San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1926-04-28
Listen, World!
The Cat
By Elsie Robinson

. why 90 women laugh at each
other?
They do laugh at each other. They
gossip about each other and fight cruel
wars with boneyed words. They have
done these things since Sally Stone
Ratchet peered. from her cave at Bes
sic Bearclaw and limited that she
wasn't any better than she ought to
be. And all this while, the male Of
the species has been looking on and
wondering why women were cats.
This male belief in the cattiness Of
woihan is a real bar against her prog
ress in the modern world. Always it
is weighed in the balance against her.
1t affects some of the deepest issues
in her life. So Just Mans" letter
isn't as trivial as it might, at a
glance, appear.
Dear Elsie:
Say. why do women laugh so much
at each other? Is it because woman is
instinctively crueler than man!
Everywhere one goes one sees women
laughing at other women.
Go to a 10-cent store-the painted.
gum chewing squad behind the count
er are invariably laughing at ,somv
poor customer that has taken the
wrong turn.
Go into q railroad car-they're
laughing-gossiping about some WON
an and making fun of her-thats
nine-tenths of the conversation.
Let some cad start a foul lie about
q woman and who mods her head the
quickest and persecutes the hardest!
A woman. Why is it. Elsie? You're
one of them-you ought to know.
JUST A MAN.
Think back, Pal. Think back to the
time when, as flat nOsed, low browed
sayages We acquired the traits and
attitude which now underlie all our
civilized gestures.
Men were the hunters who walked
a free trail. Women we're the mothers
whose lives circled around the camp
fire.
Men had property. Women were
property.
Competition was the law of tribal
life then, as it is now.
Men competed with each other foy
arrow heads, bear skins, and land.
They competed for tangible things
with tangible tools. They fought with
their fists or bartered with their
wampum. They did not waste much
time in talking. They had more direc,
ways of getting what they wanted.
Women competed with each other,
too. But women had no tangible
things for which TO compete, no tam
gible tools. Women were property
but they did not have property. But
they could have power. They could
have power by attaining merit in the
eyes of men. They could attain merit
by youth and charm and beauty or
by good breeders or good housekeep-
crs.
If they obtained merit, men shared
warm caves with them and hung
chnins on their necks and did not beat
them too severely. If they did not OBJ
tain merit they were out Of luck.
Naturally they tried TO promote
their own stock. And depreciate the
ether lady's. Which was exactly
what the men were trying to do with
each other.
But women could not 90 in for d.
Tttl utllbn rs Nut Inv NUM-
er or the trader was honored for his
frankness and pugnacity. But it was
obviously expedient for ladies TO be
frank and pugnacious about their
game. They would defeat their own
ends il they did.
So ladies began TO laugh at each
other. Which, for deadliness of eff
feet, had the poisoned arrows skinned.
II removed competitors from the lists
quicker than a dozen fist fights could
have done.
That's the origin Of female catti-
uess. IL arose not from a peryerse
love of cruelty, but from grim
guerilla warfare for self-preservation.
II differed from the competitions Of
men, but it sprang from the same
urge.
II you will remember that picture
Of savage life, you will be able to I'M
derstand much that is puzzling about
the women of today. Their odd dis
trust Of each other, their frequent dis
loyalty, their reyersion to cruelty and
pettiness. All these things are hang
overs from their savage estate.
Women are emerging from the
status of property They have prop
crty and professions of their own
now, aud many laws by which they
may obtain that power they have al
ways needed for themselves and their
children. But the old habit still
sticks. We're still cats. As men are
wolves.