The Pittsburgh Press (April 28, 1943)
Ferguson: What women think
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
“What are women thinking these days?” is the hard question put by a man who believes that women must think straight if the world is to be saved from financial, physical and mental bankruptcy.
It would be wonderful, if we knew the right answer. Some women, it must be admitted, are not thinking at all. Others are occupied only with “having more fun” or “making more money.” Yet there remain a great many who are trying to get their thoughts in order – trying to find sense in the vast nonsense of war; trying to discover how good can come out of evil.
And the more the women think, the more clearly they realize that man’s concepts of progress are wrong. Somehow, he must be made to see that feminine attitudes are as useful and as right as his own.
Literally, the world falls about our ears. We know a new one cannot be built upon the rotten foundations of the old. So, if we want a decent society in the future, we shall be forced to take a hand in its making. That is the plainest fact before us.
Certainly, no woman capable of thought believes that men are ever again to be trusted alone to manage that new world. They are too much like little boys still, always building blockhouses for the pleasure of kicking them down afterward. Over and over and over, this has been their way; the way of those who, while celebrating motherhood in song and story, created societies in which mothers are the least rewarded and the least honored of people; the way of those who talk of peace and prepare for war.
Today, women are thinking about all these things. So far, men have failed utterly to make a world fit for children to live in. It is now time for them to listen to the advice of wise women: Progress is not possible unless spiritual possessions are prized above material gains.
