Evening star., 1925-08-16
BRITISH WOMEN GAINING
LITTLE IN RIGHTS FIGHT
Position Described by Writer as Com
parable to That of Educated Negro
In u. S., Due to Prejudice.

cause society is unwilling that they
should do them. And this relieves
them from the inferiortty complex
from which SO many of them have
suffered in the past. A.
Derive Mental Benefit.
1t is recognized by psychologists
that II a person labors under a sense
of inferiority to another person or per-
sons the whole harmony of his mind
is apt to be destroyed. AS many
women labored under a sense that
they were inferior to half the human
race, many of whom We're patiently G.
such that to be inferior TO them would
be to be bad indeed, it may be judged
in what state of mind they were likely
to be. They were all that men ac-
cused them of being, unstable and in
capable, because they were neurotics.
The woman of today does not feel like
that, and the result is that she is in
finftely calmer and happier.
One may Judge that by turning back
to the works of Charles Dickens and
Thackeray and Anthony Trollope and
looking at their terrifying pictures of
their feminine contemporaries. Little
Dora in David Copperfield" and
Amelia Smedley represent the depths 3
of helplessness and Stiffness that this
conviction of inferiority brought on
passive natures, and the Old Soldier
in THE Newcomes" and the horrible
| Mrs. Proudie show how very disagree
ably stronger natures reacted to it. eN-
pressing their revolt in nlaniacal bad
temper because the world of their day
allowed it no more legitimate channel.
There are noSsuch utterly imbecile or
dreadful figures in the fiction of the
a nf fi.fapoipfSf Of
Important In Arts.
But there is even more conclusive
! evidence OF the increased power and
| serenity OF women in the increased
contribution they make to the arts,
and In particular to literature. Fic-
ton Is very largely falling into the
hands Of women. There are, perhaps,
under a dozen man novelists of dis
tinction who have come to the fore in
| the last ten years. D. H. Lawrence,
Francis Brett-Young, Aldous Huxley,
David Garnett, Michael Arlen. In the
] same time there have come forward a
much greater number of woman
| writer's: Sheila Kaye-Smith, Clemenc1
Dane, Rose Macauley, Virginia Woolf,
| Katherine Mansfield. Ethel Sidswich.
! V. Sackville- West Enid Bagnold, c..
B. Stern, Viola Meyneu, Storm Jane
son. This predominance is partly
relative and due TO the fact that
many Of the men who would have
been the novelists of this age were
KILLED In the war; but 1t Is also an
absolute predominance.
| There have never been quite so
many women who have written so
well and with such diligence as this
generation Of woman novelists. Won-
an writer's who have not been sus-
tanned by absolute genius have been
/ apt to be episode. Writers like Olive
| Schreiner or George Egerton came for
ward with the fruits of an inspired
moment, and when the fortunate
mood had left them they were dumb.
| But writer like Sheila haye-Smith,
] who writes novel after novel working
on various aspects OF the kind of life
| she has chosen as her material, and
experimenting with her style and de-
| yeloptng IT, is laying the foundations
of an artistic career which has just
that element Of continuity and endur-
| ance that women's 8 work has been said
to lack. In other words, II is work
that is not neurotic.
More Striking in Literature.
The effects Of this improvement IN
| woman's temperament is seen most
quickly in the art of literature, be-
cause its superficial technique can be
acquired more rapidly than that Of
any other. It will reveal itself more
slowly in other arts. where the time
of preparation is longer. But the ex-
istence Of such serious artists as that
group OF pianists, Harriet Cohen,
Myra Hess, Irene Scharrer. and that
astonishing young portrait painter,
Cathleen Harrington Mann, make 1t
certain that in future the dispropor-
tion between the numbers of man and
woman artists Of the higher ranks
| will not be SO great.
| But where women have gained most
tremendously during the last 20 years
is not in the professions, or in indus
try, or in the arts, but in the home
by the jettisoning OF that multitude
of social cantrips which used to eat
up the life Of very good woman.
Leaving cards used to be a dreary
activity, with more rules to It than
any other card game; paying calls
was a serious business that consumed
endless hours: there were formal and
joyless dinner-parties at which there
was q lot Of frenzied thinking about
precedence; and at the end It was
all as profitable as jumping through
paper hoops. That Is all over.
To. think Of such things now is
the mark Of the provincial, and So
ciety tends more and more to be an
easy assemblage of friendships. This
also Is sign of the increased health
of women's minds, for all these social
follies were the tricks Of a neurotic
sex. It is a revolution, and it has
happened silently; and that is typical
OF the present state of feminism.
There is now no purely feminist or
ganiZation in England of the slightest
| Importance. There will never again
be any feminist gesture so spectacu-
| lar as the suffra agette movement But
that Is a proof of the success of the
femtnism. The Nornans stopped talk
ing about their conquest quite a while
ago.
(Copyright, I925)