Verhovayak Lapja, 1944 (27. évfolyam, 1-52. szám)
1944 / Verhovay Journal
Page J Verhovay Journal THE WOMAN’S PLACE IIT ffeay an ancient institution has been ravaged by the present war. Seemingly impregnable convictions haw fallen apart. Ties have been brofcen, nations annihilated, system)} upset, and under the smoking ruths of the old system many old JwJfefs are bleeding to death. ^ f)ne of these beliefs, that have luftomé out-bombed, out-moded, eSyt-dated, concerns the woman’s gg&es which according to our : aiders was definitely restricted to iPh confines of the “home, sweet [home. “The so-called “weaker sex," I-Which was considered to fragile to face the hardships of the life of bread-winner, was chivalrously tected by the stronger sex from íjthe eight hour long toil of factory |0£ jpffice work, and was given by generous male the privilege r Jend the home and the babies, fhe laundry, scrub the floors, the windows, do the cooking baking and marketing, all bin a mere twelve to fifteen rs a day, not to speak of the hts on which again it was little, weak woman's privilege to Bock the baby and nurse its pains, while the strong, big, husky male could get his rest from the 0Blwe-wrecking toil of his eight ftjmr working day. jjBFes, indeed, chivalry is gone, S$Eh the good old days, when men men and women were n. thfpg but women, who after working Ü least twelve hours a day for jBbrty years, were still supposed H> bo grateful to have a man who £0 not drink and beat his wife... If she hadn’t been beaten Bgh just by being the probially obedient good little wife. „ Jfhere is a revolution going on ■song the two sexes, a revolution Utat had a glorious start with the |Bth amendment, and is still going inn swing . . . and goodness knows frriy what this world is coming to! 1 There are still a few males left, Jhachronistic remains of forgotten fMlturies, who still stubbornly »tick to the formula, that “a jboman’s place is In the home.” They refuse to see what is going (HI around them, they refuse to tes the handwriting on the wall, Which indicates to those who are Jtsed to read such writings that Boon the time will come, when men will splash around in the dishwater. The war has only brought it but into the open. Now that our young men have been taken to She front, and there are not Ouough old men to go around, #ur ladies are suddenly appearing •BFerywher« in this here man's world and by golly, they ar« showing it to the men! We fiud out that they can run taxis, busses, trucks, street-cars, engines, even airplanes. We find out that they are not so bad in mechanics as they were supposed to be. No1 only can they run all these confounded machines but they can build them also. In fact, they no1 only build planes, not only fly them, but even bomb and kill with them, as shown by thi women of Russia. There isn’t a profession in the world that has not been invaded by them and in each one of them they show thai they are worth their salt. Their cultural contributions art downright amazing. Most of thi best-sellers today are written by women. If the men would nol have a Sinclair Lewis and s Somerset Maugham to protecl their superiority, no one would believe that writing has been con sidered a man’s art. And even so another “Gone with the Wind” and the male writers will have losl another battlefield of male supe riority. All of this, of course, could surprise only those men who did believe in the superiority of the male, and the mental inferiority of the female. Most men never did really. All this bunk of the superiority of the male was only invented to releave the essentially weak man of his inferiority complex. Funny thing about the in feriority complex of the male. A piece of gray paper, 6 inches by 3 of size, called the “pay-check,” immediately Inflates his ego, and fills his inflated inner self with pleasurable feelings, that find their fittingest expression in the handing over of the pay-check to the little woman. As soon as thi money is gone, the ego deflates, its smile turns sour, and he suffers from indigestion until the other Saturday arrives. This state of affairs lasted fox quite a number of centuries, until, one day, the 19th amendment started womanhood on a dangerous road that ended by enabling the little woman to get herself a paycheck of her own. And to her immense surprise the little woman also found out that the hard toil of the overworked man was a far cry from the slavery of the cleaning, laundering, ironing, marketing, cooking, baking, sewing and, last but not least, child-bearing, that was supposed to be “the easy lot’’ of the little woman. No wonder she liked it! No wonder she decided that office work is to be preferred to the family laundry, and it did not take much intelligence for her to find out that eight hours’ work is six hours less than fourteen hours of work! The whole bunch of social scientists is trying hard to decide whether or not the woman will return to the home after the war. Of course she will, but she will refuse to live in it as she did before her liberation! It doesn't take a superior male's brain to find out all about the pleasentness of shorter working hours, week-ends and vacations with pay and overtime paid with time and a half. . .! And it doesn’t take a superior male brain either for her decide that if she can do a man’s work, then, by the same token, a man, too, should be able to do her work. And so, men, it came about that we lost our glory. The time, when the man was “the man of the world’ and she the “woman in the home” is gone . . . gone with the ill wind of this bloody century. The myth of the superiority of the male has been cruelly exposed. The sooner the better we learn that both man and woman are human creatures, endowed with the same abilities and qualities, and that, consequently, man cannot be the Lord and the woman the slave. There is nothing a • man does that a woman cannot do. She can operate as a surgeon, she can argue as a lawyer, she can write as the best of men. She can dig, and build, and repair. She can build and destroy. She can ride and fly and shoot and kill. But there is one thing, women do, that men can never do. They can never bear children. That is the one thing