Judge — June 1937 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

GOD FORGIVE ME— The War of the Sexes BY A. D. ROTHMAN O THE pity of it! It is with the greatest of regret that I finally admit the existence of a war of the sexes. Having a genuinely ar- dent and grateful nature, the world will never know the pain and disappointment with which I make this admission. I am aware now that all my life I have been consciously fooling myself, wanting to believe something which was patently not, that men and women could strongly disagree on many important matters, could hold each others’ weaknesses in honest contempt, and withal be seeking the very highest possible good—a better understanding between them. But plain. ly that’s all impossible. It is and it always has been a war to the blood—nay, to the death. One of course should become aware of this lamentable state of affairs early in life, even if only from one’s reading. The Bible I now realize is full of instances of it, if one had the eyes to see them. Take the Book of Esther. Shorn of its gaudy nonsense about the glamor girl and her Svengali, Mordecai, what fe the story illustrate but the bitter hate of the sexes toward each other? Vasthi, the Queen, wouldn't come at the bidding of King Ahasueras to be shown off nude to all his princes—and at once every man jack around and about the King yelled for her head, because she set a very dan. gerous example for every other woman in Ahasueras’ broad domain (India to Ethiopia.) And when Esther succeeded as queen and became a power, what did Haman plot? The undoing of her power on a pretty grand scale, for he, too, was a creature of forces greater than himself —the animus between the sexes. ‘When one begins to live as well as read, only one as disingenuous as I am does not soon realize that the conflict between the sexes is too shockingly real, that the aim of each is clearly the exter- mination of the other. Why are so many of our income tax examiners women? Is it because they like to make men squirm and hurt them where it hurts most, in the pocketbook? Or is it man’s devilish wayiot making women do the meanest in our economic world? Why are only women the strip teasers in our bur- lesques? Mightn’t women get just as much thrill out of men as strip teasers? But the males just won't give women that pleasure.—Do you really need to be convinced of the existence of the war of the sexes? BE sure, being an incurable opti- mist, I must persist in the belief that fundamentally the problem is one of clarification. In all history, the bitterest conflicts and the most persistent ones might often have been resolved by some simple clarification of a trumpery differ- ence of opinion. Naturally, I'm not so light-hearted as to believe that the issue between the sexes can yet be retrieved for solution by simple means. Clarifica- tion yes, but things have been allowed to g0 too far to be set aright by some in- genious triviality—as might have proved more than adequate in the beginning. Above all, no more talk. I've learned to my woe that that only tightens the knot harder and makes tempers uglier all around. Action is required—clever, fool- proof, competent action. I have two pro. posals: At a given moment to be proclaimed by common consent everywhere on the globe, all men and women are to aban. lon all feelings, all attitudes and all ac- tions critical or derogatory of, or inimical to, each other as representatives of the opposite sexes. This, frankly, is an ex. hortation to love your neighbor. Some will interpret it as the most reprehensible scheme for the universal sufferance of fools ever offered. My second proposal is a trifle drastic, T'll admit, and I don't offer it with easy mind, God forgive me! But of those who would instantly label it the counsel of despair, I would merely ask, are they themselves then so full of hope, or is not the situation desperate?—So, I advocate, if the sexes cannot be reconciled, that they hold a suitably arranged and agreed upon drawing of straws, the sex draw- ing the shortest or losing straw, uni- versally, on a fixed date, everywhere to commit hari kari, The preponderant argument in favor of this step is merely © that it would obviate the waste and tor- ture of the conflict as it is at present be- ing waged between the sexes, extinction of one or other being certain in either case. ‘What, you don't like either of my pro- ing Is? Well, =P up. have you any erhaps you have... . er to offer? Judge comicbooks.com