The Pittsburgh Press (February 24, 1944)
Ferguson: Women in uniform
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Our women are reluctant to join the Armed Forces, says Mrs. Roosevelt, because the men in uniform want them to be home when they get back. Funny we didn’t think of it before.
Of course, there’s lots of talk about the way Russian, English and Chinese men have made fighting regulars of their women. But our men aren’t like Russians, or British or Chinese – nor have they seen their homes bombed. And while they have sometimes been unkind and unfair toward their mothers and wives, they were reared in the tradition that man’s duty is to protect his own. As they see it, the soldiers are off to fight this war because they think their families are in danger.
All of which proves once again that men set up standards and women conform to them. It is certainly not true that women shape the morals of a nation, as the preachers so often say. Even today we try to adapt ourselves to the masculine dream. So it has always been – so will it ever be. Men create women even more truly than women create men.
Caesar desired a wife above suspicion, you remember, and forthwith the noble Roman matron stepped into the pages of history. Dante visioned Beatrice as chaste and unapproachable, so chaste and unapproachable maidens became the rage in the Middle Ages.
Yet throughout the centuries, the mother type has stood supreme and unchanging. Because all men want mothering. Mothers always forgive and always love them. And home is mother’s hangout.
Our feminine recruiting troubles go straight back to this sweet and human quirk, so let’s not be sad about it.