REGISTERED AT THE G.P.O. Vol. 9. No. 52. [ AS A NEWSPAPER ] MAY 14, 2020. Weekly Price 6d. FEMINISM DIVIDED .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... WINIFRED HOLTBY RETROSPECT—A Short Story .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... E. M. DELAFIELD NOTES ON THE WAY .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... LADY RHONDDA THE MARCH OF THE WOMEN .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ETHEL SMYTH CENTENARY ISSUE A souvenir edition of Time and Tide (1920–1979) to mark the centenary of its first issue, including original contributions by an interwar generation of women writers and journalists, and a Foreword by Polly Toynbee. [February 22, 1929] [February May 14, 2020 TIME AND TIDE ii Time and Tide—A Foreword By POLLY TOYNBEE. hundred years ago might seem an age away, and right-wing News of the World and the Sunday Express. yet here women’s writings leap fresh from these Lady Rhondda, though, in TIME AND TIDE, was Apages, their causes all too familiar today. magnificently excoriating of Lord Rothermere, founder Feminism gets remade for each generation, but core of the Daily Mail, Nazi supporting in the 1930s. questions barely change. Great victories are won, laws For all classes, motherhood is still career and pay are passed, women’s rights advance, and yet, and yet destiny. Fathers may help more in a semi-cultural shift, so many everyday fundamentals stay the same. but the numbers tell the story of who steps back when TIME AND TIDE launched in 1920 as the only weekly a child is born and who takes a part-time job below their review magazine owned and edited by a woman, Lady qualifications to fit family life, damaging their future Rhondda. She sought out feminists, radical women prospects permanently. writers and journalists at a time when the first stage of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, reviewed in women’s su!rage had just been won — but only the right TIME AND TIDE in 1929, was no revelatory new subject, to vote for women over 30 ( and not all of them ). It felt the reviewer noted firmly, after decades of tirades from like a half-made revolution — and it still does. Even su!ragists. But Woolf’s brilliance was the eloquence of when women won the full franchise, that turned out to her feminism : “ How were these topics to be disguised be just another way-station on the long, long road. as kittens when they were so easy to spot at a glance as These articles are a fascinating continuing story of man-eating tigers bristling with the weapons of attack great feminist arguments through the interwar years and defence ? ” Feminism far overleaps Marxism as the among women writers of the calibre of Winifred Holtby, most revolutionary idea that ever set out to upend Rebecca West, Naomi Mitchison and Ellen Wilkinson, societies anywhere. It reaches into the heart and soul, with a literary distinction well beyond the polemics of uprooting deepest-held beliefs inculcated from a child’s the soap box. first breath on the nature of being a man or a woman. The magazine promoted the Six Point Group, Like every revolutionary movement, feminism was founded by Lady Rhondda, with its demands for widows’ always riven with splits ; look at the trans divisions now. pensions, equal parental rights to the guardianship of The moderate su!ragists, who more or less won the children, rights for unmarried mothers, and equal pay argument, were outraged by interloping militant bomb- for women teachers and women in the civil service. All throwing su!ragettes. I laughed at the familiarity of these were won, and yet time and again, winning in Winifred Holtby in 1926 taking up cudgels on behalf of parliament and winning in the law courts is only half Old feminists against New Feminists : the soft New said the battle. Look how single mothers remain much the the battle was won, women must stand up for men and largest group of the poor. Progress is slow, incremental boys too, and for mutual issues, such as Family and fought for every inch of the way. Allowances. Holtby’s Old fundamentalists held out for In the 1970s those of us who celebrated Barbara the full equality of “ a society in which men and women Castle’s Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act work together for the good of all mankind ; a society in thought that it was all done and dusted, an end to which there is no respect of persons, either male or women’s impoverishment and disadvantage. New laws female, but a supreme regard for the importance of the on women’s rights marked vital break-throughs — but human being. ” were never enough. There followed women ambassadors, The magazine’s writers concern themselves permanent secretaries and vice chancellors crashing fearlessly with menstruation as no barrier to women’s through glass ceilings : women could do anything, in e"ciency, to contraception, and beyond, to anti-racism theory. in South Africa and Alabama, the rise of the Nazis and But look at the statistics, and see how women are the plight of Jewish refugees. As TIME AND TIDE turned still clustered in the lowest paid sectors as cleaners, outwards to the world, it featured women writers’ carers, caterers and cashiers, low-paid because their work