What Men Teach Women

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 601, 1 March 1929, Page 5

What Men Teach Women

Ilow Odd we should think it if men received the same amount of attentiou I m d.scuss.ou as women do in these | aa>s, and we were invited to consider | such weighty problems as. shall we I bhould Married Men Work?” Oo Men Always Tell the Truth?” i Have Men a Sense of Humour?” But nobody, apparently, cares about debating these questions, because Woman, spelled In majuscules, Is the °t* e P re< l om inating, all-absorbing topic ot the times, as though the female of the species were a quite new discovery, or had just dawned upon the consciousness of the world. There is no escape from it. Have not some of our most brilliant young men ” een ,, ff rawn into “this woman business and, setting Woman—with a capital W—upon pedestals of varying heights, confessed in their writings to "What Women Have Taught Me”? Gallant in Their Humility Most of them were gallant in their humility. A similar galaxy of acute feminine intelligences dealing with the subject of what the opposite sex I had taught them would have been less i kind, less gallant and much less flip- ! pant than are many men. Because one woman writing with discrimination upon her encounters i with the opposite sex is in a position |to speak for womankind in general. I j am as a rule keenly opposed to broad i generalisations of this kind, writes j Kthel Mannin, the English novelist, in i a recent exchange, but the reactions j of women in general resulting from J their relation to men in general are j based, a priori, upon certain static physio-psychological inevitabilities. I Any encounter of a feminine intelligence with a masculine intelligence—entirely irrespective of intellect—is inevitably in the nature of a collision rather than a coalescence. Therefore when I state that the first fundamental thing that men taught me is that in matters of the emotions men and women do not speak the same language, I may safely assert that I speak for my sex in general. A man is quite sincerely capable of being “in love” with a woman he does not really like, because he has uo hesitation in applying a free translation to the meaning of that term, which to the masculine intelligence is essentially ambiguous. No woman can possibly conceive herself being “in love” with a man she did not really like, because for her the term being in love has no such ambiguities. She has a singular singleness of mind, which singleness of mind preserves, unadulterated, the essential singleness of meaning of first and last things. She is acutely • are of the nice difference between being “in love” and loving; for her there can never be any confusing of the issues. A Man's “I Love You” When a man says “t love you,” ninety-nine times out of a hundred he means quite simply and I.atinly, “I desire you.” When a woman says “I love you,” ninety-nine times out of a hundred she means, “There is nothing in the world I would not do for you, from going to the ends of the earth for

Some Candid Home-Truths

, you to staying out of your life for | ever.” | Nature did not fashion men for lovj ing selflessly like this—and to a ! woman love which is not utterly selfj less is a contradiction in terms-—and ! every woman who has any real experience of men knows that this is true. Men of all ages and generations and races imagine that a man cannot pay a woman a higher tribute than to de-

sire her ardently. This is the bitterest thing that men teach women, the bitterest and the most profoundly humiliating, and the root of that fundamental, ineradicable subterranean hostility between the sexes. Men have taught me, too, the impossibility of men and women ever understanding each other, and the sheer hopelessness of expecting that they will ever do so! Men may teach women to understand themselves, and to accept the fact that the biological difference between the sexes extends also to their minds and spirits, but in this matter of understanding human nature in general and sex nature In particular, that is all they can ever teach them directly. Indirectly men teach women to appreciate—other women. For It is part of the recognition of the fact that men and women have different kinds of intelligences, as profoundly different as

the physiological differences of the sexes, that men should teach women the utter impossibility of a real friendship between people of the opposite sex. It is not merely that the sex element obtrudes itself, but that the minds and spirits of men and women are incapable of getting near enough to each other to establish any real sense of communion.

Quite a number of our modern young men have seen fit to express themselves with a cynical or a sardonieal amusement concerning “this monstrous regiment of women,” their masculine egotism apparently completely overlooking the fact that women, too, have their reactionary movements, in which they find this male-and-female-created-He-them busines regrettable. Only in these days it is not the vogue to write about men. But the young should make a note of the fact that there is nothing new in their attitude. Byron, in the colossal vanity of liis role as Don Juan, wrote and spoke of women in similar terms.

