Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1907-11-09
sELF-REvERENcE FOR WOMEN.
Cheap Valuation at Which They Are Held
E1cites Comment

Summer, and according to popular no
ton che silly season. Deing ended, the
time OF serious purpose has arrived, and
it is expected that all, save perhaps the
l,shallowminded class of what may be
described as professional oilers, will APP
/ ply themselves to some one object that
makes for culture or philanthropy-the
being at the moment the most generally
accepted expressions of serious purpose.
Men, as sex, are credited with beng
| so much and so necessarily absorbed III
/ the taxing job of Dreadwinning that they
are to a certain extent absoiyed from eff
! fort in any line of activity, and it is OF
women that the greatest is expected.
| And it must in justice be said for them
that they have accomplished much COM
| mendable work in the serious seasons of
! the last decade.
! Among the betterment efforts of the
coming months it is much to be hoped
that some powerful group of women will
undertake an extension of the settlement
! OF self-reverence, making a special point
OF bringing it sharply to the attention of
the younger generation. In travelling,
| both IN this country and in Europe, we
cannot but be struck with the cheap
] valuation at which a large majority of
| American women and girls hold them
| selves--a thing that is the more depior-
as paradise for them-and naturally it
reflects anything but credit ON the sex
! when the liberty allowed i results in a
lack OF personal dignity chat is often a
! humiliation 70 witness.
! The sensational press is responsible for
much evil of this kind and it has rarely
! performed O worse service than to make a
feature (as one journal has done this sum
mer) of a vulgar, snowy costume. fore
ing 1t to the front and thus encoura ging
| hundreds of girls in all stations of life
/ by logging then. selves out in most I'M
! suitable garments, to become a target
for the disrespectful comments of men
of low class and street gamins. The
| girls (most of them undoubtedly respect
able, who thus cheapened themselves.
were unconsciously a reproach not only
| TO their parents and guardians, but in
the community which allowed them TO
! grow to young Womanhood lacking a
training in self respect.
1t is a pretty fiction in this country
that woman is greatly respected, and
1t is fact IN many respects, but those
| who accept the statement at its full
face value are IN the way of getting
some surprises. As a case in point a
certain large and expensive club in an
/ old-fashlOned section of New York the
membership of which is % per cent.
women, has not only been the cause of
4 At1RNAAttI
clubs in the neighborhood because of its
women MEMBERS but its own manage
ment rather demands that the women
members shall be quite subsidiary TO the
men. This example is selected because
/ it bears purely on the social side of liv-
/ ing, sphere in which women are sup
posed to be always personagrata. The
/ truth is that woman is on trial at the
bar of mans judgment about as much
| as she ever was, and this in spite of all
! the fine things said of equality and chiv-
| airy.
| 1t may be as the advocates of woman's
suffrage claim, that deep down in their
| hearts even the most chivalrous of men
will continue TO look down more or less
on women until the ballot has been
placed in the hands of the non-military
! sex, but it seems doubtful if any short
/ cut as that will develop the respect to-
ward women men feel for one another
| Rather seems it matter for more in
diyidual development True in regard
| to every human being as is Schiller
dictum that 'sthe price we challenge for
ourselves is given u.s." it is more espe-
cially true as regards woman in her re-
lation to life, and this makes self-rever-
ence a most vitality necessary part of
every woman's equipment.-Vogue.