THE PAINFUL INCH

White Ribbon, Volume 19, Issue 8, 1 September 1947, Page 1

THE PAINFUL INCH

Although fifty-four years have passed since the glad news of the granting of the franchise to women in New Zealand was wired by the Prime Minister, Mr. “Dick” Seddon, to the President of the W.C.T.U., Mrs. Sheppard, we are still at the stage of thinking it a wonderful thing if a woman is given recognition as being perfectly fit to carry out the duties of some public position as well as the men who have previously been its occupants. Our daily papers were headlined with the news that Miss Mabel Howard had been given a portfolio. In Australia, the same thing is manifest. The appointment of Mrs. Cardell-Oliver as Australia’s first woman Cabinet Min-

ister was the occasion of much rejoicing in her own State of Western Australia, where a great gathering assembled in spite of heavy rain to do her honour. Greetings were received from the Premier, and every evidence of pleasure was given because of the distinguished position now to be occupied by her. Perhaps we are less demonstrative in New Zealand, but, though we did not hear of similar expressions of excitement when Miss Howard’s promotion took place, it is well known that deep satisfaction was felt in all quarters where it is realised that in the speedy adjustment of the public mind to the facts relative to the election or appointment of women to positions of responsibility will be found the solution of many harassing problems of long standing.

Slowly it has come —this hard-won admission of woman’s fitness for great service in other than domestic fields, so careful and wary has been the transition from the age-old opinion that the biological function with all accruing thereto, is the only one woman is

Franchise Day, September 19th Maori Day, October 26th

capable of fulfilling, to this of our day when great and exacting duties are confidently put into her hands with no doubts as to her ability to deal with them effectively. Slowly, but with an almost imperceptible increase of the pace, it has been making its quiet way into the consciousness of the people. It is possible that ewe may hear now and then, like an echo in some old cathedral cloister, such words as: “Woman’s place is in the home, and she should stay there.” or: “Women have no heads for politics; they will vote for the man with the nicest eves,’ and such well-discredited, out-of-date cliches; hut it would be a brave man

who would want to send all the nurses, office-workers, telegraphists and telephonists, teachers, shop assistants, waitresses, factory workers, not to mention the scores of other types of workers wno keep the wheels of industry turning, to live out a languid, monotonous existence “in the home.” It could not he done for a thousand reasons, and the fact is known at last. The slow creeping in of the tide has not yet Hooded the principle of “equal pay for equal work” into the minds of the community, but it is sure to come. More than a cursory glance is necessary before this principle is seen to he sound. Th** balance of employment hangs on it, if this could only be realised. Study, thought, and research on our part, as women who have so great a weapon in our hands as this franchise, “is our duty to our day and generation.” And it may be that, even in our day, the “painful inch’’ may become the “flooding main.’’