And women are all very tired of being written about and discussed, alternately abused and patted on the back—there is something offensively patronising and condescending about being placed on any pedestal, whether idealistically high or realistically low, and told what great helps we’ve been to men engaged in running the world, and what comforts we’ve been to men of “genius” in their not-so-glittering moments.

It is typical of this male condescension that a little while ago a young man who “adores” women once told me that the highest and “sweetest” purpose in a woman’s life lay in her capacity to solace a. man when he came home weary with captaining industry or commerce. He imagined that he was paying a compliment through me to women in general; it was typical of male arrogance that he did not perceive that his attitude was both insulting and humiliating. And yet a common charge in this popular game of woman-baiting is our vanity and frivolity. What of the appalling vanity of men? And as to the charge of frivolity—how many women are as sex-driven as men? How many women with their feet set firmly in the path of some cherished career will jeopardise those careers for the sake of some man, as men in history have done for some woman ? For heaven’s sake, since men are the makers of history, let us hear about men for a change!

| To-day’s Recipe | ■ g 1 RAISIN PUDDING H cup butter or short- 8 H f ) cning, half cup sugar, one || egg, two cups flour, quarter g| jl teaspoon salt, four teaspoons bak- g gjj ing powder, one cup milk, three- M g quarter cup seeded raisins, quarter B U teaspoon lemon extract. Cream g B butter. Add sugar slowly and m beaten egg. Sift flour, salt , and ( baking powder together, and add g| S to egg mixture alternately with g jj| the milk. Add raisins. Beat well, S H and pour into greased cake pan. B U Bake in moderate oven 30 to 40 | B minutes. Cut in slices, and serve H i|| with lemon or vanilla sauce. i

A FEAST OF FABRICS 1 By POPPY BACON The autumn dress shows provide a : quantity of new materials, some we i like, and some we do not. Designers of materials always seem anxious to startle us, although by remaining so faithful to one or two successful and becoming silks and cloths, they should have learned that they cannot please with eccentricity alone. Velvet, as last year, is again to be the success of this autumn, for it appears in a variety of weaves and designs. Velvets are fashioned into tailleurs, tea gowns and walking coats, and obviously they are in for a certain amount of popularity. Velvet is a day and night fabric, both in plain and novelty weaves. The most exciting of these weaves from a courtier’s point of view and, also, from the point of view of the woman who pays an exhorbitant sum for one slim garment, is the new velvet with an upstanding pile that does not brush in any special direction. Scratched velvets are a fad for a few. There are others which had a shaved effect and some like a ploughed field. Chiffon velvet, painted for night wear and slightly patterned for daytime use, is seen everywhere in enormous quantities. OMBRE EFFECTS Shot and shaded effects are smart in wools and silks alike. Wool is woven ingeniously with strands cf gold thread, and usually the merest suspicion of glitter is considered sufficient, although there are fabrics which positively shine. Into stockinette, light touches of thread are woven with a lace stitch. Our favourite woollen fabrics return with all the strength of their previous popularity, and very little in the way of novelty designs can be said of them. Tweeds, however, mainfest several changes. The craze for checked effects at any price has passed. The latest patterning must be geometrical, to coincide with the prevailing mode for geometrical cut. Dots, triangles, circles and squares are mixed up with the grotesque entanglement of a mathematician’s nightmare. This season the design is invariably dark and the foundation light. STIFF CUT STYLISH Many materials which have not enjoyed a vogue for some seasons are to be successful for evening wear. First of all, of course, there is velvet, hut in close succession there are beautiful stiff satins, often as thick as the material employed to fashion satin shoes, moire and taffeta. Glints of gold appear brightly as the material is folded. Many of the taffetas shown have the appearance of very beautifully shot curtains. The prevalence of such apparently unamenable materials can be directly traced to the vast popularity of the “robe de style.” They stand out stiffly and amply, almost as one imagines the flowing skirts of the Victorian ladies of fashion must have done. A combination of these fabrics is frequently seen. They look very well made up quite simply with a broad, contrasting band as a finish round the hem, and, perhaps, fashioning a deep yoke. Soft chiffons and georgettes have proved their worth for evening frocks, especially for dance designs. Patterned chiffon is perhaps more in demand than the plain variety, which is reserved for the splendours of jewel embroidery..