FROM A WOMAN'S ARMCHAIR

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 39, 9 May 1927, Page 5

FROM A WOMAN'S ARMCHAIR

THE JAUNDICED EYE. (By Mavis Clare.) The other day a “superior” woman remarked in my hearing that universal hair-cropping, even more than democratised dress, had made it increasingly difficult to detect class differences at first glance. “Often one is completely deceived,” she went on, “until a girl Who looks perfectly ‘right* opens her mouth and begins to talk. And gives ‘.he game away.” These remarks were uttered on a note of profound resentment, and from my middle-aged arm-chair I watched the speaker with some astonishment. What a queer point of view! What a jaundiced outlook! And what a deplorable exhibition of that lack of esprit-de-sexe with which mere man has always _ taunted us! Not altogether unjustifiably, it would seem. It is difficult to “get” the type of feminine mind that would fain keep down feminine development on the lowest possible level. It is such a confession of the jealousy that is only another name for fear. T>.ere are some women, apparently, who cannot ibide the contemplation of a world where the feminine status goes <m gradually improving; reaching, step by step, towards higher planes of refine-

ment, education, and good manners. Presumably because they themselves regard such attributes as the privileges of a privileged class; assets that, once usurped by their social “inferiors” would menace their own prestige.

It is a saddening thought that the feminine levelling-up process should be resented by women who have inherited the assets that their less fortunate sisters are striving after so patiently and so courageously. Should we no all rejoice in the gradual improvement in taste, and poise, and mental outlook; in that great feminine democracy to which we should be proud to belong! For it is something to he proud of! It becomes increasingly self-evidenl that brave girls who have come to grip* with life from commonplace if not actually sordid beginnings, are flowering to an uncommon and individualistic growth. It is a pity about the jaundiced eye. It could take in sucli pleasant and uplifting impressions ot feminine progress, if it could only see itraight!