FEMINISM AND WAR

...The "Waves," the "Wacs" and the "Spars" are everywhere...

...All this need not be taken to indicate that women are any more bellicose than men...

...Brave warriors were rewarded with the most attractive women...

...They take to the new order like a duck to water and their inferiority complex is overcompensated and inordinately caressed by military activity and display...

...The achievement of woman suffrage has, however, proved disillusioning with respect to the influence of women for peace...

...The "security complex" is the most characteristic item in feminine psychology...

...Indeed, it may be that woman's influence for war is greater than that of the male...

...It may be that, as women gain greater economic independence, war will seem less intimately associated with their security psychosis...

...Women are obviously just as patriotic, militaristic, and bellicose as males...

...Barnes on the "Isms and War.'' The first, dealing with "Socialism, Liberalism, Fascism, and War," appeared last week...

...No general could have made us go if the women hadn't allowed us to be stacked on the trains, if they had screamed out that they would never look at us again if we turned into murderers...

...That they can smile and throw roses, that they can give up their men, their children, the boys they have put to bed a thousand times and pulled the covers over a thousand times, and petted and brought up to be men...

...All that is intended here is to debunk, for all time, the pleasant illusion that feminism works for peace and against war...

...Indeed, for countless centuries, the women did most of the menial work, while the men provided food, spoil, and security by hunting and fighting...

...That was the surprise...

...The women sent us...

...They have achieved military rank and grades...

...Women's auxiliariea have been opened in almost every branch of the armed services...

...As Devere Allen well puts it: "The hope that the feminine half of humanity will effect a coup de theatre and banish the hated villain of the piece is just another romantic 'dream of fair women...

...But any such trend is likely to be far more than offset by the impact of the total war of our day on femininity...

...The war is what it has to be...

...Those who excelled in these traits were deemed the best males and their prowess was proclaimed accordingly...

...There is every reason to expect that woman's influence for war will henceforth be greatly augmented...

...Women have donned uniforms even more intriguing than those worn by the men...

...Did it surprise you to find out that war is horrible...

...Never since the fanciful days of the mythical Amazons have women been so intimately identified with warfare as in World War II...

...Even more was expected from feminism than from either socialism or liberalism in regard to the reduction of warfare...

...It is not difficult to understand why women have ex-jilted in war and praised warriors...

...The whole argument was epitomized by Ezra Hey wood in 1866, when he said: "We need women in government, for their spirit is above war...

...One of the great arguments for woman suffrage was that the superior altruism, pity, sympathy, and the Tike, attributed to women, would act as a powerful deterrent to war...

...The only surprising thing was the going off...

...That they gave us up—that they sent us—sent us...

...But they could hardly be actively identified with war and its ritual in any large numbers...

...And this security has been associated not only with male capacity to work, provide support, and pile up a fortune, but also with male prowess in war...

...To find out that the women are horrible—that was the surprising thing...

...The fact that a second World War could break out 25 years after the first had ended, on the heels of the granting of woman suffrage in Europe and Amer- ica and in the face of all the lessons which the first world war had taught, is ample evidence that woman's influence for peace is no greater than man's...

...Women have rightly regarded the male ability to do battle successfully as a basic element in their defense and security...

...The war wasn't...

...Debunking An Illusion Total war has changed all this...

...ONE historic "Ism" which has been closely related to the question of peace is feminism...

...In earlier wars, women might cheer and do acts of mercy amidst the carnage they had encouraged...

...The disillusionment was the most awful thing—the going off...

...Moreover, their influence on males makes the latter the more bellicose and the more loath to resist bellicosity...

...A forceful statement on this point was made by an Austrian lieutenant in World War I, Andreas Latzko, in Men in War: "You want to know what was the most awful thing...

...Indeed, any slight recourse to history at the time of the suffrage campaign would have punctured this pleasant bubble...

...Hence, it is not strange that they have extolled war heroes and been remarkably allured by the ritual, liturgy, heraldry, and spangled decorations warfare...

...Bellicose Women Women have always urged their male relatives on to war, have aided in wars, and have lauded and eulogized war heroes...