Evening star., 1938-07-24
By NC. X.

- ONE time ago-one day last win
ter, in fact-a man with whom
the reviewer happened to be
~ lunching asked her, first offer
ing a most touching apology for an
inquiry Of such, as he put 1t, IAN
intimate nature" whether or not she
had suffered throughout her life from
a deep, resentful anger against fate"
because she was not man. He was
terribly serious about it; so much was
plain. Obviously, he felt that he was
getting at the springs of the reviewers
most secret psyche-or something OF
the sort-and so he proceeded with
truly alarming delicacy. He wanted
to know the truth, but he was quite
ready, If he saw that his curiosity was
becoming embarrassing, to flee as the
hart from the subject and talk madly
about the weather But this solicitous-
ness only emphasized, of course, the
fact that he thought he was probing
into a very delicate and a very per-
sonal matter.
Moved by his fine thoughtfulness,
the reviewer managed to keep a
straight face. He was good little
guy-she knew that. Not exactly the
for an escort in a street where rob-
berries had been occurring, but still a
nice fellow, absolutely incapable of
any impudence. His wish to explain"
the reviewer was quite impersonal: it
came about from the fact that his
own mind was full of those intellectual
defenses which are apt to be adopted
today by the man of exceptional in
telligence and sensitivity, whose busi-
ness life Is a routine and whose per-
sonal life is middle-class suburban.
He had been explaining" himself for
so long, you see, that he had come to
feel. quite innocently, that everyone
else had to be explained" too.
A ND 80 the reviewer did not permit
herself to laugh at his magnificent
delicacy, but told him the simple
truth-no, she had felt no deep,
resentful anger" over having been born
a woman: In fact, she felt no anger
OF any description over the circum-
stance. for it was a thing about which
she practically never thought at all.
The man accepted her statement with
courteous gravity. But it is hardly
likely that he believed its truth The
amateur psychologist generally makes
his case up in advance and trims his
facts to fit it later.
viewer considerably More recently
however, she has felt that, if the
question were to be put to her again
she would amend her answer. She
would make it that she never wanted
to be man except on one kind of
occasion. And that was when she had
a work about women to review. And
then she would not want to change her
opinion. She would simply like to
state that opinion under a masculine
name Her reason for that is that
she honestly believes her opinion to
be uninf1uenced by the fact that she is,
herself, woman, but that she hardly
expects anybody else in the world to
think so.
In the August Harpers, it happens,
there is such a work. 1t comes from
the pen of Pearl S. Buck and it is
called Americas Medieval Women"
Its theme is that the women of our
country are in an unhappy state be-
cause they are educated for self
expression and equal opportunity with
men, and then, after having received
the education, are denied its objec-
tives. They do not have self-expres-
sion. says Mrs. Buck, and they do not
have equal opportunity.
THE women of Japan. she con-
tinues. are better off, for they
know from their infancy that they
will have inferior positions. and ex-
pect nothing else. But American girls
grow up on an equal footing with their
brothers and remain so through
adolescence. Arrived at maturity,
however, they find themselves back
in the situation of the medieval"
female. They are expected to do
nothing much except to look as pretty
as possible on as little money as pos
sible, to run the home economically