Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-11-20
DOROTHY DIX TALKS,
BY DOROTHY DIX
Mems Ideas About Women
Copyright 1920, by the Wheeler Syndi-
cate, Inc.

4 about women?
For instance, it never occurs to man
that 1t makes any difference how he looks.
He is strong for the beauty stuff himself,
and he passes up with scorn every woman
who can't qualify in the living picture class.
When he ia les q girl out, she has to be
good-looker, and dolled up in the latest fash
ion, and at a party nothing short of a gait
ling gun could induce him to ask a fat, bald
headed freckled-faced lady, verging on old
maidenhood, to dance with hinfa
But the first fact that he possesses a fig
built along the architectural lines of d
bay window, and face homey enough to
stop a clock, does not prevent man from
picking the peachiest peach in the basket and
blithely making her his own if he can. And
after the couple married it is the hus-
band who demands that his wife shall al
ways be spick and span, while he arrogates
to himself the right to slump into sloven-
ness if he is more comfortable in old clothes
than new.
Curious, isn't it, that men think that
women have less keen aesthetic sense than
they have, and that women care less for APP
pearances, and are less easily disillusioned?
Queer, too, isn't it, the masculine theory
that a woman never wants to talk about her.
self, and the things she is interested in, or
to tell her hopes, and plans, and ambitions,
and disappointments to a sympathetic male
ear?
All sensible women read up on the SUBJ
iects in which their husbands, and brothers,
and sweethearts are interested, so. that they
may be able to talk intelligently to them.
but did you ever hear of man reading up
on the fashions, or baby culture or studying
the cookbook so that he could have heart
to-heart talk with the women of his family
on the proper lengths of skirts, and the
best way to sterilize milk, and how to make
Hollandaise without it's curdling?
Every man has some woman to whom he
talks endlessly about what he is going to
do, and what he said to the. boss, and what
the boss said to him, but the minute
woman begins to tell man of what she is
planning to do, and the little run-in she
had with the cook or the forelady at the
store, he suddenly remembers a pressing en-
gagement that calls him hence.
And a man expects a woman to consider
it a privilege to listen to his tale of woe.
and to bind up with her sympathy the
wounds the world has dealt him. but let
woman try to tell a of her troubles,
and he flees from her as though she was
leper.
Odd, too, isn't it, that man never real
ICES that a woman finds it just as heart
wrenching a thing to give up career in
which she is making success as he would?
1t doesn't occur to him that the sound of
applause is sweet to a womans ears, that.
she gets an ineffable thrill of enjoyment out
of the exercises of her talents, that she likes
the money that she earns.
No woman would dream Of asking man
to make the sacrifice of all Of these things,
for the sake of living il little house, and
ministering to her comfort and pleasure. But
man has no hesitation in demanding it or
woman, and he thinks she should be jolly
glad to do it.
If woman made her husband give up
his business when he married her so that
ho +i11o0 tO with hnr
or if she made him leave the stage because
she didn't like to see him in love scenes with
other women, if she forced him to give
tup writing or painting so that he could
wheel the perambulator, he would hate her
for the way she had blighted his life, but
when he hands out this kind of treatment
to his wife he thinks she should be doing
flip flops of gratitude before him.
Queer how men think that women enjoy
being dependent! A male worm would re-
sent not having a leaf of it's own to gnaw
on. No matter how good and kind and gen.
erous a father, a wife a man had, he
would loathe having to go to him or her
and ask for clothes money and street car
fare. And if he had a backbone the size
and strength of silk thread he would de-
spise himself for being such parasite.
But men think that women have no shame
in being dependent, and that they enjoy the
process of wheedling and cajoing few
nickels out of the pockets of their lords and
masters.
Odd, too, isn't it, that man never speaks
of his employer having given him" the
money for which he has toiled eight hours
day, Nor is he filled with any sense Of
gratitude towards his boss as he receives
his pay envelope. But he peaks of support
ing' the wife who works fourteen hours
day, washing, and cooking, and sewing for
him and his children, and he feels that she
should be sloshing with thanks to him,
and appreciation of his goodness in giving
her her board and clothes in return for
her labor.
Strange also, most strange, mems child
like faith in the adamantine quality of wom-
ans love and constancy. There is no idea
that men are committed to more firmly than
that once woman loves a man, she will
love on till the end of time, no matter how
he may treat her. Likewise, he is convinced
that a woman's one wild desire is for do
mesticity and that she cannot possibly get
enough of it.
He knows that there are times when
man yearns to slip the yoke and jump the
fence into green fields and new pastures, but
it never crosses his mind that his wife has
the same mad magenta moments, the flu
turists would say.
He knows that it is the easiest thing
earth for a wife to kill her husbands love,
and the hardest job for her to keep herself
through the years steady flame of enchant-
ment to him, but it does not even cross his
mind that womans love is even a more
fragile thing than mans, and that he can
only keep it alive by chershing it, and cod
ding it with neVer-ending skill and tender
ness.
Queerest of all, isn't it, that men have
never found out that human nature is all OF
the same piece, and that they think and
fool oil Iir1y op1 n,oIu