WOMEN IN POLITICS

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1930, Page 9

WOMEN IN POLITICS

NEW FEMININE PARTY. Highly interesting developments are taking place in German politics. Disappointed over the failure of German women to accomplish any of the reforms idealists of their own sex hoped for has crystallised in the intention to found a Women’s Party. Thus, politically speaking, the sex war assumes for the first time a concrete form, says the Berlin correspondent of the Observer, London. At present women’s efforts toward feforra have been rewarded slightly in a new Bill affecting the closing hours in cafes and beerhouses. Energetic attempts to obtain one definite closing hour for the whole country have failed; the official view in Berlin is that big cities must be treated otherwise than provincial ones. It is argued that whereas the famous “night life” is a definite attraction to a certain class of tourist, this same night life would take on illicit forms if reputable and tolerated places of amusement were closed at one o’clock at night. In vain sensible women plead that energetic police control would soon put an end to haunts where high prices and bad wine would flourish in secret.

Fear that the American system of allpowerful womanhood will spread to Germany is in no small measure responsible for the official attitude. German women in public life declare that reforms brought about by purely feminine influence are not gladly accepted by their male colleagues, and that they have discovered, to their sad surprise, that all sorts of influences other than ideals affect the bearing of a man once he is elected to any kind of office. Everywhere articles are appearing attesting women’s failure to make herself felt in political life. Of the women who entered the political arena after the Revolution, many have left again in disgust. Their practical common sense did not make itself felt in party politics. Instead, they found themselves caught up in the cogwheels that ground both personalities and ideals to powder. Male colleagues are said to have been on the whole very gracious, save in small local spots. But the graciousness was allied to eondenscension. When feminine members in committee made trouble and did not resign of their own free will, fewer women’s names graced the next party election list. Actually, those few were a concession to the female electorate. Many women declare that they have failed to recognise the power of the financial groups controlling various industries who supported party funds, and whose wishes were paramount. Realisation of this killed their own enthusiasm. Just as it was only the “woman of the people” who demanded and deserved the vote in Germany at the end of the war, so it is only the women of the Labour Party who ever understand the solidarity of unions and associations, or the actual need for them,, among employers as well as employed. German women’s political associations have as yet very little power. The prewar “German Women’s League,” with branches in every spot throughout the country presided over by one of the leading local ladies, is pre-eminently a philanthropic and patriotic institution, with very clear views on what constitutes socially the right kind of “party.” That form of conceit called snobbery when applied to the higher sections of society and class-consciousness to the lower, is too rife in Germany for any really objective discussion of affairs. The only really powerful organ of middle-class women is the “Housewife’s Union.” It deals with matters of such domestic and economic interest as may be found within the pages of the more serious English and American women’s magazines. Here the German woman displays to the full her intense interest in the ethics of marketing and cooking, and her hopeless disregard of the political factors and balances of trade governing the kitchens of every country. The big Berlin newspapers, cognisant of the power of the hausfrau, offers these associations special afternoon entertainments in the most famous concert halls, where coffee and cakes are supplemented by really first-class singers and dancers. Such artful political propaganda is not to be despised; that paper’s party gets the vote it asks the women for at the next election, provided the said woman has either failed to win, or already lost, a husband, and is not a practising Catholic or a convinced Social Democrat. The chances may therefore be reckoned even.