The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-09-22
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
They Ask Too Much.

They Ask Too Much.
DO you know why men are so
much happier than women" asked
the Woman Philosopher the other day.
Because the earth is mans and the
fullness thereof, while we women only
get such crumbs of angel food as they
drop from their tables l replied
enviously
Not at ALL" she responded 1T is
because men are simple creatures who
know what they want and go out and
get it and are satisfied with it. whereas
we women are poor, wabbling, fifty
FILTERS who never acl eve our desires
because we always want contradictory
things. We want the sweet and the
sour, the soft and the hard. We are
SO determined to have our cake and
eat it too that we drop it and neither
have it nor eat it.
Did you ever notice the difference
between a new rich man and his wife?
The man is perfectly happy in gloat
ing over his money bags He can have
just as good a time as he wants in
adding up his bank book. He doesn't
desire anything more thrilling than to
clip coupons, and he's perfectly salts
fled to live where he's always lived,
and be the big fat toad in his own
little local puddle.
But his wife, having gotten money,
wants to be in fashionable society, and
she pines to know the people who
don't want to know her, and to act
as if she'd always had dollars to throw
the birds instead of having had to
squeeze every nickel until she made
the buffalo below. So she yanks her
husband up by the roots from his old
home and old associations and the old
| friends who knew them know them
no more. For they have gone to live
| in an environment where they will be
strangers and aliens to the days of
their death and miserable because the
woman couldn't be satisfied, as the
man could, with being merely rich
And look at the sacred joy the self
| made man gets out of boasting about
| how ne was born in the gutter and
| how he worked his way up thru every
difficulty and hardship to power and
| place. It's a great achievement and
don't blame him for clarifying in the
ability, the grit and pluck that it
shows. But did you ever hear of a
woman boasting that she was self
made? Never.
"She may have dug herself out of
the ash can and by her own unaided
efforts have made her place in the
sun, but she takes no pride in her
achievement On the contrary, the
very first thing that she does after she
| arrives is to hire some expert to manu-
| facture her an aristocratic ancestry
that runs back to the Norman con-
| quest.
Women are never happy because
| they are never satisfied to be what
| they are. Fhey want to be that and
something that is it's direct antithesis
at the same time. That's why when
a woman gets her picture in the paper
| as the First Lady Longshoreman or
The Boss Lady Motor Truck Driver she
| is always depicted as wearing a decor
lete gown with a string af pearls and
| toying with a Pomeranian pup.
yves women are fiftV-fiftjerS-
| half one thing and half another-and
wanting it ALL We try to play both
ends of the game and that's why we
| so seldom win out Take business
into business and make money and
get the same pay for our work thai
men get for theirs, but we are not
willing to work like men.
I'VE want to hold on to our jobs
with one hand and pink teas with the
| other. We don't want to let our bus
mess interfere with our pleasure MOI
our privilege of giving away to ,ouI
feminine ailments and going to bed
for pin scratch.
why, we don't even want to be
called working women If we are
servants we must be called helpers.
If we are cooks we must be referred
to as 'housekeepers-' If we sci
goods we must be known as salesla-
dies, though nobody ever calls a mar
salesman a salesgentleman. And looh
how we dress for our 1abOrs! / wen
up in an elevator in an office building
the other day that was run by a fail
young creature with her hair waved
and coiffed as if for a ball, and who
had on a flesh colored Georgette
blouse and three story heeled white
kid shoes that never cost a penny
under $14.00i 1t made me smile anC
feel like crying. The poor little fifty
filter, was determined shed looI
like a society bud even while she wa.
doing hard manual labor.
And we women want to be com
petitors of men, fight with them OF
their own ground for the fat bones il
the commercial world, and then hav.
them treat us as if we were visiting
angels. Every now and then 1 hea1
some working girl complain that he
employer is a brute who smokes Will.
he is debating to her, or that h,
that her fellow clerks keep their hat
| on when she goes down with them il
the elevator.
>"She wants everything that is com
ing to her as a fine lady and as a com
petent little hustler in business. Sh'
wants to transfer the gallantries, tn,
compliments, the handkerchief pick
ing of the parlor to the countin,
room, and when she can't she con
siders herself extremely illused
THE most curious phase of gu
fiftying, however" went on the Wo
man Philosopher lis shown in on
social relations with men. We wan
men to regard us as their equals, We
. at the same time we want them t,
look up to us as goddesses on pedes
tails We want to march shoulder t
shoulder with them, be good chums
vet to be baby dolls and clingin,
vines. We want our husbands to Civ