WOMEN AT WORK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 947, 4 October 1957, Page 15

WOMEN AT WORK

EXPLORING THE DEEP PACIFIC, by Helen Raitt; Staples Press, English price 18/-. WHEN THE WINDOWS WERE OPENED, by Elsa_ Pickering; Geoffrey Bles, English price 18/-. N a néarly straight line across the sea floor between New Zealand and Samoa lies the 1500-mile long and 15 to 30 miles wide Tongan Trench, in which Mt Everest could be planted and still not break the surface of the ocean’ One of the tasks of Expedition Capricorn undertaken by two American (continued on next page)

BOOKS (continued from previous page) oceanographic ships was to plumb the depths of the Trench and then penetrate the sea floor to take samples. By studying these samples in minute detail the scientists would be able to learn something about the time and mannef in which this sediment was deposited on the ocean floor and hence learn more about the history of the ocean. ~ When Helen Raitt travelled on one of these ships she felt her whole sex would be on trial. It was not a world for women. But when she had the chance of the voyage she was tempted to find out how men work at sea. Did their dispositions suffer? What were the difficulties of sea life her husband had mentioned? One thing she did find out was that her husband was severed completely from his home and family when out on a job. To her surprise, she experienced the same disconnection in spirit from her children and immersed herself in the task of keeping the ship’s log. Although without the prose or knowledge of a Rachel Carson, the writer was not content until she had mastered the whys and wherefores of the complicated actions of the scientists aboard. She imparts what she learned in a conversational manner a little too reminiscent of a certain type of school text book, but interest seldom flags. Life on a Kenya farm described by Elsa Pickering is no story of easy living with dozens of efficient servants. With her husband, she saved for years to buy a 300-acre property and it was hard slogging all the time to pay their way. In retrospect, she could have succumbed to the temptation of painting a rosy picture of novice farming and animal husbandry, but she maintains a fealistic approach and is unafraid to admit that at times she hated it. Lacking even a basic knowledge of farming essentials, the couple struggled to keep one step ahead of their Kikuyu servants, some of whom were later discovered to be members of Mau Mau. In a simple account, undistinguished by style, the writer dismisses deeper /economic issues faced by herself and her husband lightly while the misdoings and foibles of her Kikuyus occupy chap- |} ters. The African problem is viewed without sentiment by a person born in the country who points out, as others have, that full equality cannot be achieved in a few decades.

Sheila

Coombs