Women's Rights

Thirty-two of Britain's leading ladies marched last week into Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden's office to demand equality with men in Britain's Diplomatic Service (now for men only). They gushed scorn on every common objection from "marriage would interfere" to the notion that an Oriental potentate might take a peculiar view of a lady ambassador.

Secretary Eden, a model diplomat, said nothing with great graciousness. More forthright, after the meeting, was Virginia-born Viscountess Astor, a stampeding emancipatrix if not yet a diplomat. She snorted: "You can't convince a diplomat. We women made an unanswerable case. A woman is far more skillful than a man at wangling another man around, and that is what you want in a diplomat."

Next day many of the same ladies appeared in Trafalgar Square for a more down-to-earth cause. Under the slogan BOMBS SHOW NO SEX BIAS they called on the Government to make compensation rates for war-injured civilians equal for men and women (instead of averaging 28 shillings per week for women, 35 for men).

Said London County Council Member Monica Whateley: "It's assumed that every man, married or single, has dependents. It becomes almost an immoral point of view. . . ."

Dark, elegantly tweedy Pianist Harriet Cohen laid aside an ocelot muff, spread her beautiful hands before the microphone. "During the blitz," she asked, "what would we all have done without the hands of women doctors, nurses, masseuses, A.R.P. workers?"

Cried a Miss Henderson: "If men were really chivalrous and gallant they would be holding this demonstration for us!"

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