THE AMERICAN WOMAN

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31119, 23 July 1966, Page 4

THE AMERICAN WOMAN

The Better Half. By Andrew Sinclair. Jonathan Cape. 401 pp. This comprehensive study of the emancipation of the American woman shows how difficult is is to detach any one reform from a tangle of others for the purpose of examining it. Thus it is difficult to give a valid summary of this book for would-be readers, since the main theme is interwoven with dozens of others which are very pertinent. Andrew Sinclair has written a most interesting account of the major factors in the struggle for equality from colonial times until today. He has shown that any one successful reform inspires another group of reformers, gives them hope and training for the next fight. Thus many of the suffragettes in America first battled for Negro rights, and then perceived their own inferior status. The experience they gained in working for this’ cause was most valuable for the next they espoused. There was considerable shifting in the ranks, for many women reconsidered which cause was to have priority in their lives. Some wanted to fight for half a dozen causes on the same platform, confusing the public’s mind and damaging the reputation of the movement by including on their programmes such things as free love, birth control and dress reform, many decades before the general public was prepared to condone such wantonness. The whole story is full of details about internal strife and divisions, many of them dependent on geographical

and religious factors. The nineteenth century American woman was enslaved in many ways, of which the deprival of the right to vote was but one symbolic bond. The wives of farmers and frontiersmen were enslaved by work, leading a life of incredible drudgery in which they were expected to labour at least as hard as their husbands. For them, the equality of the sexes was already a reality, for in such conditions drones could not be tolerated. The American lady, on the other hand, was enslaved by her own superiority. Adulated and pampered, she was regarded as a superior being by virtue of her sex alone. It was not proper for her to be able to think or talk intelligently, to do any manner of work, to take any sort of exercise. The fashion of the times squeezed all her vital organs out of shape, and caused her to faint at the slightest excitement. It would degrade her to consult a physician about her delicate, ladylike physiology, and

the medical practice in the early part of the century was to bleed, purge, and blister for all female ills including pregnancy. The absence of effective birth control depressed all married women with continual pregnancies and the very justifiable fear of death in childbirth. Andrew Sinclair views the present attitude of American women with some distaste. He believes that, at present, the victories of the suffragettes are spurned by the new American housewife, who, like the Victorian woman, saw marriage and childbirth as the most admirable way of life. The modern American woman, Mr Sinclair contends, still claims her essential superiority, without doing much to justify the admiration which is poured upon her. With her work simplified beyond belief, she seeks to fill her empty hours by having more and more children. She is still very far from attaining freedom of spirit, that most important liberty of all. The author briefly examines the current movement for full equality for Negroes, and points out that the same geographical tensions and divisions have occurred in this movement as once appeared in the anti-slavery and feminist groups. He hints that in the wake of this Negro revolution there may be lurking a movement for further emancipation of women: psychological, social and spiritual emancipation.