Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-03-12
WOMAN

Woman, aCoB,dH, source Of all our bliss!
Woman, 1ComGn, hcdUen'S in your biSsl
! From the queen upon her throne,
TO the maiden in the dairy,
| IN This hCB'rC all alike, they're all contrary.
! NNIIt more you see of thing the less 1t
L looks like anything else, and the more it
| assumes a distinct individuality. Twins need
! no pink and blue ribbons to tell themselves
! apart, and neither do their mothers. Just so
! with women. In the old days we assumed
! that there was one standard, eternal feminine
| type, to which all proper and respectable
women conformed. But having made the
fatal admission that women have minds and
may be educated host of subtle dstnc-
tions has followed until now we are con-
fronted with the probability that women are
potentially as strongly individual and dis
tinctly differentiated as men. Just as the
only uniform things about men are their
short hair and trousers, so the only generally
typical things about women are their long
hair and skirts And now that Mrs. Vernon
Castle has bobbed her hair and wears pan
taettes, even these signs fail!
The months magazine articles by and about
women run the Eamut of distinctions and
present the various phases of femlnnity from
the very modern woman writing a cleverly
appreciative description of a prize fight i'm
the Century, back to an editorial in the In
dependent, addressed to "Thc women who
save the race U)--the war brides. The
medieval, or perhaps, antediluvlan philoso-
ply of the editorial is summed up in a quo
alton from IA titled lady of England" who
urged women to marry the volunteers with
the remark, Better be married a minute than
die an old maid"
In France, Germany and Austria recruits
who have fancees have been given a fur
Tough in order to make them wives In Eng
land the archbishops are urging the yolun-
teers to marry before going to the front So
mobilization week has been a week of we'd
dlngS. In such hasty and wholesale mar
riages there will no doubt be many a sad
mismating, but this Is not always avoided |
in times of more deberation. A weeks |
honeymoon and widows pension are all |
too little of love and comfort for a woman's |
life, but unfortunately they are more than |
some women get in the best of times. There |
are women in this country who have lived |
lonely lives for half century, widowed i'm |
spirit though not in law, because they re-
fused to marry their lovers going off to the
war
Women have suddenly been brought to
realize not merely their own Importance 10
society as temporary and more or less COM
petent substitutes for men in industry, but
their supreme and unique importance as
women. Just now, when mans energies are
turned aside toward destructiveness, is the
time when women's creative energies are
Many women will probably feel that their
Of their Importance to society is
not so sudden as the editorialist lmagines
perhaps because he argues from some sud
den realization of his own. There is a pleas
ant contrast between the austere patronage
Of woman in this editorial and the whim
sicsl pokes at male superiority which Inez
Haynes Gilmore writes into her philosophy
of prize fight in the Century (2)
All my life have wanted to go 10 n prIze
night. 1 do not apologize for this truth I
merely state II. l will add however that / !
10 not think that / a peculiarly crueI or |
brutal person. 1t makes me weep to see
lttle boys pounding each other in the street
ma do not believe / could stay through q |
'ull night! This desire of mine has ALWAYS
leen one bridge Of contact between me and
ne other sex, Tor l have never considered
nat particularly understood men, I cam
Tot make up my mind about them Some
lines think they are the better sex and
hen again think they're not have even
lad my moments when / would not admit
hat they were part OF the human race. {
Yli CONFESS that as a woman l have been a
llue Jealous OF them. i am always com
'arins them with women trying 10 nTova ]
o myseI that some of their superlorities are
purely adYentitious s
l confess, and 1 confess It with a kind ~ ]
name that wanted 10 see a knOeb-out
MS Was not z biood-lust not that atavisfie
efoclly which according to- most action
.lttsls' s shouia nave seized me In the big mo- ,
aehtsi ~ was merely curiosity on tha of6sr 4
and, / did not wish 10 see either oS fbasa l
oys knocked out. Certainly not Murnbt,
tier the magnificent defense he had uilf ~
eflainiy not Ritchie after the glorioiis sisss q
= N41 Neesas An taet could not bear 10