BROADCASTING COULD UNLOCK DOORS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 411, 9 May 1947, Page 14

BROADCASTING COULD UNLOCK DOORS

(Written for "The Listener" by |

MARGOT

ROTH

EACE pervades my mornings these days as I leave the radio switched off as my small contribution towards saving electricity. The past few months had provided me with my first chance of listening to morning programmes with anythingt like consistency, and I found myself timing it so that I shelled peas with My Husband’s Love and swept about Crossroads of Life. Lately, the old-fashioned silence that accompanies me on the common task has given me an opportunity of reflecting on.the value of my morning listening, and I have come to the regretful conclusion that the efforts made for us housewives in the morning broadcasts leave much to be, desired. It is a sad reflection on our. society when so many people agree that the average housewife is confined to a prison. Lack of education is the main reason that the mass of New Zealand women meekly begin gathering toge‘her their Hope Chests in their ‘teens, -all prepared for the Greatest Day In Their Lives with not much thought of the part they should play in the community as members of what must be regarded as the coming sex. This is where our broadcasting service should take over. Until the day comes when community facilities allow women to be "let out of the kitchen into the world" (to quote the Congress of American Women on the role of women as _ housekeepers) radio is a Home Body’s one voice from

beyond the boundaries of her household. At least it should be, but the programmes from our btoadcasting service seem to display a lack of planning from this point of view. Women will not get the services and the recognition from the community which they should until they all ask for them in loud, concerted tones. And they won't begin thinking about them as long as their minds are dulled by household hints, serials dealing with True Lurve and complications caused by same, and slightly dull historical and musical offerings, which all make up the pattern of the day’s listening. Serialised Emotion The awful fascination of serials has not yet completely hypnotised me, but I am very far from condemning them just because they are serials. They are all right as far as they go, but after a soul-searing morning of being drawn into the emo ionally storm-tossed lives of our Radio Friends, we women are no further towards building the new world than we were when we woke. Why are so many of the serials completely removed from the average existence? One only that I have heardCrossroads of Life-has any social significance. Even that is so involved with the tortuous by-paths created by What People Thought Other People Meant that for the time being the live issues are buried. In the odd moments when our characters take time out for a breather they improve the shining hour by spreading (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) sweetness and light round in a slightly nauseating fashion. Possibly it . might help better nattires than mine to listen to people loving their neighbours like one thing, but my only reaction is to hope that someone will do something Really Awful which just cannot be justified. On a radio serial, however, this is. impossible. _ Certain rules are always followed. First, true love can never on any account run smooth. Nobody does anything like having an illegitimate child, or getting involved in a labour dispute unless it’s Historical. Foreigners are either comedy turns or crooks. Heroines are either perfectly beautiful and young, or are middle-aged and have such irreproachable characters that their faces do not ‘matter. Personally, I don’t’ consider that serials are terrible at all, The standard of acting is in most cases good, and the scripts, such as they are, are exceliently presented. This is what I de- > plore so much. With such a good background, why give women stories which provide no food for thought, and which really cannot help them in solving their everyday problems? The Housewives’ Quiz, I suppose, is an attempt to do this. But it seems to me to lack the excitement of a good quiz because everyone gets a prize. What I should like to hear are sessions, not necessarily’ cutting out the serials at all, which have direct bearing on what women should be most interested in, even if it takes a little direction to get them there. Frankly, I think the broadcasting authorities are under-estimating us when they think that cooking and Ro-mance (with the accent on the first syllable) fill our alleged minds. For instance, many women would be very grateful to know more about the work of play-centres and kindergartens. Others are interested in the formation of municipal open markets and the resumption of deliveries. Could the authorities not see their way clear to instituting talks on such subjects as these from officials of either side-if there happen to be two sides to the question?

Recently concluded was the series Voice of Youth, in which teenagers gave their carefully-prepared impromptu opinions of various questions affecting them. Why not something similar for women? Even a weekly forum of this description would be an encouraging start. A recent woman speaker over the air, Caroline Webb, gave suggestions of compulsory domestic service, cleaning companies, and children’s centres. These, as well as such questions as equal pay for equal work, community centres, and family endowments, are all topics about which few women do not feel keenly, one way or the other. If we were given the chance to thrash these questions out over the air we would really get somewhere, Granted, most of these are controversial subjects. But is a subject worth while if it does not make people think sufficiently to argue for or against it? Is our broadcasting service really doing us a service by denying us the opportunity of hearing opposing views? Most of all, is it doing the women of the community justice by causing them to be divorced from reality for the greater part of the morning unless their strength of mind or the power cuts intervene? Sponsors would not lose by introducing present-day problems into women’s morning toil, nor would the YA stations lose dignity by it. Women, who seem to me to be largely left out of the picture, would have everything to gain, In the words of one of our morning characters, "the | (radio) episodes of the past few months have been etched into my heart and brain with acid." This particular serial is whispered by the tall grass round this character’s grave, we are told, and I personally would be the last to deny that this li'l ole tall grass plugs a mighty purty commercial. To help us out of such solitary confinement the Broadcasting Service has the keys immediately to hand. May it soon, to»quote the Congress of American Women again, help to "unlock millions of doors that have imprisoned millions of women."