The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-12-24
Is
First, Last
a Woman
They Insist on StreSSing
Sex in Every Society
They Organize,
BY GRETA PALMER
Times staff Writer

A MAN is primarily q banker OF
"A a bootlegger, poet or a peas
ant or, at pinch, a simple human
being. But a woman appears to
be, first and almost last, woman.
Such, at least, is the impression
which a reviewer would Gull from
the pages of the newborn Manhat-
tan telephone directory, which lists
forty-eight organizations commenc-
ing with the word "Woman's" or
"Women's."
The entries run the gamut from
the "Woman's American Baptist
Foreign Mission Society" to "Wo-
mems Wear Daily" presenting neat
cross section of feminine interests
and quite dwarfing the five entries
which begin Mems"
When men decide to pool their
efforts for the advancement of some
civic crusade or simply to stimulate
the sales of winches in northern
Africa they take the fact that they
are men pretty much for granted.
They gather together in societies,
not in mems societies. Their sex
seems. after all, fairly irrelevant to
whatever matter is at hand.
They Want Recognition
Not so the ladies. Having de-
manded equality of opportunity for
some vociferous twenty years or so,
having insisted that all the barriers
of prejudice which separate us from
the men be beaten down, we women
seem today to cling to our identity
as women more tenaciously than we
ever have before.
Whenever we gather together in a
little clan for the reading Of Brown
ing or the repeal of the Volstead act
the first word of the groups name
is fairly sure to begin with the letter
wv"
The Importance Of what we are
doing is often judged to be of less
than the fact that wo-
men are doing anything at all.
Modern woman's emphasis on her
sex has served to support a double
standard of achievement which
may in the long run prove to be one
of the most pernicious enemies Of
her complete success.
1t serves to carry over into the
world of serious endeavor the ener-
waiting convention of the sports
world that there must be special
events in which the women may
compete, with no men entries to
show them up.
No Chivalry in Pay Checks
The National Council of Women
recently announced the results of
a national poll made to determine
the public choice of the twelve great
est American women of the last
hundred years. Did they ask their
voters to choose the twelve greatest
persons and take their chances on
having their sex make glorious
showing? Well, why didn't they?
For women to judge themselves by
the achievements of other woman
may provide an entertaining and
instructive game. But you know
and I know that in the fundamental
affairs of life we are forced to COM
pete on an equal footing with men.
There is no chivalry expressed in
terms of the pay check.
Posterity, in weighing a womans
or political success, is not
going to judge more kindly because
she was not born a man. Isn't it
high time that we recognized the
fact and dropped the word woman"
before the titles we bestow on the
members of our sex?
Surely women must be realists
enough to prefer the title of third
biggest railroad president" or fifth
or twelfth to the subway circuit
stardom of greatest woman railroad
president in the world"
Surely women are ready to drop
the opologetic "women's" before the
titles of their societies and take
their chances in the grown-up,
,ltch-as-catch-can world where men
are men, but don't talk about it.