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Women in General

They are difficult subjects to discuss— even to themselves they present a fascinating, an endless mystery, to be unravelled afresh at every afternoon tea and bridge party. Why is it that men very rarely talk about one another? You hear them at lunch, casually meeting on the train, waiting for a football match, at the “talkies”—anywhere and everywhere these “lords of creation” exchange their remarks for a few moments, and pass on. Masculine conversation, and it is never accompanied by a discreet lowering of the voice and a furtive glance round to ascertain whether “Mr. So and So” is well beyond ear-shot before his character may be safely dissected and universally condemned. Men simply don't bother to discuss one another—they accept what they find in their fellows and briefly bestow their praise or their scorn.

Among women it is totally different. You have only to sit near a bevy of the fair sex at afternoon tea, go to a bridge party, overhear a conversation on the tram or near you at the pictures, and you will admit that life, for most women, is an intriguing affair simply by reason of the vital interest each takes in the affairs of the other. She is not content with face values, and is for ever probing beneath the surface to discover how things really stand. “Therefore,” you will say, “woman is a better student of human nature than man—a keener observer and a more competent judge of character.” She has given the subject her earnest consideration from time immemorial—when man was too occupied with his club and spear to worry about the family in the next-door cave. It was left for his wife to make these domestic investigations, to report results to her dearest friend, and to discuss the whole affair over the preparation of meals and the consultations concerning the young. Hence was born our feminine reputation, to which we have clung faithfully for countless ages. A modern afternoon tea conversation would differ only in details from that of our ancestors gathered round their weaving in a cave!

At the present time, when woman is emerging slowly from the narrowness of the home and seeking her interests in the world of affairs—when she is beginning to take her place on an equal footing with the male—surely her conversation will change accordingly, and become more impersonal and less distressingly confidential. We certainly do not wish her to discuss politics at lunch, finance at the theatre, football on the tram, and the weather on any occasion, but she is giving every indication now of an awakening interest in important things —in general topics, world affairs—in the great rushing world hitherto dominated by her father, brother and husband. It is no longer a vast mystery to her—a seething chaos of business quite beyond her ken—but a life in which she is beginning to take an interest and assume an important position.

We do not want to lose interest in our fellow-beings, but we do want to emulate somewhat the masculine attitude of philosophic acceptance and broad-mindedness of ideas.

So much for conversations feminine—delightful, feline and frivolous—they have fled in the wake of our Victorian sisters.