THE "ENEMY" OF WOMEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19508, 11 December 1926, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE "ENEMY" OF WOMEN.

BY OBIEL. < . In these days wo hear little of the benefits to be gained from working. Thought and energy are directed wholly to labour-saving and labour-saving devices. Everything aims at lessening what is conceived to be the greatest enemy of v.'oman, namely, healthy manual labour, which is not nor ever will be her greatest enemy. Labour-saving in all its branches has been carried to such a fine art that it is now considered quite impossible by many people even to use their legs; so that they cannot forbear getting into a motor to go but a few hundred yards, whither their legs would have carried them equally well. Now I am by no means an advocate of drudgery, toil, or any manner of slavery. But think there is little fear of any modern woman's succumbing to these; -and by " modern woman " I mean reasonably well off woman priding herself on keeping abreast of the times. There are some who through lack of money or sheer inability are doomed never to be modern, and are therefore left struggling along not abreast but in the wake of the times; and to them I say—save as much labour as you can. But the modern woman is in danger of going to the Other extreme. She is so situated as to be surrounded with every known labour-saving device, including her private car, arid if ijot actually afflicted with fatty degeneration of the heart, is likely to develop degeneration and weakening of the muscles. It has somehow got into men's minds that women were never meant to work, that they were not made for it, and that it is a crimp to see them foiling tSheir pretty hands—not on / the earthy skin of a* potato, for the potato has ever been associated with woman's peeling and man's eating—but upon the coarse spadd handle, the grimy coal scuttle, the rough grain of firewood, or those terrible manly weapons, the axe- and saw. Now I do not like to see a woman cutting firewood if there is a man about; I would not so far reverse the order of chivalry; but what I do say is that when there is no man about there is nothing so good for feminine arms and feminine muscles as the wielding of axe and saw, and that it does none of us any harm to wield them, bringing into play joints which are never set in motion either by golf or tennis. Another thing is the modern inability to walk. It is a pitv fhat so many women have become limousine queens;, and though I suppose it is considered an enviable thing to he a limousine queen, it is much more efficacidus to bo queen of your own two less, which too many r" us are not. Having invited a girl to 'come for a two-mile walk,"! was sur-' priced to iind that she couldn't possibly walk that distance—there was the car. What had reallv happened was that her lees had become useless or • motor weakened. Poor thing! I would rather be able to , rule my legs and make them go 'wherever was reonired than rrueen it amonjc the padded seats of a /Rolls Rovce and be the unfortunate possessor of-—■ merely ornamental leg 3. All which amounts to this—work' and ■walk, for'the true enemy of woman lies not in these , but in lazv inaction.