While The Kettle Boils

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 92, 28 March 1941, Page 44

While The Kettle Boils

Dear Friends, You know, we women must be far more interesting than we even think we are. So many people go to the! trouble of finding out all sorts of unusual facts about us. Take a newspaper. Threequarters of the advertisements are devoted to women, while the men get a grudging one-quarter. This, we think, is all that it should be, Listen-in to our commercial radio sessions. Nearly all are devoted to women’s interests, I came across a curious and amusing form of recognition the other day. We realise, of course, that we are a fascinating study for experts, but this expert had made a new departure. After an exhaustive study of the feminine sex, he arrived at these somewhat shattering conclusions. As he is an expert, they must be true, but some of them are slightly disconcerting, For example, it is a well known fact that women’s jaws are exercised more in speech than a man’s-but did you know that, if the average woman’s speech during a lifetime of 75 years was recorded and played on a gramophone, it would run continuously for eight years. What a record! Now housewives, step forward. Over a similar number of years, a woman spends another eight years doing housework, That, in itself, is quite sufficient to start a revolution. She compensates for this, however, by sleeping for 26 years, out of a lifetime of 75. Still, when she’s awake, according to our expert, she is kept busy establishing new records, She is accused of spending a little over 11 months in cinemas. But now for a crushing blow to our vanities. The same woman gazes at her reflection in mirrors for a total sitting of 10 months. This appears a somewhat conservative estimate, and leads one to wonder if the expert forgot to include window glasses and mirrors along the street? Oh, and just one other detailshe grows, in her 75 years, 38. yards. of hair, described, most sportingly as more than enough to cover a cricket pitch. It seemed to me grossly unfair that man should be allowed to go scot-free. And, as if in answer to my argument, the famous old passage was recalled about man’s chemistry. It has an air. of proportioned justice. We find. ourselves compared to gramophone records. This analysis bears. a striking neeemblance to a hardware shop. "A man weighing 1401bs. contains in his system enough fat for seven cakes of soap, carbon for 9000 pencils, phosphorus to .make 2200 match heads, magnesium for one dose of salts, iron to make one medium sized nail, sufficient lime to whitewash a chicken coop, enough sulphur to rid one’s dog of fleas, and sufficient water to fill a 10-gallon barrel." If this should escape the masculine eye, I hope the women folk will pass on the word. It is a chastening revelation, Yours cordially, +

Cy[?]