PROGRESS OF WOMEN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10109, 7 August 1893, Page 6

PROGRESS OF WOMEN.

J : TO THE EDITOR. .... , Sis,—The subject of an article published in Saturday’s Times being “ The Progress of ‘Women,” I feel sure you will allow one of the sex to, criticise a few of the views expressed therein. While the world aud all ita women have advanced with gigantic strides, your .article B b° ws .that there fire jneh who, upon some subject?, have nob advanced one step beyond the time of John Knox, some three hundred years ago, or, further still, right back to the time o. St Paul, about eighteen centuries since. Speaking of woman, you say, “ She will by a ■ort of gymnastic bound, leap from ruling her home to controlling an empire—she will, in fact, suddenly acquire political knowledge by intuition and instinct.” If politics mean the good government of the cotintry, then woman in New Zealand has Jo need to take either a leap or abound, irsheis already there—in fact she was bom there. She baa lived and breathed politics' all heir life. She has the more practical knowledge of the effects of most of the laws. In her position of family governing, who can tell batter than she bow the import duties affect the price of food, clothing, furniture and everything elm the family needs ? Who under s * and s better than the women how railway freight affects the price of fuel ? The mother ' knows best how the educational laws affect her children, be they teachers or pupils. And who so well as the wife ‘and mother can tall how the social laws affect the family hearth? Agajtt yon say, “We have no facts to justify ' theso : assertions” of women’s ability. I agree ’ with you there, if you •re speaking of New Zealand alone. There an no published facts, and it is one of the things which wo feel very much. We know imm by their works, many of which •n 1 recorded in every journal published is the Colony. But of women’s work no notice iataken. In- England the greatest politicians credit their wives with the assistance they give them, and are pleased that it should be known. _ Strangers here, or tourists passing, wonder what all the,women do that they see about eur streets, and to find out, they turn over tha pages of the local papers till they come to "the page, headed “ Ladies’ Column,’' and'what do they see? Only column after flolnma of this : “ Mrs A. gave a most •Bjoyable dance.” and “ Miss B. wore a lovely dress of this colour and that "Mrs C. was gowned in so and so,” giving a description- of dabs of colour dodging •boat, and conveying no idea of a dress even to the female mind. And sometimes there may be a few paragraphs relating to women’s work in another part of the world, thousands of miles away, but not one line devoted to the work done by the women of our own city. If sotne strangely-minded woman astonishes the community by her pranks, all the newspapers in the country mention the fact, and then all the women in, the oity are put down upon the same level. And ‘when you say “ the woman of the nineteenth century is very charming, and no doubt very clever,- but by all the known l*ws of inheritance the marvellous woman of the twentieth century is not her daughter,” I suppose you mean that if the mother of the present day hns not sufficient . brains and education to enter the political world her child will not have them because they must be inherited. If this is the case now, how in the world can the son of this Abrainleas, uneducated woman be competent to manage the affairs of the State? Again, you say, “Women do not give their brains sufficient wholesome exercise, lb is quite astonishing how few women, in comparison with tho same number of men, ever allow themselves tho luxury of real thought.” Perhaps you imagine that woman seldom thinks because she does not often sit down with folded hands. This- is indeed a luxury which few wombfl can afford. But woman thinks and deeply- too. No man • who -has ' a wife'- : 'ot mother'need he told how con-. '•tautly -and ; thoroughly women think.. Their’ trains -are' 1 always busy, not conceatrkted npou'-the ; vfork in baud, for that har- already been thought oat and set ready for the hands to do their part, but upon some other important matter, which, in ‘Spite Of all interruptions, she never leaves Until" it is solved or created and ready for the bauds. To prove step by step the fallacy of the statements used in your .article would take up more apace than perhaps you would be disposed to allow me; but I have said enough to show that your arguments are open to criticism and your •tatemenls to question.—l am, &0., ANNIE T. MOSLEY. Christchurch, August 5.