THE MODERN GIRL IS SHE TRUE TO HER NATURE?

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 5, 2 November 1925, Page 69

THE MODERN GIRL IS SHE TRUE TO HER NATURE?

/ 'IME was when almost every ~ girl wished that she had been born a boy. That, however, was in days “before the war”days which now seem astonishingly remote and dreamlike. No present-day girl ever wishes she were a boy. The motive for such a wish is gone. A modern girl has no temptation to envy her brothers or any other boys she may know. And this for the one simple reason that law and custom now permit her to cultivate that bit of the boy which is in her nature. Wants to he a Doy ' V "'HIS bit of masculinity always has been in the nature of every girl and woman, and the thwarting of it made her wish she were a boy. Does this sound strange? We are told often, and evidently it is true, that all men possess a certain percentage of the feminine within them (writes Elsie Grange in the Liverpool Weekly Post). It is quite as evident that all women have in their nature a percentage of the masculine. This percentage varies in amount and intensity in different individuals. Bred the (feminist TT was that artificial thwarting of A the masculine in woman that not only made girls wish they were boys, but also bred the feminist; it gave us the “advanced” woman and the modern girl the wage-earning, sports-loving . girl—as well as the professional woman, the woman in public affairs. It was the boy in her nature that kicked the traces; that made her discard the music stool for the golf club, drawing room dyspepsia for countryside health, cumbersome clothing for sane attire. She is perfectly contented now that the 100 per cent, of her nature has free play and opportunity for full development. She is satisfied

with her sex, for she feels true to her nature. She never wished to be a boy really, but only the emancipated girl she now is. But there is an important side to this issue side apart from mere fairness and satisfaction to the girls themselves. Women being now true to their nature more so than men are, in a generation or two great changes must result. (fKaris Softer denture TT cannot be denied that man’s na- -*■ ture is not yet developed to the full. The bit of girl in him, the percentage of feminine in his nature, has been thwarted as deliberately, as cruelly, as used to be the masculinity in woman. Every boy and grown man has tucked away in a corner of his heart beautiful feelings, wishes, dreams, emotions which, did he reveal them to the light of day, would be deemed “unmanly.” And so we lose the softer, sentimental, emotional side of man which is his by nature. He hides it away out of sight; he dreads the reproach, the smile, the sneer evoked by being thought “sentimental,” and he often affects hardness or indifference to hide his kinder feelings for fear of appearing womanish. Cf he Brave and the (fair r 'HE world, civilisation, misses A much by this artificial thwarting of a man’s true nature, just as much as bygone generations missed it when it was considered unladylike for women to be otherwise than distinctly all-feminine. Now that women have achieved 100 per cent, of truth to their nature, will men remain content with their 90 per cent.? Or are they too timid 10 face the critics, as women have faced them during the last quarter-century? If so, we must perforce label woman the brave as well as fair sex 1