Where Are Women Going To ?
SUPPOSE it is because the majority of men and I women become rigid-minded in the forties—incapable of accepting new ideas, of adjusting themselves to chang- ing conditions—that this new generation of women are criticized so harshly. I see these girls, fine and free, and capable as women never were before, with trained minds and wonderful opportunities for self-realization, and I think that they will make something very big of their lives. The last thirty years have made more difference to women's status and opportunities than a thousand years in any previous history of the world. A generation ago trained minds were exceptional amongst women ; to-day every second girl one meets has been " educated " at least up to the standard of her brother, and the girl has just as good a chance of making a career for herself. When we give girls' and boys a good education we give them the key to success and power. No girl has a right to ask more than equal opportunity for education and equal status as citizens. The days of special " privileges " for women as women are passing, fortunately for every- body, as such privileges were in reality serious handicaps. And with their new opportunities what will women make of life ? If they are sensible they will take no part in the clamour of discussion surrounding so-called sex an- tagonism. Whether men are cleverer than women, whether women are more moral than men, whether one sex is superior to the other—how stupid are a4l such arguments to anyone with a mind past what can be psychologically estimated as eighteen years of age. Men and women who arc "adult" have no quarrel with each other. They appreciate one another's special qualities, and every woman who uses her brains to think will agree that the more feminine the woman, the more masculine the man, the more they appeal and attract each other.
Where are women going to ? We can but study the signs of social life to-day. The growing interest in child welfare is a welcome sign, so is the readiness, the anxiety, of modern girls of all classes to work for themselves, rather than depend upon man for support. Woman must he economically independent if she is to -be free ; she must be free to marry for love, for the sake of generations yet unborn. For hundreds of years the fact that man could buy (whether within or without marriage) what wontan should only give for love has adversely affected the evolution of the race. Our sex and marriage relation- ships are in this era chaotic, and,. as every doctor knows, terrible unhappiness and psycho-neuroses exist in the world as a result. Mankind will be happier when women are free, economically independent, educated, self- disciplined, with a real share in the world's work, with real opportunities of helping to solve the problems of poverty and war--the two greatest horrors of life to-day. Women in the future will find life happier when they are doing work that is their special right and privilege, for example, o medicine, in children's courts, and in the Church and the education and control of children, both boys and The present system of the separation of boys of he moneyed classes in great schools entirely under asenline direction is bad, as every. thinking another ill agree ; so, also, is the separation of girls under quinine domination. Sex disqualification and sex "paration are a hindrance to human progress. Men and women working together will achieve what ■ either men alone nor women alone can possibly do. omen of the future, realizing the importance of hygiene -leteties and better educated in chemistry and d'Ysiologyand psychology, will work in the cause of health the hotne and in the schools, thus raising the standard of racial health. Electricity will solve domestic labour problems, and women's improved health and longer expectation of life will ensure that she will give at least a score of years of public service when her child-bearing period is over. So women will come to a new perspective. They will bring their knowledge of psychology to the upbringing of their sons and daughters. An enormous amount of illness and mental suffering is caused by women's ignorance of psychology at the present time. The first six years of life are more important than any other phase, and educated women are more and more devoting themselves to their children—another welcome sign.
Girls and young matrons of the educated classes are attending lectures and classes in child hygiene and psychology, and they are forming committees concerned with the welfare of the child. There are no blue-stockings and highbrows amongst the new generation, because the girls quite naturally take up study and social service as they learn new dance steps, new bridge conventions, new slang. Women these days arc realizing the importance of interest in life. They believe—this new generation of women—in full days of occupation and recreation. They have health and energy and wonderful vitality. In the conservation and wise use of vitality, no past generation of women has surpassed them ; they adjust themselves to life as it flows onwards towards the future. The physical inventions of to-clay arc nothing compared with the psychological developments of to-morrow. Women must prepare through study and thought and self- 'discipline for the future, for the new problems of love and marriage, for the new civil and political responsibilities which they must assuredly accept in the next ten years.
ELIZABETH SLOAN CHESSER.
[Next week Miss Madeline King-Hall is contributing an article on " The Girl of To-morrow."--En. Spectatonj
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