I Wish WOMEN Wouldn’t

Cover from the painting of Gertrude Des Clayes (1879-1949)

Here’s an amusing article from Woman’s Pictorial that I wanted to share with you. Dated February 2nd, 1929, it provides a lighthearted ‘peek’ into the changing attitudes of the time. Remember that women of the 1920s were just starting to experience the freedom to express themselves and become more independent. Interestingly, this article was written just prior to the Great Depression and the subsequent slump in the world’s economy.

And just to add that Woman’s Pictorial was of course a woman’s magazine, so it’s foresightful of the writer, Norman Venner, to start his piece by mentioning just a few foibles attributed to men. I can think of many more, but all I can say is “vive la différence!”

“An amusing and manlike treatise on the worldly weaknesses of women of to-day, by a well-known and very entertaining writer – Norman Venner”

Before I go any further, I had better throw up both hands, and admit that men are a pretty poor job of work, anyhow; that we, as a sex, don’t know how to dress ourselves, find our own clean underclothes, save money, keep our tempers, and so on.  I admit all that. I start with what every woman knows – that men are hopeless. And in the fond hope that he who is down, need fear no fall, I go on to wish that women wouldn’t -

So many things, too. Many of them could be put right with such ease that it is strange that the sex which has put so many things right, hasn’t gone just the little step farther.

I wish, first of all, that women wouldn’t forget that the moment the bedroom door has closed behind them, they are on parade. It is generally admitted, nowadays, that the Victorians were wrong about nearly everything which it is possible for a human being to be wrong about and still live.

There is one point on which the Victorians were dead right. Once out of the seclusion of bedroom or boudoir, the Victorian woman was on parade. She did not comb her hair in the cafe, restaurant or theatre. She did not expose the cosmetic secrets of her toilet to the gaze of her fellow travellers in bus or train or tram.

Her fingers were manicured in secret, her lips brightened, if at all, behind closed doors. I don’t say that all the Neo-Georgian women do these things, but so many do. And I wish they wouldn’t.

Not Too Short!

One of the greatest advances in the history of women has been the introduction of the short skirt. Short skirts, in these days of swift and ever-swifter traffic are inevitable. Skirts will never be permanently longer. The short skirt has come to stay. The female knee has been admitted once and for all as part of the background of modern life. This is all to the good, though a lot of nonsense has been talked about it. But I wish women wouldn’t forget to draw the line at the knee.

Even in a very short skirt, it is possible to sit at ease in the tube or bus without embarrassing the timid, the self-conscious and the aged. Underwear, it should be remembered, is not interesting, is rarely beautiful, and is not intended to be displayed. I have no complex about this. If women feel that it doesn’t matter, well, they’ll just go on, I suppose. But I wish they wouldn’t.

The other big revolution of our time has been the opening of the world of work to women. This is an excellent development which has only just begun to bear fruit. But very few women have the right idea about it. Too many women want to prove that they can do a man’s job in a man’s way. “Here is a man’s job,” they say. “We’re going to show that a woman can do it just as well. Please forget that we’re women. As long as we do the work our sex has nothing to do with anybody.”

I think that is pathetically stupid. If a woman comes to a man’s job, whether it be as a Member of Parliament, journalist or barrister, what the world wants is not a man’s job performed by a woman, just as a man would do it, but a job usually performed by a man, and now raised to an entirely different level, because it is being performed by a woman.

When a woman merely takes a man’s job, it means there’s one job less for a man to do. When she takes a job, and because she is a woman, adds some new quality to the performance of it, she is really creating a new job. Women in business should never forget they are women. Men can’t forget it, and I wish women wouldn’t try.

No Pet Names

A woman I overheard in a shop the other day will illustrate my next point. “Dodo darling, have you got the pattern I gave you?” she said. “Dodo, darling,” was a large, massive husband in a bowler hat, and he had probably suffered so long from his wife’s habit of using pet names in public that he no longer winced outwardly. But all the men in hearing winced for him. Men loathe pet names.

Years ago, de Maupassant wrote: ” And when your mouth smiles, with its two round lips, showing your shining teeth, one might think there would come from that ravishing mouth a music that is beyond words, something unbelievably soothing. Then you call me, tranquilly, ‘My adorable fat rabbit.’” He knew all about it. The woman to whose address his protest was directed called him “My big darling chicken” and “My fat doggie.” In a little masterpiece of prose he pinned the failing to a card for all the world to see, but his protest has made very little difference. Women still continue, and I wish they wouldn’t.

Women have a fatal “penchant” for exaggeration. They shriek down the telephone, the smoke scented cigarettes, they have hysterics if they cannot win an argument.

Don’t

I wish women wouldn’t keep futile little dogs as pets, and carry them about in their arms.

I wish they wouldn’t wear light-coloured silk stockings when walking about the streets on a muddy day.

I wish women with fat feet would not wear shoes that are too tight for them, so that their feet bulge over in unsightly rolls of fat.  I wish women wouldn’t utterly disorganise a newspaper every time they try to read it.

I wish they wouldn’t leave pins and needles in chairs and in carpets.

I wish they wouldn’t take afternoon tea at theatre matinée, and rustle the paper in their chocolate boxes, and drop their programmes and pass remarks in a giggling undertone.

I wish they wouldn’t drink cocktails.

I wish women wouldn’t continuously practice the Charleston steps while standing in the streets.

I wish they wouldn’t drive a car as though they owned the road.

Last of all, I wish that I could believe that when they’ve read through this indictment, they wouldn’t start finding fault with me.

But I’m afraid they will.

Written by Norman Venner for Woman’s Pictorial, 2nd February 1929.

I can’t decipher the signature of the illustrator used in this editorial, but here it is. If you recognise it, please drop me a line. C D Ferris, C D Berris???

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