The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-07-20
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.

The Differences Between the SeXes.-2
Another reason w. women are
more interested in people than they
are in things l. because. up to the
present moment, woman has always
had to get her livelihood from per
son, and not a thing. She has had
to work a man and not a machine
for her bread and butter, and SO it
was more important to her to under
stand the psychology of human be-
ing than it was the mechanical prin-
ciples of thing.
This has cultivated what we call in
tuition in women, and it is why the
silliest little goose of a girl can see
thru the mightiest masculine intellect.
as if it were a transparent ven, and
tell just what string of vanity, perhaps
unsupported by the man himself, that
she can pull to get out of him what
she wants, or what chord OF chlvalry
and tenderness in his nature to strike
that makes him respond to her every
selfish whim, even when he recoS-
nizes the folly of doing so.
Every woman is at heart Delilah
who never rests until she worms out
of her Samson the secret of his
strength There is no woman who
does not know her husband. or her
employer thru and thru, with a detail
ed knowledge that he does not him
self possess and that only his Record
ing Angel exceeds.
Women so about this vivisecting or
the men they are thrown into intimate
contact with quite by instinct and
simply because people interest them
more than anything else in the world.
If they are clever women or bad worn-
en-, they use this personal informa-
ton to their own advantage. II they
are dull and stupid, they make no use
Of Mt a thew have
man card indeXed and filed away in
the pigeon holes of their brains.
1t would amaze many a husband
who thinks he is pulling the wool
over his dull-eyed wife, and that ne
has fooled her into believing that he
is a demigod, to know that she has
ticketed his every weakness, and has
his number down to the last figure
that she is perfectly aware that it is
his conceit and his boasting that
makes men. shy off from him at the
club; that the reason he doesn't get
along any better in business is because
he lacks courage and push, and that
the way his lit incompetent, red
headed stenographer holds her job IS
by telling him what handsome eyes he
has and asking him if he doesn't write
poetry.
On the other hand, men have never
had to study women, and they haven't
done it They have contented them
selves with saying that the feminine
sex was an unguessable conundrum,
and letting it go at that. The only
time a man ever takes any cognizance
of what a woman thinks is when she
dares to disagree with him, and then
he doesn't try to find out why she
thinks it. He merely attempts to
make her think his way.
A woman knows her husband down
to the last fibre of his soul. She can
~oll IrN Iaa rxrfII Il. .1xar-
given circumstance. A man has not
even a bowling acquaintance with his
wife's SOU, and he admits that he
hasn't the slightest idea of which way
she will jump in any emergency. This
is a pity because If men knew women
as well as women know men, and if
men thought women as well worth
study as women think men, the two
sexes would arrive at an understand
ing that would make fer mutual good.
Now that under the changed condi-
lions of the world women are no
longer dependent on men for a Hveli-
hood, and men are becoming depend
ent on women for work, this differ
ence between the sexes will doubles
be eliminated to a large degree. When
a woman has no longer to jolly her
frills and furbelowS~ out of a man, she
will be less interested in studying his
moods and lenses because she will not
have to placate him in order to get
them.
And when she realizes that she is
not just marking time in working
while she waits for d marriage ring
but that she has got to support herself
as long as she lives, size will undoubt-
eddy develop a greater interest in
things. and go at her job in the same
spirit with which a man attacks his
career.
The var is bringing about great
changes. but none greater than the
effect it is having on moulding men
and women into new characters.