THE “HANDSOMER” SEX

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5179, 16 September 1927, Page 1

THE “HANDSOMER” SEX

A WOMAN’S VIEWS.

CASE FOR MEN SUPPORTED. A controversy threatens to arise to which is the better-looking sex, obscured by the fact that for centuries women have been described as “fair, whether they be fat or thin, misshaped, bow-legged, or dwarfs (says Ella Hepworth Dixon in the Westminster Gazette). It is entirely masculine politeness which is responsible for this, curious legend, for thetre is no doubt, viewed from the artist’s point of view, that man is the better-look-ing animal of the human race. One has only to paint in a student’s atelier to perceive this elementary fact. He is usually taller, slimmer, has better shoulders, straighter legs, his complexion needs no artificial aids, and his head wants no adornment. He has only to shave, brush his hair, and put on clean linen and a well-cut coat to look well; whereas the dressing of a woman is: the most complicated and difficult thing in the world. Men wear habitually the ugliest clothes which have ever been invented, yet, in the mass, they invariably look a good deal nicer than we do. No one can say that the shiny “topper” is a beautiful pbject, yet most men look better in them than in their much-loved soft felts. Their evening clothes are distinction itself compared witli our silly furbelows. Yet let no .woman imagine that by putting on a dinner-jacket and a white tie and adopting an Eton crop she is going to look as well as her brother. She only accentuates her lack of proportion, of line, of good complexion, of size of eye and length of lash. Moreover, a man, when he Teaches thirty, has usually far more expression in his face and reveals more character. He is a thinking,; reasoning being, whereas woman, in eight cases put of ten, is not. She merely repeats the clinches] which she has heard, or has read in the newspapers or imbibed from countless [maternal ancestors.

Education will no doubt alter this in time, but it will not make woman into the more comely sex. She is trying hard just now to approximate to the manly type, hut asi a rule sShe is too short in stature to make an effective boy-girl. If women really as handsome animals as men they would jiot want to alter drastically the fashion of their gowns every six months. As it is, millions of capital, thousaaids of factories, and hundreds of dressmakers '(the best of whom are invariably men) are working overtime to try and make woman into a beautiful and attractive creature. Since the war. the rivalry between the sexes has become terrific. Barbers have arisen in their thousands and are busy from morning to night cutting and waving the hair, of the “fair” sex, while of creams, ungents. lipsticks', and rouge are earning considerable fortunes. Victorian women did. not U£'e any of these things, and some of ithe most radiant complexions, were ke pt going by means of cold water amd olain white soap, not even a jdash of powder.

Is it possible that women’ at l realise the fact that they are; not the better-looking sf;x, and are biastening to draw on every adventurm tts aid to play their legendary part ? Why i s *t that rouge, both in East atnd West is part of every woman’s t oilet-bat-tery ? Why does the Amer lean girl, who of all created beings fa) icied herself most as superior to her menfolk, employ every artifice t o “beautify” herself, eyen at school, and college ? In the East it w< isi an immemorial custom, but in the West this is something new and 1 jortentous, and may mean eventual’ ly hauling down the flag of superior beauty by women.