Whither Women?

Extract

A woman must always remember that, she is a woman. She must dress like a woman, talk like a woman and walk like a woman. For the enrichment of her personal life, her personal happiness, she must observe the purely feminine attributes and feminine virtues. . . . We have neglected the special education which girls need to become good mothers and good wives and we must give it to them.—Olga Mishakova, Secretary General of the Russian Youth Organisation.

It may well be that economic necessity makes a supply of female helots an inevitable part of our industrial life.—John Newsom, County Education Officer for Hertfordshire.

All education is due for overhauling; and that of women, being least concerned with the vital needs of its victims, is justly answerable for the most uneasiness. Papal pronouncements having frequently dealt with the kindred points of heaven and home as the magnetic poles of civilisation, there is no need to reiterate the teaching of the Church on the subject. But because the integrity of the English home is to all intents and purposes a forlorn hope, and the English heaven strikes one as being unlikely of attainment without it, the reviewer proposes to survey two books, one American, one English, and neither of them Catholic, which exhibit a novel awareness of our danger and offer some practicable suggestions for averting it. In the brief space at her disposal, she has almost entirely ignored the unhelpful aspects of the books in question.