SEX ANTAGONISM.

Northern Advocate, 11 April 1914, Page 5

SEX ANTAGONISM.

MILITANT FEMINISM'S FVRUITS

Another evidence of a changed sexual relationship comes from NewYork. The San Francisco Argonaut states that a man travelling on the subway during the crowded hours was accussed of insulting a woman. Now it has been one of the immemorial privileges of a woman.to slap a man's face, and it has been one of man's immemorial privileges to be slapped in the face. But in this case the man promptly gave the woman in charge for the assault.

But the curious part of the case is the applause that has followed this man's action. The New York "World" says that he has "rendered a service to his sex for which his less courageous fellow-men will be inclined to thank him'" The "World" then continues:—

"To such complexion have things come under the white slave and 'Damaged Goods' disease propaganda. A mental atmosphere has been created investing men and women in public places with mutual suspicion.

That this is not merely the individual opinion of the "World" is shown

by the letter of a correspondent, who says:—

■ "If a few years ago anyone had ventured the opinion that it would soon be unsafe for men to walk the streets of the city unprotected, he would have been greeted with cries of derision. Yet to-day, what* with white slave hysteria and 'poisonedneedle , scares, we seem to be tending toward such a ridiculous state of things." ' ,It is a sorry business, holds the ."Argonaut, but such incidents as these mark a condition that is now more deeply seated than may be supposed. It is a condition of sex antagonism, and a waning of the marriage rate and a hundred other like phenomena are its symptoms. For a long time men were disposed to look upon the feminist movement in j its cruder aspects with a certain amount of amused toleration. But that particular phase is passing away." The spectacle of a number of respectable men thrown summarily into gaol on the vilest .charge known to the law and upon the unsupported, accusation ■of a-few dirty little creatures who ought to be in the psychopathic ward is not one to be lost on the male mind.