WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 93, 14 January 1935, Page 5

WOMEN’S RIGHTS

International Body’s Work The International Federation of Business aud Professional Women has sent its executive director, Miss Dorothy Heneker, from Geneva to Loudon to set up new headquarters for Europe, and a representative of the “Observer” interviewed her last month at a suite of offices at 20 Lower Regent Street. Miss Heneker is a lawyer by profession, and Canadian by nationality. She graduated at King’s College, Windsor, Novo Scotia, studied music in London, and was admitted Associate of the R.C.M. In I 1921 she entered McGill University, and graduated Bachelor of Common Law and Civil Law. , After a term in a financial office, she entered her father’s law firm, aud wrote on themes such as “Child Labour Laws” and “Property Rights of Married Women.” She wou a prize offered by the Province of Quebec with her book, “The Seignorial Regime iu Quebec” (1927), aud collaborated with Mr. Justice Surveyor in a history of “The Bench and Bar of Quebec.” In 1929 she was elected president of the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Montreal, which she helped to merge into a Federation. She was elected the first President in 1930. Canada sent her to Geneva, and she has since toured 16 countries for the movement. Miss Heneker began by explaining what the Federation proposed to do for England and Englishwomen. "We are out to help the women of India, and that ought to appeal to you when India is so very present in your minds. We opened our first club in India al Lucknow a year ago, and we have had much the same success there as everywhere else. Pioneer Work. “For instance, we have made 2500 members in Norway, where we only started three years ago; and our women there have set up a self-pensioning scheme, with a separate fund to pension those who cannot afford to pay for themselves. All this is pioneer work. Then we have opened up in Poland, Italy, Luxembourg, Aus. tralia, China, Estonia, Ireland, Japan. Yugoslavia, and, Turkey, and are now trying to convert Mexico. To show that we have staying power ( let me say that after only four years’ work in the United States we have 55,000 members, and rank as one of the most powerful organisations in the country. “As you ask me about England, let me say that I think the war has made our kind of work here more necessary than ever. I have known England well for years, and although most Englishwomen are shy at first, and certainly slow to assert themselves and to take the initiative, yet I doubt if there is any race with so so many first-class types of the thorough-going and capable women as this country can show.

“Betl-Kock of Facts.” “Yet the proportion that enjoy opportunities equal to their powers, and pay to match, Is extremely small. The English organisation has not been formed very long —six months or so—but it has already got a grip on economic subjects and reached the bed-rock of facts. What we urge is not antagonism to men’s societies, but co-operation with them, whether political or social, in the very front of things. Wherever this has happened, the results have been favourable aud of value to the community. “Our special aims at our last conferences have been to counteract depressed conditions, and to promote a better understanding of world conditions as they affect business and professional women. We have tried to stimulate existing fields of activity and develop new ones, as well as to provide relief of a temporary character. “The methods adopted have been to promote local exhibitions, national and local competitions, lecture tears, and exchange centres where members’ work can be displayed and sold. This has been particularly useful in helping members who are artists, and although art Is usually regarded as a luxury, its practice professionally entitles such members to assistance on our part, am l , our success in Poland lately has been most encouraging." Miss Heneker instanced many individual members in various nationalities who are doing distinguished service to the community, from Judge Allen, who has been raised as the first woman member, to the American Federal Court, to Mme. Bonn, Norway, who is one of the chief sales managers to one of the biggest corporations in Norway. She is confident that the Federation is assured of popularity in England just as much as in Canada, the New World, or on the Continent. THE SOCIAL ROUND

Woolshed Dance A very cheerful svcolshed dauce was held at Waikanapa. Ohau, recently, to celebrate the eoming-of-age of Maxwell, the second son of Mrs. Norman Kirkcaldie. The woolshed was beautifully decorated with hydrangeas., and cosy sit-ing-out places were arranged round the walls. The seventy guests, who had come from all over the district, thoroughly enjoyed the dancing on one of the cooler of the present lovely summer evenings.