Woman in the World

Woman in the World

The Indian woman has outstripped all the women of the East in sharing with men in every aspect of social life.

The Indian and Pakistani woman bore an enormous burden of the national struggle against the colonizer; she would urge the men into battle and stand behind them, securing their rear and spurring them on to fight.

And no sooner had the two Asian countries won their independence than they set off marching side by side in the fields of women's activity .. electing women to parliament ... and sending brilliant women leaders to the international conferences.

In Pakistan the voice of the Muslim woman has risen alongside the voices of the giants of world politics in the thorniest of questions. The last lady to represent Pakistan at the United Nations was "Shaista Ikramullah," whose father is one of the elders of the Muslims. The Pakistani leader Jinnah used to take his sister with him to political gatherings .. just as Nehru appointed his sister ambassador of India to Russia .. and the wife of "Liaquat Khan" heads the women's associations and shares with her husband in the greatest undertakings.

Mr. Truman has appointed his friend "Perle Mesta" — the giver of parties and first hostess of Washington, heiress to oil wells and textile mills — appointed her ambassador in Luxembourg. Before her departure she declared that she prefers living in Washington, but the post is a distinction for woman and must be accepted. And despite the stagnation of life in Luxembourg, the first hostess has begun giving parties that cost her enormous sums over and above the salary, which is 15 to 20 thousand dollars. And since she is a widow, she has relieved those in charge of protocol of the problem of where to place the chair of the ambassadress's husband at receptions. The seasoned hands in Luxembourg shake their heads and say that America's ambassadress will have 23 hours of leisure every day.

The Egyptian Chamber of Deputies debated a law forbidding gambling to minors and persons under legal interdiction, and then saw fit that the prohibition should extend to woman, so it added to the law the word "women" (nisa). Controversy flared over the word: some said, let it be "ladies" (sayyidat); others answered, but "ladies" does not include girls — and so they went back to the word "women," citing the Surah of Women in the Holy Koran.

There is not a woman in all Europe with the influence of Ana Pauker. She is the foreign minister of Romania and the Cominform's delegate in the Russian section of Eastern Europe, and she can twist and change the ideals to which a million souls — the inhabitants of the eastern section of Europe — aspire. She is not beautiful: she has the visage of a fighter, two red hands, gray cropped hair, a rebel. Her voice is booming; her speeches are fiery, pouring out force and conviction. Her father is a poor Jewish butcher named Robinson, and today she occupies 47 rooms in the Romanian royal palace and has a fine residence on the shore of Lake Snagov; she is always surrounded by a strong guard and travels only in an armored car. She has borne two girls and a boy.