Show Dorothy Talks IT IS SO COMPLICATED TO BE A MODERN WOMAN THAT ITS IT'S A WONDER ANYBODY IS WILLING TO UNDERTAKE IT B BEING SING a always been the most complicated career that any an human being could possibly follow follo because every woman Roman has to be bea a a. jack of ot all aU trades Even the common or er garden vari varl variety ety of woman Is la expected to pull off offa a satisfactory Job of being clog at one and if lt ty the same time a vamp a model of prot pro pro- propriety propriety t as wife and mother a cook a at t seamstress a a purchasing ing agent a head of the commissary a supplies a sick nurse a baby nurse a diplomat a Judge a priest print a teacher f n. n a hostess hoste a consoler with a few other mom scattering occupations thrown In for good measure r F IN the past however a woman has hs bad had a I IF I e full fuU days day's work just jest fulfilling the duties and obligations that appertain to her sex aex sex consider r a the difficulties of her lot now when all til sorts of frills and furbelows have been added to the theDOR DOROTHY DOR T HY DIX business of ot being a woman and she Is confront confront- confronted ed with problems of ot which her grandmother never even dreamed Life is s certainly a n strenuous for lor women omen In these theta days of female emancipation for In attaining her new liberties woman has bas not been able to unload any of her old burdens She must still perform all nil of ot the traditional functions ot of her sex and then grapple with her new difficulties She must be all aU that her grandmother was and do all aU that her grandmother did and then some Grandmother must have been versatile to have been able to tobe tobe I be a good actor In all the various roles role she as s required to fill but at least she wasn't expected to be a miracle worker as the modern woman Is Is If grandmother was homely she was home home- ly Iy If she was wu fat she was fat tat If she was w s a bag baa of bones she was a bag of bones and that was all II there was as to It But a woman who accepts her looks as they are and arid Is as ugly ss os God made her Is looked upon nowadays as being a quitter and laying down on her job MODERN ill standards require a woman to be easy on the eyes and Ve we U expect a woman who hasn't been endowed by nature with a beau beautiful complexion to acquire one at the drug store we expect a woman who has hair like a poker to be decently permanently waved ed and that she who is inclined to embonpoint shall starve herself down to a boy ish fah figure and that the living skeleton shall shaH pad her angles out by a fat fat- producing diet Certainly nothing has bas added more to the white womans woman's than this demand that every e ery woman shall shaU be beautiful though ugly and that she shall shaH stay atay perpetually young oung And there Is the question of marriage Grandmother didn't have to bother her head about that because It was up to the themen themen men and they settled It for her A man either sought your hand In marriage and led you to the altar or else you hung upon the family tree Not so nowadays ys when women have to tobe tobe tobe be getters go-getters go If they get married at all all and who have to cap capture ture a husband with one hand while they work a smoke screen with the other behind which they conceal their nefarious de designs de- de designs signs upon him Nor did grandmother have to lie Us awake at night debating with herself the relative merits of a husband and a job because there were not any jobs worth having In her day but the wife Job B BUT UT the modern girl acquires wrinkles trying to decide which is the best bust for the long pull a mahogany top desk or a gas gns range crying babies or bonuses whether she would rather rathe rathe work in some mans man's kitch kitchen en for nothing or in an office or store for a pay envelope on Saturday whether it is better to put up with the crotchets of a boss that she can leave or the cantankerousness of ot a husband that she cant can't leave whether er a latchkey and freedom are worth more than being bound to those she sha loves and who need her And more grief that grandmother escaped she never had to worry over whether It was better to go on with her profession slon sion after marriage or give It up whether she could better help her husband by earning the price of angels angel's food outside of the home or making mean menn biscuits In It it For grandmother hadn't spent years of time and thousands of dollars fitting her her- herself herself herself self to follow some gainful occupation o and she never had to consider the economic waste It was for a high salaried woman to give up her Job In the office to take the place of a priced low-priced cook cool In the kitchen MOTHERHOOD 1 was a simple proposition to grandmother She had 11 I lL never heard of birth control and she wasted no time cogitating over whether she had bad a right to briny bring children into the world that she had bad no way of supporting or to whom she was likely to give weak bodies or a bad heredity She shouldered that responsibility on Providence and washed her hands of all aH blame in the matter even eren if It she had a dozen little tittle sickly babies that she couldn't even feed or clothe Nor did she consider that she was responsible for her family's health or how her children turned out If It they acquired dyspepsia from bad cooking and were anemic for tor lack of ot being properly nourished it her babies died from dirty milk bottles and her spoiled and ond undisciplined undisciplined undisciplined boys bo and girls went astray when they were grown she laid it all aU on the Lord having mysteriously seen fit to afflict her ber She didn't have hare a knowledge ot of the germ theory and dietetics and behaviorism to complicate motherhood as the modern woman does and that makes her feel fool that she is accessory before the crime for every overy ill HI that befalls her offspring And If grandmother married a widower all she had to do was wu to put flowers flower on her predecessors predecessor's grave but nowadays half the time the tho widowers widower's No 2 wife has to learn to act natural when she he meets her husbands husband's first wife out at dinner And even the stepmother r job which always had enough tacks In It acquires a few more spikes spIke when the childrens children's mother Is I 1 I.- I. v- v vIng Ing around the corner and watching to see how you treat them For while she may have deserted them herself she Isn't going I Ito to see them put upon by another woman ALL A LL of which goes to show that being a n woman has got to be such a complicated undertaking that it is a wonder that anyone myone has the courage to undertake it DOROTHY DIX Copyright by Public Ledger |