Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] FRIDAY, 1st DECEMBER, 1933. EMERGING WOMAN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 1 December 1933, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] FRIDAY, Ist DECEMBER, 1933. EMERGING WOMAN.

To those who wonder whether this storm-tossed world is really growing any better, “Women in Subjection,” by I. B. O’Malley, will provide an answer in the affirmative, at least so far as the status of Englishwomen is concerned. “Women in Subjection” covers a very wide field, and includes women of all ranks and all occupations during the century ended in 1832. It ranges from the subjection of “society women” (in being relegated to the position of “beautiful, fragile beings, exquisite and destructible. . . Nor must delicacy be only physical, it must be mental and moral , as well.”) to the terrible depths where women and children were beaten and tortured as beasts of burden in the mines, or were mere accessories to the machines in the factories. Had the machines been treated with as little understanding the factories would soon have been rubbishheaps of wreckage. The book also deals with the subjection of the middle-classes of women, so pathetically inadequately equipped to battle their way through life should they fail to marry or should their husbands squander their dowries or small savings. *‘lf she earned anything by her own work it was not hers to enjoy. . .

If she saved any money for her own or her children’s maintenance, she could not keep it from an improvident husband.” Miss O’Malley goes into her subject very thoroughly. She sketches the lives of a great number of women who lived in those stressful years. She shows the circumstances which surrounded them. The apathy, opposition, and often the cruelty against which they had to struggle in their efforts to free their sex from subjection. The resource and courage which they showed in the face of disappointment and apparent failure. Miss O’Malley describes the efforts of women to attain their birthright in many fields, but chiefly in religion, philanthropy and literature, and among the many names that of Mary ‘W'ollstonecraft is most often

mentioned. Mary Wollstonecra.lt (whose daughter, Mary Godwin, became Shelley’s wife) stands out almost as the heroine of these pages and the century with which they deal. “Her book” (“A Vindication of the Rights of Women”), says Miss O’Malley, “may be said to mark the emergence of the women’s movement into conscious life,” and may therefore be regarded asca decided turningpoint in the struggle for freedom. It seems somewhat extraordinary that only within the last century has woman really emerged from subjection and taken her rightful place beside man. Possibly the tremendous advance in thought and science and those activities requiring greater mental powers has had something to do with her final emancipation. The law of supply and demand is more potent than many arguments.