WOMEN'S RIGHTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21640, 4 November 1933, Page 11

WOMEN'S RIGHTS

BERNARD SHAW'S COMMENTS

' REFUSAL TO GIVE ADDRESS LONDON. Nov. 2 Typical, breezy correspondence has been published in which Mr. G. Bernard Shaw, well known author, refused to attend a meeting in Westminster to deal with the question, "Should Married Women Earn?" Mr. Shaw, in a letter to Mrs. F. Pethick-Lawrence, said: " Nothing will induce me to speak at a meeting to demand tho rights of women. I have lost no opportunity of giving tho cause a lift. My writings and personal vanity would not allow me to bo led in triumph by eloquent, militant women, to bo exhibited pooping behind their skirts, to speak out my little piece in favour of this or that concession, then to bo patted on tho head as a good little knight-errant and sent home to bed. " A pretty picturo I would cut, at the age of 77, demanding the rights of married women. Besides, the significance of tho meeting would bo entirely spoiled by tho crowd that follows me everywhere, not caring two straws whether I am advocating purdah or promiscuity." Mr. Shaw proceeded to argue that much more important than adult suffrage was his earlier advocacy that there should be a proportion of women on every governing body. "Do not Mussolini, Hitler and company make you think occasionally that I was right?" he asks. " Wo now have tho spectacle of women's votes keeping women out of Parliament.

" Tho negro Republic of Liberia is reviving tho slave trade. What a world!''