The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-06-04
THE FOURTH SEX
By ADA PATTERSON

F'renchman visiting this country has discovered a third sex. He says it is the woman who will not marry. That she is rot a man is apparent. That she is a woman he regards as dubious. for if she be woman would it not be the strong desire of her and fixed aim of her to mar ry. Men persist in thinking themselves life's chief prizes for a womans life So the Frenchman reasons and deduces from his reasoning that in America we have three sexes, man, woman and the crea- ture ir female form who declines to mar ry. He quite overlooks the male bache- Tor, the man who declines to marry But men were ever merciful to their own sex.
 l, too, have gone exploring in the rich fields of humanity I, too, have made discovery. There is a fourth sex. It is the female bully.
 Do you know one? Think hard I know two of them. perhaps more. but I hope not, for two are more than it is desirable to know.
 The female bully is what her name implies, braggart and a bulldozer. Ma ture has bestowed upon her loud voice which she employs chiefly in arguing It has given hem shoulders broad as T mans. that she uses for pushing her way to what she calls 'the front" She has an cratic mind and accounts foe her differing attitudes on some subject by saying she acts upon inspiration. . She Is fierce of temper and fiekle of pur pose, but in all moods and lenses she is consistent in one respect She is a noise.
 The female bully is human drum She is a tom tom, that, while an n- -fr 1f s- to draw crowd. She is, like a litho- gra ph, big. gaudy, cheap, but inescap- able.
 The female bully either never marries or does not stay married. Both the noise- makers whom I know are twice divorced In each case the brace of husbands have the sympathy of all who know them and the circumstances. Their wives bu'- lying strained the bonds of matrimon.y / until they broke.
 The only excuse that can be offered for the female bully is that she has never grown up. Children are small savages claiming everything in sight as their own and offering armed resistance is anyone denies that right
 The bully of the feminine order is like college freshman. with views about everything, and most of them wrong. She may be gray and wrinkled and may limp because rheumatism hobbies her knees but she never loses the harsh intoler- ance of youth.
 Cure her? No, unless we catch her very young. All we can do is to pro- tect ourselves from her by refusing to know her If she happens to be within our own family circle woe is our DOT tion
 Let us not be bullies ourselves. If we decide that we cannot discuss the world war, equal suffrage nor religion. with out raised voice and flushed face let us go into our closets and sit for awhile fr sack cloth and ashes and come not forth until of chastened spirit. And if a child in our care displays the tokens of the bully let us convince her that the little girl across the street is quite as pretty as she is, and quite as clever more SO, in fact. for she has learr ed enc of life's first and last and greatest lessons, restraint. And impress upon her that great force is often quiet and that quiet in itself is force gathers force.