Woman Everywhere

Mrs. Saniyya Anan says that the first thing to catch her eye on her latest visit to Europe was the general invasion woman has made of every field — above all those we used to believe would remain reserved to men. How many an enormous garage in Paris where you will not find a single man, where every working hand is a woman's hand!.. The Egyptian woman of letters goes on to say: Hardship has turned soft, tender bodies into sinewy forearms on which France relies to rise from her stumble.

The magazine Akher Saa reports that in Stockholm, capital of Sweden — a country famous for its hot baths — there is a bath more famous than all the rest, called the Finnish bath. The bather passes through rooms of varying temperature, some humid and some dry; it is an exhausting bath which no one is permitted to take until his heart has been examined. In this bath there are women bath-attendants assigned to serve the men while they bathe; such an attendant is called there a 'baderska,' and she is mistress of her task to the utmost degree — she can turn the color of the bather's skin to something like the color of blood... Often the men who make for the Finnish bath turn back when they learn that it is women who perform the task of washing and cleansing their bodies, and go off in search of other baths. The Swedes themselves feel no awkwardness or astonishment at this work; on the contrary, they express their astonishment if any foreigner in their presence objects to the presence of women attendants in the men's baths.

The wife of the Prime Minister of Indonesia, asked during her visit to Egypt about conditions in her country, gave the answer of a skillful politician: 'I am good at talking of nothing but kitchen and household matters'... Mrs. Hatta was accompanying her husband, Dr. Mohammad Hatta, Prime Minister of Indonesia; she is an intelligent, educated young woman with a good command of English...

The Egyptian writer Samir Souki visited France some months ago, and relates that at one party he asked the wife of Monsieur Georges Bidault, Prime Minister of France, to be his partner; she informed him that she dances with no one at all, because her husband forbids it to her — despite her passion for dancing. The writer then says that most of the beauty of the women of France is artificial, and that the most captivating thing about them is their elegance and their grace...

She does not forget the past... her bitter past, filled with struggle for the sake of obtaining her political and social rights.

It once happened that the women of England went on strike, refusing to give anything to the State until they should win their rights.

Then the First War was declared.

So the women proclaimed a truce and began anew to offer their services in the public fields.

And Britain has not forgotten this noble stand of her women.

In Britain, 60 percent of the women exercise the right to vote.

You may see the women of Britain in the streets of London or on the bus, one of them seated with the morning or evening paper in her hand, reading every letter of it.

Most British women understand their domestic politics thoroughly. And the English woman enjoys man's full respect.

Woman in Pakistan has the right to vote and to stand as a candidate. The women's movement there is led by three ladies: the first is Fatima Jinnah, sister of Mohammad Ali Jinnah; the second is Begum Liaquat Ali Khan, wife of the Prime Minister; and the third is Ikramullah, wife of the Under-Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, and a member of Parliament.

Woman in Pakistan is making a great effort in the art of nursing. There are today 26 institutions for graduating nurses, from which ten thousand nurses graduate every year. The Minister of Health broadcast a statement to the ladies of Pakistan in which he said:

'In the Prophet's day, women would accompany their husbands to the fields of battle and take charge of caring for the wounded and the sick... and I am confident that the ladies of Pakistan today will not forget this example.'

The papers have been full of talk these days about Margaret, daughter of President Truman, who works as a singer and who recently gave a concert at Carnegie Hall, for which she was paid 1,200 dollars.

Margaret considers the newspapermen the source of her troubles: they are forever coupling her name with the name of some candidate for her hand, and Margaret is compelled to deny the rumors that circulate about her.

Margaret has begged the newspapermen to leave off these falsehoods, which injure her reputation — 'and which will end by no one ever asking me for a date again... and I should hate to have my admirers fall away from me..!'

Then she says: 'It seems they have all forgotten that I still have eight years before I reach the age at which my mother married..!'

Margaret's age is now 24 — which means that Madame Truman married at thirty-two...