The Alaska citizen., 1915-07-12

Are you past ~
 Do you earn your own living
 Do you contribute to the support of others?
 Have you ever loused to give up your independence?
 Have you failed to find the right man"-one you could really love?
 If you can answer all of these questions in the affirmative. then you are a Honey Bee. IL is esti- mated that there are 2oo,oo0 of them in the great hive of American So- ciety today. Are you one of the 100000?
 The Honey Bee is the new type ot American woman; she is essentially the product of present social and economic conditions She has not long existed in American society. The feminist movement has been her creator For the Honey Bee may be said 10 be the outsrowth of that movement, or better her estate may be called the climax of it says an exchange.
 The Honey Bee type of woman has been developing during the last ten or fifteen years. unbeknownst to most of us. In fact, Samuel Merwin, the author, has been the first to recognize her existence. and so fas- cinated was he at his discovery that he has written a story about her life.
 You can't tell a Honey Bee from the average working girl of to- day simply by looking at her, yet she represents distinctive social group. The difference lies in her state of mind, for she has her own mental processes. her own emotions, her own viewpoint. Nor are these apparent while she tolls away com plying with the rule and routine Of her job" IL is when she lets down'-when the burdens are lifted for the brief period of rest or vacation-when she finds herself free to do and act as she will, taking the air down deep in her lungs, flush ing from the very freedom with which she is enabled to breathe, that We see her as she really is. woman torn by contrary notions, an altogether different creature than We thought hcr to be.
 In service We look upon her as the independent self-reliant wage earning woman who is no longer thrilled by gulish curiosity. She understands responsibility and is entrusted with it. grinding away. day in and day out in the office, the shop, or the department Earn est almost to gravity We look upon her as a stable commodity in the cXaotng world of affairs.
 Yet We should not overlook the fact that she is the same woman who. in her girlhood. yearned for independence. who abhorred the idea of ever having to look to an other-a man-for her support un- less she wanted to; a true feminist And at the Honey Bee stage she wants to-and can't!
 Ten years older, ten years broader in experience. tho the world does as she was in her teens. Within her breast surges a feeling of rebel lion-resentment against this very independence she so crayed a decade ago, that now has become habit with her. Instead of being a fem mist, she is in revolt against temin- ism From Salamander to Honey Bee-a strang metamorphosis, in deed, Yet, come some friendly fairy into her life to grant her one wish to assure her happiness, that wish would be that she could give up her independence and start life over again as she was before she acquir- ed it.
 That's the Honey Bee. A woman in revolt-not against society, or convention, or the times, but in re volt against herself, her lot She has made her own bed and now rebels at the thought of having to lie in it!
 But where does the likeness to the Honey Bee come in? The an swer. as pointed out by MT. MerWln. lies in the resemblance between modern American society and the civilization within the bee hive They are like as two peas in a pod.
 The bees, in the first place, sui fer the existence of two distinct types of females within the hive. These types compose two separate classes There is the queen bee, who, of herself, makes up one class. The second group is composed of the honey bees-the worker bees-who assume the sponsibiities, produce the material things (the wax and the honey). They go on working day in and day out, until they die, unheeded by the males, who seem