The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1911-12-10

been extraordinarily undervalued. Women who simply
keep house and cook and sweep and mend hear and
rear children have absolutely claim for adequate
recoenition: The home maker in the country works
twice as hard the average business man or woman
YET she receives money for her work Her hus-
bands attitude is probably expressed in Where is that
fifty cents gave you yesterday?
I'm the past the exclusive valuation Of woman has
been on her power TO please men.
III has been by that that she is judged. both the
who do not work have no conception of the extent
which working womans depended. until quite
recently. npon her power of being pleasing to To
this day there few occupations in which
can succeed solely their merits!
Theoretically there is much beautiful talk about
women But practically men value not for their
Importance to the the community to the field
of industry but simply for taetr ability to give them
pleasure"
Mrs Austin. who had been speaking very oniety
and quite impersonaly, without napassoned gestures
srident emphasis turned suddenly to the interviewer
with a quick movement of personal appeal.
'Will you please" she said. when you are writing
this will you please not try to make my language
ventional? know that saying rather startling
things and them to apnear every bit as rting
as they are want to state them quite plainly. exactly
garments Of ordinary eonveraation ;e
that say and mean it just say it, with
ventonal phrasinG"
KT RS. AUSTIN Is Western woman, and she has the
AsL Western wonan's fearessness of expression She
talks slowly and her is absolutely matter Of fact
But sentence hears with it. both what she says
and In the way she it, the mark only of sin
cerlty put OF STUDY Mrs Austin not only speaks what
she thinks she thinks it, she speaks what she thinks
she has investigated It, she has searched through
from every viewpoint
In conveying to New York the result Of her study
of the problems of marriage and divorce and her sug-
gestion of remedy for evils. she but includes
that city of the great municipalities in which her
work is to be done Mrs. Austin Is not New Yorker
talking to New Yorkers she is Westerner talking
America-a Westerner who has begun. this Winter, to
pioneer in New York. 1t is a part Of her Western
drecness that she should be passionately unwilling
beat about the bush that she should strenuousy refuse
to allow her very straight talk to be "toned down.
Women have been driven for centuries TO throw
themselves back their appeal--their appeal
to men, she went on, continuing that straight
talk. 1T has Inevitably about that have
cultivated those qualities that appeal to their
shtes, and often their unworthest side For centuries
the tendency of civilization has been bripg all that
is least valuable in the characteristics of woman.
This is not the women's fault. 1t is the fault of
society. of men 1t is what is to blame for Of
our divorces of our MARTA miseries '
How 1t be otherwise? Women have been
taught that taey must marryTto be supported like
not. They seek, man. but marriage. They
perfectly willing. owing to this century.od pres
sure to marry "a man. not the The extent to
which mans opinion and Judgment may be swayed
by the appeal In Is absolutely extraordinary
"And that is what men have demanded from women
from all women. Not, that she be a mental comrnle
not good housewife not healthy and wise mother
worker for the family tho