NORTHERN WOMEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16497, 6 August 1921, Page 16

NORTHERN WOMEN.

She’s a Northerner." The remark has so often been made significantly, and, interested, I invariably ask what it implies. The explanations are entertaining. According to tho social status of “She,” they have varied from the baking! of bread ‘or the “ progging ” of rag mats to tho propounding of abstruse theorems or the elucidation of knotty problems. And, broadly speaking, the interpretation of “ She’s a Northerner ' has invariably been “ She’s very capable and efficient.” A great housewife is your northern woman, immensely house-proud, scrupulously clean, an excellent mother. Everyone who has passed down a long street in any northern mining village will recall the proportionately long rows of doorsteps and window ledges all covered with a coating of scouring stone, bath brick or yellow ochre, and then rubbed over with a damp cloth—the outward and visible pign of the preat inward and visible tidiness and housewifery decorum. The most important essentials for a canny hoose ” are plenty of “brasses,’? a huge steel fender—sometimes twelve or fourteen inches high— a “ real bonny ted,” and a piano, the top of which is laden with painted cups and saucer* and mother-of-pearl ships assuring all and sundry that they were “ A present from Saltburn,” or Scarborough, or Blackpool. 'Washing, baking, whitewashing and papering are among housewifely accomplishments 44 up i’ the north.” Tho pride, jealousy, and comjietition in Keeping the bouse spick and span are not paralleled anywhere in the south. To “ bring up my ohildren clean and respectable ” is the ambition and tho driving force of the average northern woman. As tho word “ respectable ” to her includes a good deal of ethics and a corresponding amount of religion, who shall say her aim can be bettered ? In the southern college where I was a student a belief w© thought amusing held sway. 44 So-and-so, help me with this wretched rider,” a southern girl would say. “ But how do you know T can tell a rhombus from a rhomboid?” might be asked. “ Oh. of course you can,” would bo the reply. “ YYra’re sure to be 4 hot stuff ’ at mathematics and science. 4 You’re a Northerner.’ ” Northern women naturally share tho characteristics of the folk “ up there.” They a.re shrewd, level-headed, good jirid logical deducers, quick—and, there - fore, sometimes hasty—thinkers, independent in action and individual in thought. Their opinion in industrial and business matters is generally more highly rated by their menfolk than that* of southern women by their male belongings. This is probably because in some industries they work practically alongside one another, while 111 others—for example, the domestic—they work so hard and with sufficient capability as to achieve tho men’s respect and admiration. That is why in any industrial disturbiince the women’s encouragement or discouragement has always meant a. great deal, probably far inoro than people outside the district acknowledge or realise.