ANTI-FEMINISM.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5374, 14 January 1929, Page 4

ANTI-FEMINISM.

REBECCA WEST GIVES CAUSES'. •'SACRIFICE OF WOMEN.” Miss Rebecca West, on her rec.ent returji from the United States, addressed the London Fabian Society on the subject of “Women,” and! did it by dwelling on the various psychological reasons for the hostile attitude adopted tow.ar,dq women by meh. Anti-feminism was, she said, deeper than anything economic or political causes could produce. It could) not be suppressed by economic reform or po.li.ti.c.al liberation, nor l could it be eradicated. It could only be kept in check by ceaseless vigilanc.e. One cause of. anti-feminism was the ordinary man’s sense of inferiority. “Wjien a man feels inferior.” said Misg West, “when he cannot get on with’ his job, when he knows .that he is not physically as strong as o.ther men and not a success in life, it Rs a gr.eat consolation to him to be able to say, ‘I may be inferior in regard to, other, men, but not when compared with women.’ That is a very powerful r.eason why men will always, as far as possible, put women ilnto inferior positions. At Oxford and Cambridge it is no.t the brilliant young man who resents the entry of women, but .the rattier dusty, bld don in the corner. In business, iln the medical and other professions, it is not the successful man, but those wlho find it difficult to get along who are prejudiced against women. If the economic conditions; in Europe remain at a low level i.t is probable that anti-feminism will be stronger ten years hence than it was immediately after the war.”

Men, she continued, had enjoyed the picture of. themselves as pre-eminent devouring creatur.es from whom no woman was safe, and they still cherished it, though it had been destroyed by the free association between men and women in the every-day work of the world. Another, psychological fact that caused trouble for woman could' be stated but not explained. It was the social callousness that c.o,uld regard unmoved such victimisation of women as was illustrated by Faust’s cruelty to Marguerite and by Tolstoi’s contemptuous treatment not only of the wife who had borne him thirteen children, but of the marriage relation. Miss West queried whether the “Kreutzer. Sonata” should not be banned.

Then she turned to a rather mystical suggestion that since organised religion, which had kept people in ■mind of their ultimate death, had lost its hold, people had to a great extent lost the sense 'of personal death. “I think,” she Staid, “thajt the ordinary neurotic mind in the community pushes away the thought of its death. It becomes hysterical, and, feeling that death is a judge to be placated, it wishes to offer up ether people to death and so g,o free.” She suggested that women, under-paid, starved, and treated as inferiors, had tlhrougho.ut the ages been sacrificed to that feeling.

People disliked what was different from themselves. It was a curiou's, indication of that hatred for the “different” thing in women that in some communities one would) find a terrific sentimental devotion to the women who did not stand for life but for death. In some American communities where the lot of the poorer married men was very hard andi children were not c. a red for, a great deal of money and. admiration would be lavished on the prostitute. The tremendous excitement about women criminals was a sinister' feature of. American life America was a male country. The wealth of America was curl-, ously used to prevent women developing, in a natural way. In Europe, where poverty was the common lot, poverty nva& used as a rod) to flagellate women. The poorer women Would he badly housed, and they would have to bear enormous numbers of children. In America women werq found who were for other, reasons just as unhappy as European women. If they lived in the country they had to do so much domestic work that it was difficult to have children, and if lived in the great cities housing conditions made it extraordinarily difficult for even the woman whose vacation was maternity t o have more than two or threje children. For instance, in New York the fees for, an ordinary doctor and a nursing home would amount in the case of a mid-dle-class mother to £3OO. That meant that a woman whb wanted several children would eat up her husband’s capital.

New York workers must live on ■Manhatttan Island and must live in skyscrapers, conditions that make it almost impossible for women to gratify the maternal instinct. But in other, cities where was plenty, of land, skyscrapers were being built to gratify male pride. “You will find),” said Miss West, “rich brides living on the fourfe'qnth story of ,a skyscraper, wlhere they cannot keep a baby, or even a dog, while there is plenty of building land all round. That is the

result of man’s detertnination to hunt trouble mbr.e assiduously thaii he has ever hunted) happiness and peace.”

The important thing, she said, was for .women to realise that anti-fem-inism was a nqurotic process with people who felt stupid and inferior, and that women would continue to be hunted down because they were “different.” She did not say that this could not be checked, but it would always have to be checked by reasonable men and women. There was always more nejed for women in politics than for men.