IF WOMEN WENT ON STRIKE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 219, 14 March 1912, Page 8

IF WOMEN WENT ON STRIKE

—»l . ' _ A lady writer in the Pall Mall Gazette i discusses what might happen if women I went on strike against the supremacy of I men. In the course of the article the writer says:—As to the .housemaid's work and the mending, even if that were left undone during a feminine strike it would not trouble the supposed victims much. Dust is not by any means as distasteful to a man as it is to a woman; his attitude towards it issomewhat thai of v the elderly Irish woman to the superior and nose-tilted Saxon: "Arrah, it's only the likes of you 'ud.be mindin' a little bit o' clean dirt." Anyone who doubts this assertion might test it by dusting the books of a many-volume loving man. Her act will not meet with the gratitude she might possibly be led to expect. On the contrary!

3 1 We may then take it for granted that , if it came to the worst, most men could do without us very well. There are ' some women who still think men want £ a lot of mothering; but a few enquiries at the "male" counters of any of our ' vast emporiums would prove that the ordinary young man looks after himself with far greater case than any woman could possibly look after him. He knows I his own wants, -and he. satisfies them i with the aeme of comfort. i But, on the other hand, if a strike of women against men would prove ineffeci tual, what would happen if the men struck against women as a sex' No electric light would be shown where I women eongregate, and the man would quietly settle down at his club, leaving his recalcitrant wife in darkness. The baker would only sell his bread to men, the grocer his tea, the butcher the meat, and the milkman the milk. The postman would only deliver letters with the .magic symbol "Esq.," the vanman would park the feminine parcel, the 'busman | would refuse the feminine passenger, the man at the ticket office would sell no ticket to anything in skirts; the taxi wou d turn the other way if hailed by a tired lady, the waiter (with a recollection of meagre tips) wduld decline absolutely, to produce even a sardine for a feminine client, the theatres run by men wopld refuse to employ women (they could do that quite readily, since men ! were the first actors, and can still portray women excellently, though women cannot portray men), and refuse the feminine audience. Judges would refuse

to hear cases in which women were defendants or plaintiffs, district messengers would decline to carry their messages. And., worst of all, the genial, delightful, useful policeman would refuse to stop the traffic or tell even the most elderly lady the way. . . . Tb* moral is that the only effectual sex strike would be a male one.