THE MODERN WOMAN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3827, 4 August 1928, Page 4

THE MODERN WOMAN.

“No one likes the modern woman, least of all the modern woman herself,” says a woman contributor to the' Spectator. “Let us consider the position of the modern woman—one who lias received the best that higher education can give her, the sure recipe for a full, free, satisfied life. Supposing she ddes not dwindle shortly into a wife, what does she do? She may teach in a school; but in nine cases out of ten it is prudence, not inclination, that takes her there, for if she hates anything more than the modern woman it is the modern schoolgirl. She may find employment in business or in art or in one of the professions, but in practically every case she is forced to discover that her brain is inferior to a man’s brain, her physique not to be compared with his, her staying power deficient, her supply of ambition almost negligible, and everywhere, growing like blackberries, are.men, more efficient and better qualified. The community has very little need for her. For two kinds of Avork, Avomen ahvays have been exclusively and specially suited, but the higher education, being interested solely in making Avomen like men, refuses to touch either of them. As a result the pay is so poor and conditions so hard, they offer forms of voluntary martyrdom rather than careers. I mean, of course, hospital nursing and domestic service. And marriage, the escape, if it does not consist of a combination of nursing and domestic service Avith no pay and no conditions, yet involves constant dissipation of the energies upon social and domestic trivialities. ... We have entered the golden age' of the female sex, from Avhich avc benefit as much as the child Avho painted gold for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, Avho Avas found stiff and dead on its swing at the end of the day. The age must run its destroying tragic course and the higher education of woman, a scaly, fire-breathing monster, gives daily proof of its appalling vitality.”