WOMAN'S NEW IDEALS

Shannon News, 21 June 1927, Page 4

WOMAN'S NEW IDEALS

Why, if a woman may ask, all this talk about the startling change in woman's psychology On all sides one hears that woman, once the clinging vine, now in her independence emulates the sturdy oak.

Woman, from bsing unpractical, sentimental, fragile, has "turned" business like, a mine of common sense a tower of strength, writes Miss Berta Buck. Woman, lately the purely domestic parasite, is realising herself as a citizen, developing a social conscience, influencing legislation, sitting on juries, and joining in discussions at the mention of which her grandmothers.would have swooned. . What a revolution! Due to a change in the mind of woman? I, for one, think not. By this Ido not mean that women to-day do not appear mor c free, more businesslike, capable, broadminded and independent, than they appeared yesterday. But all the emphasis is on the word "appear." This appearance is due to two tilings.

First, the change in woman's economic' circumstances. Once a girrs place really was th e home; indeed, '.'being at' home" represented the staple'-profession for the daughters or the upper and middle classes. They were required to fall in with the ideas that theirfduty was to provide the sunshine.'qf that home, as well as being stocking darners, collar-stud finders and housekeepers to fathers and brothers until they married. The average young woman fell in with all that.

Nowadays, however much sh e might prefer to laze at home, she is warned that she cannot expect to do so while poor father and her brothers are toiling i.n business! "Out with you, my dear; hustle for a job! And no getting married until you're able to keep yourself, we can't all get engaged to millionaires. You be self-supporting and make your way, like a sensible girl; that's the idea!"

Again the girl falls in with it, adapting herself to.fresh fields of activity and conditions new. What is not new is her essentially feminine power of adaptability. Heaven knows what may be required of her daughter in 1947, of her grand-daughter in the nineteen-sixties! Only one thing Is certain: they will be found successfully readjusting themselves to the newest requisitions.

Dairy Institute.