Selected Lead Articles from The Dawn | Page 8

venom in return. No, it is not the treatment of the
sour-tempered militant female (if such there be) which excites our
indignation; the reservoirs of our wrath and contempt only overflow
when we see some little woman, too timid to complain, wincing under
an unprovoked discourtesy. Financial offices and institutions are
particular purgatories for women; government offices are by no means

clear of the taint; some few shops need an expurgation, and into most
city offices employing subordinates women enter doubting how heavily
their sensibilities will be trodden upon. The worst offenders can
probably be picked from that large body of officials who are paid by
the public; these repay, in return for their salaries, a good deal of rough
manners, indeed there are some who have a low notoriety among the
public whom they bully; they rank as chiefs in the hierarchy of bad
manners; and men also suffer from the infliction, though not so
severely as do the women. Before describing the methods of procedure,
we must admit that beautiful women have no ground for complaint;
beauty carries a free pass, entitling the holder to the kindest
consideration of all strangers, and great as are the dangers and penalties
of loveliness, it has this prerogative at least, it may call the nearest
adult male to be its willing servant. Even the boor therefore relaxes in
the presence of beauty, but in the average woman he finds a submissive
and defenceless prey. The boor is sometimes in high station; if so, he
exercises his sovereign right to be a churl in this way;--as the victim
enters his official lair he casts on her a momentary and indifferent
glance, then instantly resumes his work. Possibly a thousandth part of
his glance towards her falls on a chair, and she understands she is to sit
there; she finds her way there at any rate, and sits down waiting till he
deigns to break the silence. When she has waited long enough to be
thoroughly miserable, he says "Well?" in a begrudged interrogative
tone, and recommences his writing, or at the best listens indifferently
with his eyes on a book or paper before him. Should the worm turn
under his treatment and develop powers of remonstrance, or should the
subject of her story show her to be in some form influential, or
powerful, or unexpectedly strong in arguments or resources, she may
have the wounds of her spirit healed by the most unctuous affability but
to be considerate to all human creatures alike is not natural to him, and
that affability, no doubt has its subsequent reaction. The boor of the
office-counter considers it a nuisance to have to do business with
women at all. He issues to women his abrupt instructions to do this,
sign that, fill up the other, and readily grows impatient, irritable and
cynical if they seek clearer enlightenment or further directions. He has
no courtesy naturally and he is not paid to include it among his
acquired accomplishments. It is not inappropriate to mention in

connection with this topic that it is a general masculine opinion that the
inability to understand business is a natural characteristic of a woman's
mind. The number of women successfully managing or working in
businesses in other countries should be enough to disprove this, but in
the cases of unbusiness-like women whom we are considering, the
incapacity to comprehend business routine at a glance is inevitable.
There is nothing in any part of most women's lives or training to teach
the least idea of office methods or formulae, and it is only natural to
blunder at the first contact with petty regulations of which the necessity
and object are not distinctly apparent. Would the masculine intellect
prove less clumsy at its first introduction to duties for which men have
not, but women have, received special training? Returning to the boor,
we must record that when found in a shop or warehouse the individual
specimen generally shows the characteristic of the species by
intentional neglect rather than open insult. Sometimes discourtesy may
take a grosser form, but generally the science of the game is to estimate
how much the prey will endure, and to let her stand or sit expectantly to
the furthest limit of her patience. The victim rarely complains, since it
needs not a little courage to search for, and make report to, the proper
official; besides the inventive unveracity of the boor may produce such
a plausible tale as to achieve, even in the presence of his employer, a
second triumph over his victim. These slight and hastily sketched
instances of modern chivalry will remind hundreds of our readers of
inflictions personally suffered; the details of each case may vary, but
the generalisation remains true. Whether the boor class is caused by