With a Hop, Skip and Jump

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 451, 13 February 1948, Page 8

With a Hop, Skip and Jump

FROM Prehistoric Times to the French Revolution in 15 minutes was the amazing feat of Dorothy Freed, the first talk of whose series Women in Politics I heard from 2YA on a recent Tuesday morning. Which goes to prove Mrs. Freed’s thesis that up till now it’s been a man’s, world, since no one dealing with "Men in Politics" could have covered the ground so speedily even

though equipped with seven-century boots, since each step would undoubtedly land the lecturer in some, particularly tenacious political morass. Mrs. Freed has so far not needed to do more than skim the surface of the political field, since for all practical purposes women have had no part to play, but I feel it was’ perhaps an over-simplifica-tion of the Greek scene to consign the wives to the gynaecium and disregard completely the part played by the hetaerae in political affairs. And I rather begrudge the minute or so spent on M. Porcius ("Who knows where it will end?") Cato whereas Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, that noblest Roman matron of them all, gets no mention. Which proves what is after all the essential point, that if you want a talk on Women in Politics Up to the French Revolution to have any human interest at all you have to include a few men.