The Pittsburgh Press (February 18, 1944)
Ferguson: Gallico and women
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Paul Gallico, the author, is now on tour delivering a lecture entitled “Women and How to Improve Them.”
At first glance, you would say his subject is timely and the material available should be extensive. But unfortunately, in an effort to be funny, he doesn’t talk about women at all; he talks about fashion plates. Railing against nail polish, lipstick, permanents, mascara and the silly habits originating with clothing models and movie stars, Mr. Gallico deals entirely with the husk of women – never with their real selves.
That, I think, is a pity, because so much needs to be said about feminine faults of the intellect, heart and spirit. The American woman could do with some stiff lectures on her shortcomings. But they have nothing to do with the color of lipstick or nail polish.
Mr. Gallico might have said that women are shallow and vapid, content with a veneer of good manners and too much given to emotional tangents; that we lack imagination and kindness, and are restricted to a conformity of thought deadly to the growth of character.
He could have shouted that we are cowards, because we are so easily swayed from our moral convictions; that we are stupid because having within our hands tremendous power – numerical strength, leadership in the buying field, industrial influence – we still let men do our thinking for us.
He might have flayed our weakness of spirit which has led us to accept with too little protest, the present world, constructed from the political and diplomatic blunders of men.
Gazing out over that world, one wonders where a representative of Mr. Gallico’s sex gathers the temerity to criticize the women his social order has created.
