“WOMEN”

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume XXII, 22 July 1932, Page 4

“WOMEN”

THEIR JOB IN THE WORLD In a recent article Viscountes ter pointed out some home trut die post-war generation of won. There is a possible danger, she writes, which I see in the situation of the young women of to-day and one warning I should like to give them. They have got their new opportunities very suddenly, and they are a little inlined to take it ail for granted, and o forget that things were so astonishingly different just a short time igo. And it seems to me that the result of this is that some of them are rather inclined to forget that women have got a special job in the world, over and above their ordinary job of being as happy and successful and well behaved as they can imagine. I do not mean to say that I think they are in any danger of forgetting that Ihey have the duty and pleasure of being mothers, and looking after the next generation. On the contrary, they seem to me to be taking that part of their function more seriously and more sensibly than ever before. But what I mean is that they are, some of them, so much wrapped up in their own individual lives, so eager about their own careers and their own personal affairs, and so ambitious to do both their outside work and their home lives well that they may overlook their importance as part of the whole group of citizens. I do not

think any young woman ought to say or think that politics are not for her. However busy she may be in earning her living and bringing up her children, I think she ought to remember that she, as a woman, is especially needed in public life to-day, just because she has not been there long, and because the balance between the things which used to hold the field has not yet been struck. I think she ought to go much more enthusiastically into local politics; to come forward for work on county and borough councils, to take her share in the doings of her own party in her own constituency, and to keep her M.P. up to the mark after he (or she) is elected. If anyone tries to maintain that there is no such thing as progress, the things which have happened to women in the last 70 years are quite enough to defeat the argument. We need not trouble to talk about science, or electricity, or aeroplanes; we can just point to the first young woman we meet, and the case is proved. For the young woman of 1861 had hardly any of the advantages and pleasures which are available to-day, and the lesult was that (though no doubt she was a charming, unselfish and pretty creature) she was not half so much use in the world, and not half so happy in herself, as her modern successor. No Personal Freedom. Just think what it must have been like to be a woman in 1861. There were no good schools the high schools did not begin until 1872—and, of course, there were not colleges. There was no chance of earning money, save as factory worker, a dressmaker, or a governess, and in these callings .he pay ranged from 5s to 15s a week. There was personal freedom, for it “wasn’t nice” for girls to go about ulcne, or to make their own friends. There was a very strict code of chaperonage, so that there was no hope at all of making friends with any young man. The books which girls ret were censored by their parents, ant the clothes they wore—well, it could at have been easy to move, or even The, in them. Of course, there t the same need to move, for were not any games for girls. Even keeping a dog, or playing the violin, was thought to be unladylike, and the usual exercise was just walking along a road accompanied by a governess. But even that must have been difficult while tight lacing prevailed. Seventy Years of Emancipation. As to more fundamental things, the position was, of course, just as bad. A woman who married not only lost all her personal independence, but all her property as well. Everything she owned, even to her clothes, actually belonged to her husband until 1882; and so did the children, over whose education, domicile or general treatment the mother had no rights at all. At law a married women had no existence. Even the municipal vote was not granted until 1869, and, of course, the Parliamentary franchise did not come until much later, the first instalment in 1918, and the full f ranchise in 1928. We have grown so used to the development now that *hcse dates aie generally forgotten, but I think it is worth while to look as them from time to time, just to remind ourselves how far and how fast things have moved for women.