The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1896-08-14
MAX o'RELL AND THE NEW
WOMAN.

The new woman" controversy, to
which the North American Review has
for some months given liberal space, is
enlivened in the July issue by a contri-
button from Max O'Rell This writer
naturally takes the French womanhood
as type. While there are many who
would disagree with his selection of a
type" there is much truth in some of
his remarks upon the new woman"
Max O'Rell gives the American
women of good society" the credit of
being satisfied with their lot, which
consists in being the adored goddesses
of refined households; but he main
tains that ameng the middle classes
there exist restless, bumptious, ever
ng-their-noses-eve women
who are slowly but surely and safely
Transforming this great land of liberty
into land of petty, fussy tyranny, and
trying, often with complete success, to
impose on the community fads of every
shape and form.
If there is one country in the world,
he continues, where the women APP
pear, in the eyes of the foreign visitor,
to enjoy all manner of privileges and
to have the men in leading strings, that
country is America. You would i'm
agine, therefore, that America should
be the last country where the new
woman was to be found airing her
grievances. Yet she is fiourishing
throughout the length and breadth of
this huge continent. She is petted by
her husband, the most devoted and
Woodworking of husbands in the world;
she is literally covered with precious
stones by him. She is the superior of
her husband in education and in almost
every respect. She is surrounded by the
most numerous and delicate attentions.
Yet she is not satisfied.
1.-THE Anglo-Saxon new woman is
the most ridiculous production of mod
ern times and is destined to be the most
CHASTITY failure of the century. She is
par excellence the woman with griev-
ance, and self-labeled the greatest nui-
sance of modern society. The new
wants to retain all the privileges
of her sex, and secure, besides, all those
of man. She wants to be man and to
remain woman. She will fail to be-
come a man, but she may succeed in
ceasing to be woman"
II will be noted that the witty French
man is dealing with the class of women
who go about the country bowling
about their rights, which rights are
those cherished by the woman who has
a desire to wear boomers, so she can
stand with her hands in her pocketse
like man. The majority of the Anglo
Saxon race will agree with him that the
new woman to whom he draws atten-
ton is indeed one of the most ''ridicu
lous productions of modern times" He
has, however, forgotten the true new
woman of modern American life, the
woman who does not waste her time
harping on rights, but quietly, modestly
and persistently labors to raise the
standard of intellectual and broad
minded womanhood. A woman of this
type who has recently gained promi-
hence is the wife of William ]. Bryan,
the Democratic candidate for United
States President. She is woman who,
after her college course, took the full
course in law and was admitted to the
bar. Her study of law was not TO en-
able her to gain prominence as among
The first pettieoat lawyers, but rather, as
she says, with view to bringing my
self in closer touch with my husbands
work"
This last type Max O'Rell probably
includes in the good society" conse-
quently he can be forgiven for the terse
criticism of the brazen extremists.