UNPUNCTUALITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 46, 17 May 1927, Page 12

UNPUNCTUALITY

WOMAN’S PRIVILEGE QUESTION OF PRINCIPLE After an earnest inquiry among the men and women students at John Hopkins University, Baltimore, a commission has discovered that women are more unpunctual than men, says John Blunt in the “Daily Mail.” My own experience is that this is not at all true where business is concerned—women are very conscientious in business—but that it most certainly is true where social life is concerned. Indeed, whatever the findings of the commission might have been I would still have known that if you have an appointment with a woman it is highly probable that she will arrive late. What is the reason for this? It could be argued, no doubt, that as time is, generally speaking, of less consequence to a woman than to a man, the sense of time has never been properly developed by women. But personally I am inclined to think that women frequently arrive late on purpose, just as men arrive punctually on purpose. A question of principle is involved. It is woman’s privilege to keep men waiting—and why should she abrogate one of her privileges? Nor is it by any means a vain privilege. By arriving late she shows that it is she who is granting the favour, whereas by arriving early she may lose that advantage. Certainly most men would rather wait for a woman than find the woman waiting for them. They enjoy their little grievance, they like to show how superior they are—and all this women also understand.

The whole art of being late is to know just how late to be. I take it that the psychological moment for a woman to arrive at an appointment of a party is when expectation is on tiptoe and there is not yet any real cause for grievance. The wise woman wants to make people appreciate her value without making them think that she regards them as valueless.

The right use of time is one of her weapons in the social struggle, and if a woman knows just how that weapon ought to be employed she is likely to be a success. But that requires a great deal of judgment and tact. Sometimes punctuality may be a subtle compliment; sometimes it may show an eagerness that defeats its own ends. But all I wanted to say really was this: If women are more unpunctual than men it is often, I am glad to think, out of set design and not out of vagueness.