The English Woman

A hundred years ago, the life of the English girl did not go beyond the bounds of the house in which she lived, and her sole aim was marriage. If a girl did not marry, everyone despised her, and she herself felt that the door of the future had been shut against her. And if she wished to become an artist or an actress, society considered her an outcast, deserving of its scorn and contempt. For this reason many famous English women writers were forced to assume men's names so that their books might find circulation.

But conditions have changed in Britain today. It must not be understood that matters of marriage have now fallen to second place because women lead independent lives and rely upon themselves in public life. The truth is that there is much work for women before marriage and after it. Their working in public life only helps in the building of happy married homes. Everyone in England understands that the happiness of children and the soundness of their health depend before all else on their upbringing at home — even before the school education to which Britain devotes a great deal of attention.

Every English girl must go to school from her sixth to her fourteenth year, receiving during this period a general education in various subjects such as history, science, geography, art, music, and household management. After that she may choose for herself the kind of work she wants for the future and specialize in some branch of learning and culture. If, for example, she wishes to become a doctor, she specializes in the study of science and mathematics during her time at school, before beginning her higher studies.

Among the other occupations for which women are perfectly suited is the profession of teaching, and it is now required of all women teachers that they hold a university degree. The first college for girls was founded at Cambridge about a hundred years ago — and this despite the fierce opposition of the university men. It is still difficult today for a girl to enter the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and to find the same ease with which any young man can enter them.

After many years of struggle against prejudice and tradition, English women doctors succeeded in making their patients respect and esteem them, once they had proved their ability to cure disease. Women still meet with much opposition in taking up certain kinds of work that suit them perfectly — architecture, for example.

The women members of Parliament have in the past few years had a great influence in guiding matters of social reform, despite their small numbers in Parliament. And while we now find the British Ministry of Education headed by a woman, Miss Ellen Wilkinson, the idea of women being elected or entering Parliament met with fierce opposition in Britain forty years ago.

This article would not be complete without a few words about the part the English woman played in this war. Despite the harsh rationing of food, housewives did not grumble at it, nor did they slacken in their household duties. Besides carrying out these duties, many of them took up outside work so that men might be freed for service in the fighting forces: they made munitions in the factories, they worked at tilling the land, and they likewise joined the ranks of the fighting forces, the navy, and the air arm. They took upon themselves, too, the task of guarding Britain's shores in the most critical and difficult of times; they delivered letters and messages under a hail of bombs and drove supply wagons through violent air raids. Now peace has come, and the British woman feels joy at returning to the nest she defended. She feels that upon her rests the responsibility of rebuilding that nest which the war has cracked, and of creating a peaceful world in which she and her sisters the whole world over will share to the fullest.