WOMEN OF EUROPE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 41, 17 January 1938, Page 11

WOMEN OF EUROPE.

POSITION UNDER FASCISM. FEMINIST’S INVESTIGATIONS. Returning to Sydney after having acted as liaison officer in London for the Australian Federation of Women Voters, Mrs Linda Littlejohn, who is also president of the Equal Rights International, had much to say of the status of women in the countries she visited. She had chosen to see those countries which might be said to be in difficulties, so that she might study the conditions which brought them to that state and, if possible, visualise what reactions' there would be in Australia .if-similar conditions should come to exist there: -w “We see around us these countries in unrest—ltaly and Germany definitely Fascist, Spain and France likely to become Fascist—and we in Australia continue to sit back hoping in the, good old way that the worst will never happen,” Mrs Littlejohn said. INVESTIGATION NEEDED. “We should be looking round to discover what factors brought about this . state of affairs in Fascist 'Countries,” , she continued. “We would find out , that the first thing was the economic distress of the people, and we should - see that such a condition never exists ( among our community. ( “Germa.n women have always been , the ‘bansfrau’ type and Italian women have always ' had to bear the domestic ( burdens that men,, with their superior brains, jvould not deign to carry. It | is for us, who have attained a cer- . tain amount of• status, to do something to guard- it. f “We must be determined to do . everything in our power to keep our < democracy the splendid thing it is. But, staunch feminist though I am, I realise that we cannot'do this through our women’s organisations alone. We must co-operate with all movements working to the same end. The truth is, our feminist role has niqved far put of its own confines into the orbit of State, national and world politics. STAGE-MANAGED POLITICS. “We have a lot to learn from the Nazis in stage-management of politics,” Mrs Littlejohn continued. “They dramatise every move of j national importance, while we, with our British sense of what is done and * not done, stage-manage nothing. “If we do not begin speedily to talk * about what democracy can do for the c people, someone else will step in and 1 talk about what another system can «■ do. Let us begin along the same lines £ as the Nazis, who tell their people: £ ‘This country is yours, we are build- f ing it for you.’ Let us boost it thor- j ouglily. It may not be good form, but t it will save democracy.”