TRAINING & SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 November 1941, Page 6

TRAINING & SERVICE

CONSCRIPTION OF WOMEN MRS. ROOSEVELT’S SUGGESTION. DISCUSSION IN UNITED STATES. (By Clarissa Lorenz, in the “Christian Science Monitor.”) Mrs Roosevelt’s suggestion that the United States conscript girls between the ages of 18 and 24. for a year’s training and service has brought an avalanche of criticism. In America, we have no tradition of utilising “womanpower” for war, and the question of registration for women therefore rests wholly on public opinion. Women in England have shown how useful they can be in war time. There, as in China and Russia, they have either taken their places beside men or set up organisations of their own. In the present war, all women are serving in some capacity or other. And lately, all women under 30 were conscripted, that is, compelled, to show that they are actively participating in national defence. Public opinion in America is coming to feel that some type of registration for women will be desirable if not imperative. Modern war makes Mrs Smith’s yard the battlefront, and preparedness in these times of swiftly moving events demands early organisation. a warning that cannot be repeated too often. The writer has collected the opinions of several leading citizens on this subject.

Raymond Gram Swing said: “I find it rather repellant to consider women as apart from other citizens, since I’m a feminist by conviction and marriage. The whole purpose of the feminist movement was that we stop saying women and begin to say persons. There are many families in America where the women are equal in responsibilities to the men, and where children are looked upon as individuals. In so far as you get that, you have a free society. I think women ought to be registered for conscription but not that they should be exploited, as the German girls were when put on farms to get cheap labour.” Andre Maurois said: “I think we can depend on the average housewife to volunteer, but if I’m being too optimistic, then certainly I advocate registration. A free country should be able to act as quickly as a totalitarian country.”

5 Dorothy Thompson said: “I am i against conscription of women in time 1 of war, but I am for a nation-wide ori ganisation of women.” As her secre- • tary explained, Miss Thompson thinks ■ that women would voluntarily do 1 everything required of them. 1 Mrs John L. Whitehurst, president of 1 the General Federation of Women’s : Clubs, said: “I do not believe it will be : necessary to conscript women in this 1 country. More and more, they are re- > gistering voluntarily.” Anna Lord Strauss, president of the : New York League of Women Voters ■ (and the great-granddaughter of Lu- ’ cretia Mott), said: “Today there is need for every woman and man to contribute his bit. Women have two grave responsibilities. One is to unite our country into a representative government that will prove this government of the people, by the people, and for the people to be a successful reality. The other is to do all in their power to see that England is supplied with the goods she needs. . . . We must not sit by and rely on others to uphold our freedom.’’ There seems to be little difference of opinion as to women’s doing the work, and virtually none as to their being conscripted if necessary. The only question is whether we can get enough help from women without using compulsion. Since the majority of women are busy most of the day, and far more women are performing “indispensable” services, conscription might involve such a complicated mass of exemptions as to be untenable. A voluntary registration. on the other hand, picks out automaticlly the women that are available and states the times at which they are available. However, there is danger of confusion in the term “volunteer.” It is one thing for Miss Smith io “volunteer” because she wants a uniform and then quit because she can’t stand Miss Jones, or to roll bandages for Britain because it’s smart to be patriotic and then quit when it becomes smarter to do something else. It is quite another thing for her to assume voluntarily a formal and binding obligation of service to the State. ' For if and when war does come, make no mistake, there will be a job for every American woman who has a hand to spare. The mere conduct of • war involves a vast amount of clerical \ work, handling documents and distributing records, which women can do : and are doing if anything better than < men. If they take over the bulk of ’ this administrative work, many more i troops can be drawn out of the five or i six million men in Class A.' ; Whether war comes or not. registra- i tion will at least have made the Ameri- i can woman a better equipped citizen. <