WOMAN HAS NO “PACK CONSCIOUSNESS”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 8053, 6 March 1912, Page 11

WOMAN HAS NO “PACK CONSCIOUSNESS”

Men have for long been aware that women lack the power of comradeship, but they have hesitated to mention it, partly from feelings of delicacy and partly because women would not know what they meant. It is of no use to attempt an explanation of sight to one who has never had it, and in the same way women can not understand a comradeship that is not a part of their constitution. But it seems that women are awakening to a sense of - their deficiencies in this respect, which is a comforting sign, for there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just men made perfect. Here we have a woman writing to an Eastern paper upon this very subject. She quotesMr Chesterton, who says that there are only three things that women do not understand, and they are liberty, equality, and fraternity. Men, she says, have something that women have not but that they must have. They have the power of comradeship and good-fellowship. Men, wretches that they are, have .acqnired these virtues in unvirtuons ways, by eating, \drinking, and smoking. When they meet for these gross and carnal purposes they create an impersonal atmosphere. They forget their own individnalities and each contributes to. the impalpable sentiment of comradeship. But how different it is with women, how impossible they find it to shake off their rigidity, the self-con-sciousness of clothing, deportment, caste. There is no pervading spirit that enwraps them all and brings them into the bonds of a common, impersonal geniality. A woman is always a separate being. She has no pack consciousness. She never belongs to a team. Men have known this for a long time, but have not liked to say so. Now that the discovery has been .made by a woman there is no harm in assenting enthusiastically to its truth.