Journalism for Women | Page 4

the exigencies of that
mysterious business is unimpeachable; somehow, admittance to the
shrine engenders a certain forgetfulness, Or perhaps it would be kinder
and truer to say that the influences of domesticity are too strong to be
lightly thrown off. For commercial or professional purposes these
influences, in many cases, could not well be worse than they are.
Regard, for a moment, the average household in the light of a business

organisation for lodging and feeding a group of individuals; contrast its
lapses, makeshifts, delays, irregularities, continual excuses, with the
awful precisions of a city office. Is it a matter for surprise that the
young woman who is accustomed gaily to remark, "Only five minutes
late this morning, father," or "I quite forgot to order the coals, dear,"
confident that a frown or a hard word will end the affair, should carry
into business (be it never so grave) the laxities so long permitted her in
the home?
I would not charge the professional woman, as I know her, with any
consistent lack of seriousness. On the contrary, she is in the main
exquisitely serious. No one will deny that the average girl, when she
adopts a profession, exhibits a seriousness, an energy, and a
perseverance, of which the average man is apparently incapable. (It is
strange that the less her aptitude, the more dogged her industry.) The
seriousness of some women in Fleet Street and at the Slade School
must be reckoned among the sights of London. It seems almost
impossible that this priceless intensity of purpose should co-exist in the
same individual with that annoying irresponsibility which I have
endeavoured to account for. Yet such is the fact. Scores of instances of
it might be furnished; let one, however, suffice. Once there was a
woman-journalist in the North of England who wrote to a London
paper for permission to act as its special correspondent during the visit
of some royal personages to her town. The editor of the paper, knowing
her for an industrious and conscientious worker and a good descriptive
writer, gave the necessary authority, with explicit information as to the
last moment for receiving copy. The moment came, but not the copy;
and the editor, for the time being a raging misogynist (for he had in the
meanwhile publicly announced his intention to print a special report),
went to press without it. The next day, no explanation having arrived,
he dispatched to his special correspondent a particularly scathing and
scornful letter. Then came the excuse. It was long, but the root of it
amounted to exactly this: "I was so knocked up and had such a
headache after the ceremonies were over, that I really did not feel equal
to the exertion of writing. _I thought it would not matter._" Comment
would be inartistic. The curious thing is that the special correspondent
was an editor's wife.

* * * * *
Secondly, inattention to detail. Though this shortcoming discloses itself
in many and various ways, it is to be observed chiefly in the matter of
literary style. Women enjoy a reputation for slipshod style. They have
earned it. A long and intimate familiarity with the manuscript of
hundreds of women writers, renowned and otherwise, has convinced
me that not ten per cent of them can be relied upon to satisfy even the
most ordinary tests in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. I do not
hesitate to say that if twenty of the most honoured and popular
women-writers were asked to sit for an examination in these simple
branches of learning, the general result (granted that a few might
emerge with credit) would not only startle themselves but would
provide innocent amusement for the rest of mankind. Of course I make
no reference here to the elegances and refinements of written language.
My charge is that not the mere rudiments are understood. Even a
lexicographer may nod, but it surely requires no intellectual power
surpassing the achievement of women to refrain from regularly
mis-spelling some of the commonest English words. The fact that there
are niceties of syntax which have proved too much for great literary
artists, does not make less culpable a wilful ignorance of the leading
grammatical rules; yet the average woman will not undergo the brief
drudgery of learning them. As for punctuation, though each man
probably employs his own private system, women are for the most part
content with one--the system of dispensing with a system.
These accusations, I am aware, have no novelty. They are time-worn.
They have been insisted upon again and again; but never sufficiently.
And now the accusing sub-editors and proof-readers seem to have
grown weary of protest. They suffer in silence, correcting as little as
they dare, while all around are appearing women's articles, which, had
their authors been men, would