women have on us; that is the one thing, where they are more than we and not less. But outside of this merely biological fact, neither one has anything on the other. Therefore, the time has come when the woman will assert her self as the comrade of the man. Fully knowing that she is his equal, she will be willing to live with him only on a share and share, give and take basis. The invasion of the bars by women is only a symptom of the general trend that is asserting itself in the female part of humanity. She will want to work as the men do, enjoy herself as they do, have her own money and spend it according to her own ideas. Women smoke, and drink, they read J newspapers and want to go out... just like the men do . . . and all this is not a sign of the approaching end of the world, nor the sign of the end of the family life and definitely- not a sign of female degradation ... it is simply the self assertion of the awakened I woman. Don’t worry, they will not be come worse mothers, just as fathers are not bad fathers because they are not always at home. The men will have to give up some of their prerogatives and give the women more. The men will have to move a bit down and the women up. The men will have to take the women into their lives and they will also have to partake in the special toils that up to now have been considered as belonging exclusively into the domain of female existence. The transition will not come forth smoothly. Quite a number of marriages will break up due to the self-asserting urge of the modern woman. The fault will not lie with the women who in their self-righteous indignation, will refuse to relinquish their imaginary though traditional right to use the position of the women as an inflator of their own, unasserted ego. But after the transition, not only the women will be better off, but their men too. They will find in their women more than just a child-bearing house-keper: women will give them intelligent friendship and able comradeship, and in these gifts men will find ample compensation for the in significant loss of their imaginary superiority. All this has also a lesson for our fraternal life. Especially among the older people, fraternal life has been run by men. Just now, as a sign of times, women have began to assert themselves in fraternal life also. Our last Convenion had the pleasure of entertaining some very able woman delegates. Two of them were immediately elected, out of a mere handful, to serve in important capacity. Truly a welcome sign of changing times. In many branches the. men seem to be tired of their branchoffices. Some branches elected women who do admirable work. Others hesitate to tap on the rich resources of their female membership, and prefer to drag along without real leadership. It is time that in such branches leaders be elected from among those few willing to serve. If no man is willing to do honest to goodness work, they will find a born leader among their women. The sooner we let our women share in our work, the better for our Association. The time has arrived in which the distinction between “mans work” and “woman’s job” has become extinct. Give the girls a chance, give them the training, give them the assistance and understanding that men always had, and they will do a “man’s job!” And we, the men, will be better off, for we will have more satisfied women. iiwiiiMHiiiimaiiH WHERE THE FUEL GOES It takes 12,500 gallons of gasq Une to train one pilot. April 27, 1944 Fraternal Week The period of May 8—13, 1944 has been officially designated as FRATERNAL week by Mrs. Grace W. McCurdy, President, and the Executive Committee of the National Fraternal Congress of America. The “Fraternal Week” has been widely observed last year throughout the country and it is expected that this year even more societies and lodges will participate. Most of our branches will have their regular monthly meeting during the Fraternal ’ Week. Observance of Fraternal Week should be part of the order of the day. We, the members of the greatest American-Hungarian Fraternal organization have every reason to join the celebration since we are the recipients of all of the benefits that fraternalism has to offer. There are 100,000 fraternal lodges in the United States and Canada, representing 102 Societies six million members, and 26 different nationalities. If America has been termed the melting pot of the world, then the Fraternal Societies may well be called the melting pot of AMERICA. Fraternalism has always been more than just a life-insurance plan, even though is started out issuing insurance certificates to people for whom no insurance was available because of occupation and many other reasons. In addition to making the benefits of life-insurance available to the millions of immigrants and their descendents, fraternal organizations have consistently engaged in social welfare work on a vast scale. They have cared for their aged and orphans, have hospitalized their sick, and have voluntarily joined every worthwhile charitable enterprise. In times of war fraternal organizations made outstanding contributions on the Home Front. The Verhovay F. I. Association has always lived up to the traditions of fraternalism. In the present war it has given 5,000 soldiers to the battlefronts — 38 of whom already have made the supreme sacrifice — and we may well say that the rest of the membership is, without exception, engaged on the Home Front. War Bond drives, Red Cross drives and all the other patriotic drives have been supported by our organization to the limit. Whatever part of war-torn Europe the members of our association may have come from, to day they are all Americans. And the 50,000 members of the Verhovay, ever since Pearl Harbor, have accepted and followed the slogan, which has been adopted for this year’s Fraternal Week: “WORKING FOR VICTORY — BUILDING FOR PEACE.”-------------v—---------NOTICE! Milwaukee, Wise. Branch 475 Branch 475, Milwaukee, Wisconsin will hold their next meeting on Wednesday, May 10th. All members and «bowlers are expected to attend this meeting in order to bring the attendance up to 100%; which is necessary to make our meeting a sucess. Fraternally, REPORTER, Branch 475
