How to be Human Though Female I he Art of
Being a Woman. By Amahel (liodlo
Head. 7s. 6d.),,
THE middle years of this century are producing a curious and as yet unnamed social phenomenon: a genuine feminist movement. What went by 4hat name fifty years ago was not, of course, 3 feminist movement ,at all ; it was a masculinist movement, a drive to liberate the masculine potentialities which every woman possesses in greater or lesser degree and whose suppression, through circa,- stances or deliberately framed institutions, causes loss to socieo. distortion to the personalities of both sexes, and, to a minority of women, genuine and acute unhappiness. That movement was an excellent and indispensable thing ; but with its emphasis on 11'e masculine, in its inevitable reflection of the outstandingly masculir, personalities and values of the pioneers, it took very little account of the femaleness and-femininity of those whom It set out to liberate- The reaction against masculinism is not to be confund—as some masculinists are very ready to confuse it—with a stampede ba to Kinder, Kirche, Kiiche. The new feminists, the genuine feminist'., do not want to return to suppression and atrophy ; they aspire ambitious creatures—to be compktely human. Between Nature and economics they need all the hilP they can get ; and not least the kind of sane, realistic.and. hurnorOus.analysis of their predica- ment which Mrs. Wilfiams,Ellis proslillet. Hers is a wise and well-informed little book full of widely based knowledge of human nature and appreciation of human problems, practical and psycho- logical ; and its conclusions are all what. scientists call operational, practical means to an end. It falls into four sections One, for background, on " What is Expected of Women," is a witty and well- chosen survey of real and ideal feminine- types and of feminine aspirations and achievements ; the second, entitled " Personal Prob- lems," is a sensible, down-to,earth development of the theme " know thyself "—an encouragement, coupled with practical advice on methods, to discover beneath the surface of habit one's genuine psychological assets and needs. The third, " We are Not Alone," widens the scope of the argument to, include a survey of community pressures and opportunities, the formation of the social climate which determines woman's role but can also be modified by means particularly-accessible to women ; the last, " Action Now," shows the lines on which, in the light of self-knowledge and an objective appraisal of circumstances, any individual woman may hope to do something about her personal aspiiations towards complete
humanity. -
Some people will probably sniff-at The Art of Being a Woman and call it superficial ; magazine stuff:- So, in a way, it is ; but that is, after all, the form in which most people do seek enlightenment. Mrs. Williams-Ellis does not suffer from the highbrow delusion that no work on a social topic can be valuable unless addressed strictly to a Third Programme audience. True that one sometimes recog- nises, reading her easily flowing, simply worded, woman-to-woman prose, a touch of that awful cosiness which fellow-sufferers know as the occupational disease of the Woman's Hour broadcaster ; but it is astonishingly rare. And if she is addressing primarily the woman's magazine public, she has much to say which the most austere intellectual could read with profit. To any holder of an honours degree now undergoing her trial by intensive domesticity and repining, over the sink, at rusted skills and lost chances, this book is most fervently recommended. "If only "—so one says to oneself of a few books in a lifetime—" if only I had read this ten years ago ! " The Art of Being a Woman is, to the present
reviewer, emphatically such a book. HONOR CROOM L
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