything that was revolting on' theii part. They did what they believed wa their duty, cheerfully, gladly, but the. never indulged in the horrible orgies i saw in Spain.. The Irish women would lie ; they would tell the most outrageous stories they would pretend to be ill, to be dea or dumb, if it suited them, and i needed tact and infinite patience to ge the truth out of them. The men respected them; often they would come and tell us they knew gun... were hidden in a woman’s blouse, bu they couldn’t disturb the woman be cause she was ill. , One of us would go in quickly, t< ‘ find out that there was nothing wronwith the. woman and that guns An< ammunition , were hidden in and uhdei her bed. When , she knew we were toe clever for her, she would smile. The Irish women as 1 found- then were always kind and never bore any malice even to us who, in their opinion were their enemies.

The Irish rebellion, however, was- • national one; what is , happening i Spain is foreign to the people there and has aroused their worst passions. However, women, inevitably, wi. have to play a part in the war of th> future, though behind the scenes, wher we will Jiave enough to I ,do. We will ae as transport as nurses, a ordinary women police. We will also need numberless womei as messengers for private work, as help ers in aerodromes, as pilots, though ' must say T would not' send women t<. the front to drop bombs. They will also be needed to help in ease of air attacks; to reassure tin frightened, to help with the adjustment of gas masks. We will require hundreds of women for all these tasks, and their import a’nee cannot he over-valued. It is al ’ most as important as the actual work of the soldier, and. I feel sure, is bet ter, morally, for the women. I- believe that, as far as is possible; it is advisable not to send women far from their homes, and so T am in favour of local schemes whereby women can do their work and still be attache;!