PRE-WAR GIRL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3279, 14 March 1931, Page 2

PRE-WAR GIRL

MODERN MISS PITIED. THE PAIR COMPARED. "When from time to time I announce both in public and in private that I pity the modern girl, I am greeted with exclamations of astonishment," says Godfrey Winn, in "Home Chat." "And when I go further and assert were I a woman myself, and were forced to choose between being young nowadays and even 30 years ago, I should, without a moment's hesitation, choose my mother's day. For, in my opinion, the life of the pre-war girl was a much happier one than that of the girl to-day. Of course I know a lot of my readers will protest violently. They will argue thus: The pre-war girl had no freedom. She was kept in a cage like a bird. She wore hideous clothes and was not allowed to play strenuous games. "And as for being independent, earning her living, and having a career, the only career she was permitted was that of matrimony, which often proved—-the approach to \t, that is to say—extremely difficult and complicated, because she was never permitted to spend ten minutes alone unchaperoned with a young man. For her there were no night clubs, no cocktails, no bathing shorts, no shingle, no latch key, and no lipstick! ATTACK ON "CAREERS." "Oh, yes, I know that to enjoy that protection they had to stay at home and spend their days in an endless round of domestic duties. The question is: Would they have enjoyed their existence more? Would they have been happier, had they experienced a life of wider interests such as you have to-day? "I doubt it, personally, very much. For instance, are you, yourself, happier following your Career (with a capital *C,' of course), catching the 8.30 to the city every morning, strap-hanging most of the way, spending the rest of your day chained to your desk in a stuffy

office, taking down endless letters which inevitably being, 'ln answer to yours of the Ist instant . . ." and, finally, when you do emerge into the open air again, feeling too tired to do anything except crawl home, have some supper, and go to bed. Do you enjoy this new routine, which you have created by your own efforts for yourself, more than the old one which you have discarded and pretended to despise so much, the one of bed-making and cooking and sewing? "Of course, you will argue fiercely that you do enjoy it more, for the simple reason that you have burnt your boats and cannot turn back now to the other shore. You have demanded for years your freedom, and now that you have been given it, isn't it true that you have found to your bitter astonishment that you are not free at all, but have merely exchanged the tyranny of the home for the tyranny of the typewriter? "POOR, WEAK WOMEN." "And it seems to me that the latter is definitely the worse of the two, because the former did, after all, allow you to make yourself a cup of tea if you felt tired, or take a rest after lunch with your feet up, and a cushion behind your head, or even spend the afternoon at a matinee. I admit that, nowadays, you are your own mistress. You have your salary to spend on yourself how you will. You have, too, a latch key, and no questions are asked by nervous parents as to what was the hour of your return from the dance the night before. "Of course, your parents need have no fears. There is no romantic nonsense about you. You are friends with your young men, comrades in

work and play—and nothing more. Sentiment you consider sloppy and silly, and if one of Jhese young men is so foolish as to propose (which is most unlikely, since the modern young man values his freedom quite as highly, if not more highly than the modern girl), you automatically refuse him on the grounds that you have no intention of being any man's slave.

Yes, but don't you sometimes regret a little sadly that the modem young man is no longer your slave, in the same way as our fathers were the willing and attentive slaves of our mothers. In a word, aren't you tired of being treated—as a man? Wouldn't you like, deep down in your heart, to be a poor weak woman once more, like your mother and grandmother before .you.