perspectives, sadly sometimes anonymised to prevent is undervalued, and undervalued because their work is too many women deterring male readers. It’s easy to traditionally done by women, in a depressing circularity forget that women political writers and reporters in the of women segregated in “ traditional ” servicing roles. mainstream press is a startlingly new phenomenon : How good to find TIME AND TIDE reporting meetings in there was just one woman parliamentary lobby cor - support of low-paid women, defending women council respondent when I started out in the early 1970s. workers whose pay was cut by 19 shillings in 1928 : “ The This centenary edition reflects TIME AND TIDE’s rich government auditors made a great mistake if they celebration of women, from its reprinting of composer thought that the incident of the Woolwich Municipal Dame Ethel Smyth’s “ March of the Women ” to its Bath and Lavatory Attendants was going to slip past the report on the triumph of Amy Johnson’s flight proving notice of the women electors. ” Feminism, then as now, “ the sex division between the male and the female is was never just for the ambitions of professional women. absurd. ” And yet here too is an advertisement for a But although feminists have tended to be on the left, gut-contorting corset, an inadvertent reminder of the cause was always fraught with contradictions : never everyday conventions outside these pages. Alas, those forget that the women’s vote guaranteed Conservative ads never paid enough : Lady Rhondda had ploughed governments until 1997, the first time a majority of much of her fortune into the paper by the time of her women voted Labour. Neither have all women death in 1958. But in an almost all-male world of political journalists been beacons of progressivism : the first journalism, for years she held open a bright space for women editors in the mainstream press were for the women writers. Vol. 9. MAY 14, 2020. No. 52. CONTENTS PAGE PAGE REVIEW OF THE WEEK ... ... ... ... ... 1 CORRESPONDENCE ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 16 LEADING ARTICLES : BOOKS : TIME AND TIDE ... ... ... ... ... ... 4 Politics and their Background, by Mary The Six Point Group ... ... ... ... ... 4 Agnes Hamilton ... ... ... ... ... 19 To the Victors—the Laurels ... ... ... 5 Rolled Logs, by N. G. Royde-Smith ... 19 THE WEEKLY CROWD, by Chimæra ... ... 7 The Importance of Art, by Sylvia Lynd 20 PERSONALITIES AND POWERS : Winifred Cullis 7 Five Hundred a Year and a Room of FEMINISM DIVIDED, by Winifred Holtby ... 8 One’s Own, by Theodora Bosanquet ... 22 THE REVOLT AGAINST INTERNATIONALISM— The Health of Women, by V. B. ... ... 22 GERMAN VARIETY, by Cicely Hamilton ... 9 MUSIC, by Christopher St. John ... ... ... 23 NOTES ON THE WAY, by Lady Rhondda ... ... 11 THE THEATRE ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 24 MISCELLANY : ART, by G. Raverat ... ... ... ... ... ... 25 Retrospect, by E. M. Delafield ... ... 13 FILM, by Hecate ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 26 The Millionaire’s Daughter Makes WESTMINSTER ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 27 Good, by Marghanita Laski ... ... ... 13 IN THE TIDEWAY ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 27 The Midsummer Apple Tree, by Naomi TIME TABLE ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 28 Mitchison ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 14 OUR MEN’S PAGE ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 29 The March of the Women, by Ethel SPORT, by Eustace E. White ... ... ... ... 30 Smyth ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 15 COMPETITION ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 31 REVIEW OF THE WEEK The Programme outlined in TIME AND The Six Equal The great Equal Political Rights TIDE for November 19th, which Point Group Political Demonstration was successful beyond included :— (1) Widows Pensions, Rights the hopes of its most en th usiastic pro- (2) Strengthening the law with regard to Child Assault, Demonstration moters. All the colours of the rain- (3) Equal guardianship of children for married parents, bow hung from the banners and (4) Better laws dealing with the position of the pennons of the long procession as it wended its way unmarried mother and her child, (5) Equal pay for from the Embankment to Hyde Park. The veterans teachers, (6) Equal opportunities for men and women were there, led by Mrs. Pankhurst, following an old pur- in the Civil Service, has now become the charter of ple, white and green banner of militant days. There “ The Six Point Group. ” This body, which was only were contingents of women of all professions, including inaugurated last week, has received a friendly welcome women journalists who walked in a procession as a pro- in the general Press, and has even within this short fessional group for the first time. America sent her con- space of time shown an extra ordinary capacity for tingent : the National Woman’s Party contributed a growth. It already numbers among its adherents the special section and walked next to the Six Point Group, representatives of a number of societies, whilst Miss beneath banners of purple, white and gold, and bearing Cicely Hamilton, Dr.