Girls Will be Hoys Says Countess of Carnwath

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 643, 20 April 1929, Page 19

Girls Will be Hoys Says Countess of Carnwath

‘ XE of the most exhilarating features of modern * s at: forces us, IWTwJrTII f l-0 ™ time to time, to abandon most of our old traditions. That is often a good tiling. It stimulates out* intellects, promotes new viewpoints, and —above all—saves us from the car- i dinal sin of ever growing stale. I remember the time when boys I were boys. It coincided, if I remember rightly, with the time when homes j were homes and not hotels. In fact, the phrase "Boys will be boys" was ] the comforting axiom trotted out on all occasions when their boyishness over-stepped the bounds of reason, writes the Countess of Cornwath in a j London paper. Parents* Golden Formula Magistrates used it when they dealt with young offenders. I like the type ! of magistrate who knows how and j when to use iiy" phrase. Elderly clubmen used it wlieu they were seriously I inconvenienced by the sheer exuberance of boat race rags. And as for parents, it was the golden formula with which pater familias was wont to allay the anxious fears of a mother. But in this year of grace? It seems that girls are tired of being girls. "Girls will be boys’* is nearer the mark to-day*. Well, girls have had their fling at. being boys. An uncommonly good job they have made of it, too. In many* ways. But strangely enough the reaction —the return to feminity*— which everyone so hopefully antici-pated-shows not the slightest sign of setting in. Indeed, it is not even a smudge on the horizon. A Puzzle the Eton Crop Provided A year or two ago, when the Eton crop came in, it was by no means always possible to tell, at a short distance, to which sex many a youthful figure owed allegiance. Nor did a close scrutiny of that youthful figure’s conduct and deportment provide an answer to the query. It is much the same to-day. There are girls who seem to go through life in a haze of cigarette smoke. Not that cigarette smoke, in itself, means anything at all, but it is symbolical of what they stand —or rather lounge about —for. Judged by their actions and sometimes their clothing some

-1 girls are almost unrecognisable as l members of the female sex. It is only - 1 when, in course of conversation, you ’ ■ confront a personality so aggressively masculine that it dawns upon ! you that you are talking to a woman. An Overdue Reaction But l am not going to talk of the ! various ways in which woman shows j her masculinity. The world is aware I of them; they are commonplace alj ready. It is that overaue reaction I ; referred to which gives no food for i thought. Granted that girls became | boys as something of a novelty, surely j the novelty should have worn off now? It has. The truth is that girls be- ! came boys for fun, and mean to re- | main so because they like it far, far i better. ! There never will be a return to | femininity, if by that you mean the j old harassing restrictions which women were forced to undergo half I a century back. There is not much in ' independence, I admit, when it is a question of fighting for yourself and fighting hard. It is so much easier to be fought for. But there is a great deal in It when it means a sudden accession to the delightful liberty which has been—goodness knows why—the close preserve of Adam from the very first. The person who performs the impossible is. 1 think, entitled to respect. The modern girl is such a person, or very nearly so. She has, to all Mitents and purposes, achieved the miracle of having her cake and eating it. She has her latchkey and her freedom as naturally as any callow youth newly arrived at years of discretion, j That is part and parcel of being a boy. Women’s Privileges Not Despised At the same time, she is still a woman when it pays her to be; when the question of a woman’s privileges crops up. "Place aux domes” is a saying she doesn’t despise, and she is still open, despite her salaried career, to be wooed and won. I call that wonderful. I wonder no one ever thought of it before. There have always been advantages in being a man, and few in being a woman. It has been left to those brilliant girls who will be boys to gain the advantage of both.