"WOMEN MUST FIGHT"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1938, Page 19

"WOMEN MUST FIGHT"

SYLVIA PANKHURSTS VIEWS

Thirty-two years ago Sylvia Pankhurst first went to prison shouting "Votes for women." She, went on hunger strike thirteen times, and was forcibly fed until she nearly died, writes a London correspondent. v

"Was it worth it?" I asked her. "'I cannot imagine the women of today doing it," she said.

"To get the women of today as a concentrated force is very difficult."

"You think they haven't got any backbone?"

"No, I don't s,ay that —but the men are worse," she flashed back with some ~of the old suffragette fire. "Women couldn't make such a mess of things as men do. Of course, some women are negative. They just complain and air their grievances, and do nothing to help.

"I still don't approve of lipstick and make-up. It's horribly ugly, destroys the Value of the face. I've never used it, never shall.

"What would I like to do now?" she repeated.

"I should like to modernise the General Medical Council, and should like to see doctors penalised for cases of incompetence, and gross neglect; there are cases, you know. And drunkenness is regarded too lightly in my opinion.

"But let's talk about maternity services in this country. We have not got nearly enough yet. Women must fight for expert maternity services, convalescent homes for mothers, home helps for mothers who do their own housework for some time before and for a longer time after the baby is born.

"In spite of what men may have to say on the subject, I think most women will agree with me that we ought to be able to get through to a day-and-night maternity service, just as we do to the fire station and the police."