HONOURS FOR WOMEN.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1186, 22 July 1911, Page 11

HONOURS FOR WOMEN.

WHY , ARE THEY KEGLECTED? The Coronation has turned the thoughts ?f °">ny active-minded women to the ?,7l \. ject of honours, and there is a grow 1 tendency to discuss the boycott ing of™. ?S?rM e " nOta)l ° ' lisli "<:tions are being awarded (says an English writer). T i public work of women has l,oen n.stifficiently recosni S Pd.,aml only ns "tho wives tLm Clr , h , n!,b '«fe">s honour come upon tuem—ond yet their work in manv finlih has- made- history, and is miking hi'The siifffrestion of a special order for women will not meet with any great acclamation from women who matter The disinclination of the -outstanding women to bq grouped according to (heir sex is a (,'rowing one. Jn (ho arts and sciences there is a universal demand on the- part of those who have shaken themselves-free of,,thc.amateur taint to bo grouped amongst men by - right of their achievements and not in a special department apart by virtue of their sex. Consequently any.attempt to initiate a special honour tor women which will do homa?e to femininity as well as to work is not likelv to be welcomed.

But (hero is a growing feeling that something -must ■be done; Hiero nro at Ine present moment women in the.front rank of the drama (both as makers and interpreter?;, of music, of literature, of Uie arts, and of medicine, recognised as equal in standing with those men whose names repeatedly appear on each now honours list, but who, because of their sex, have been passed by. . Deyand the occasional award of medals to nurses, one seldom sees a woman's name in any civic list. ' , .

In connection with this almost general feeling that' there might be a greater catholicity in* the awarding of distinctions, it is interesting to note that Mrs. Humphry Ward and jfr. George Bernard Shaw, who differ so strongly on the question of the enfranchisement of women, are agreed that in the event of the formation of a British Academy of letters women should be represented on tho committee, Mrs. Humphry Ward declaring at the annual meeting of the Society of Authors that "whatever her views as to women in public affairs, she strongly asserted the equality, or tho potential equality, of women in matters spiritual and intellectual."