ORDINARY WOMEN.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Can any of your readers answer this query, " What is an ordinary woman ? " For of all the opprobrious epithets that could be applied to our sex surely this is the very essence of vituperation. In common with the majority of thinking women I was under the impression that the word " ordinary," as applied to women, was deleted from man's vocabulary the day she donned overalls to save him ; but apparently I am wrong. Only the other evening I overheard, at the theatre, a man—and, indeed, one who holds a public position— sum up a lady crossing to her stall as " Oh—just an ordinary woman."
I see that Miss Geraldine Waife, in her "woman's novel" Colleagues, chronicles her profound respect for the " million superfluous women." In this I agree with her, but strongly disagree when she classifies as " ordinary " the woman who does her hair badly, or wants a home, or is getting old, or cannot find work, or cannot live happily in another's house— or, worst of all, " the woman who can walk about Piccadilly any time and meet with no adventure."
As the attitude of the majority of women of all grades of society was so extraordinary during the War, would it not be better to let the expression " ordinary women " be for- saken as definitely as the silly parallel phrase " a mere man " has been relegated to a shadowy limbo by the average intelligent woman ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
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