the way they have been fooled and

dominated and exploited all these years.

　



Harry: So you want to take all these nice contented women and make them

discontent and rebellious?

Sheila: Right.

Harry: I see. Well, I don't accept that the present system is the result of

conditioning or brain washing at all. It's the natural biological

function of a woman first to bring children into the world and then to

bring them up. That is how the animals do it. In the Stone Age, when we

were cavemen, the women stayed at home in the cave and the men, being

stronger and braver, went out to hunt.Now the men go out.and earn money

instead.The Women's Lib movement denies woman her natural function.I'm

not saying that wotnan's function is necessarily inferior; but I am

saying that it's.not the same.

　

Sheila: So if something happened in the Stone Age it was "natural" and so it

would be perfectly right and proper and "natural" to go and do it now.

I suppose if a man thinks he wants a woman all he has to do is go out

and knock one on the head with his club and drag her home by the hair.

Or maybe swop her with his pal for a couple of tiger-skins?

Harry: Don't be silly. We've grown out of that sort of barbarity .

Sheila: I should jolly well hope so too. Anyway all this Stone Age stuff is a

myth made up by men. For all we know, Stone Age women were the top

dogs.

Harry: All right, let's drop the Stone Age. Let's come down to the modern

British family. I suppose you want to abolish it?

　



Sheila: No, but I want to reorganize it; I believe that the housework and the

bringing up of the children should be shared equally.

Harry: How? The husband should wash up, presumably.

Sheila: Of course.

Harry: Well, I do that at my house; and I fill up the stove and mow the lawn and

dig the garden.

Sheila: Naturally. Those are men's jobs, anyway.

Harry: Oh! I didn't think you.believed in men's jobs' and women's jobs' Anyway I

do quite a lot of the shopping.

Sheila: Fancy that!

Harry: And in my time I've bathed a few babies.

Sheila: And changed nappies?

Harry: Both changed them and washed them.

Sheila: Well, all I can say is you must be pretty unusual. My husband's

never touched a nappy in his life.

　
Harry: I wouldn't say it was all that unusual. There are plenty of men in England

who do the same as I do. Maybe that's why our wives are so satisfied. Now

suppose we all did the same and there were enough nursery schools and so

on and all the women who wanted to work could do so, what would you

say to that?

Sheila: Well...

Harry: Now suppose I was to stay at home and do all the housework and look after

the children while my wife went out to work. What would you think about

that?

　


Sheila: I'd approve of it.

Harry: And you'd be willing for her to do any job at all?

Sheila: Anything she was strong enough to do.

Harry: Good. Now some time last century a law was passed making it illegal

for women to work down the coalmines. You would like that law abolished?

Sheila: Certainly.

Harry: I hope you won't want men to open doors for you and give up their seats in

the bus for you.

Sheila: Of course not, as long as I'm fit.

Harry: In fact, in return for equality you would give up all these special

allowances formerly made for the so-called weaker sex?

Sheila: If I'm going to be logical, yes.

Harry: Well, if women are going to be logical, that will be progress.

　

2. Women's Education Should Be Urged

Recently, a woman in a factory in Beijing was notified that she was being laid off as part of the "optimization" work force reductions in State enterprises. To escape humiliation at the hands of her husband and mother-in-law, she tried to kill herself by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills.

After she was rescued, her mother took her to the factory director, demanding that her daughter be re-employed. Otherwise, she said, the director would be responsible for any accident tbat happened to her daughter. In the end, the director agreed to grant the woman a leave of absence at full pay plus bonus.

This is only one example of the problem for which traditional theorists of women's studies and supporters of women's liberation in China apparently have no ready solution. But some feminist researchers recently urged that a new approach be adopted to help women gain a fresh foothold in the struggle to improve their lives.

Traditionally, paid employment has been seen as the only passage towards women's liberatio

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