Radio Times/1926/01/01/What Women Listeners Gain

by Florence, Lady Alexander

What Women Listeners Gain.

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By Lady Alexander.

Lady Alexander

[Lady Alexander is the widow of Sir George Alexander, the celebrated actor. In this thoughtful article she discusses the influence of broadcasting upon woman's position and progress.]

 

When a friend of mine, who lives in Yorkshire, came up to London a few weeks ago, I noticed that she was wearing the latest creation in hats. That particular design, I believe, had scarcely appeared in the leading London shops. We two are in that happy, or unhappy, position which friends attain of being intimate enough to comment upon such personal matters without being considered thoroughly rude. I could not forbear mentioning the hat. It fascinated me.

"Oh" she replied, in a falsely superior tone, "you mustn't think that because I'm tucked away in the backwoods, I'm behind the times. I heard about this kind of hat over the wireless." What she confided to me about the effect of broadcasting upon her quiet life in the country set me thinking. *⁠*⁠*⁠* Few women listeners to whom I have spoken seem to realise how specially they are catered for by radio. Most items ostensibly arranged for men, such as motoring, racing, and golfing talks, are equally interesting to women. Men have no special preserve in the ether. We women have. *⁠*⁠*⁠* If you have learned how to tune your set when your men folk are away, you can listen, nearly every day during the women's hour, to something about household management, house decoration, glimpses at the shop windows, or to other interesting feminine topics. The readings from good books, too, which have been broadcast frequently during our special hour are immensely interesting and, I fancy, have renewed in many women a preference for serious literature in place of trashy novels.

A woman told me recently that she had decided to winter abroad this year in a certain locality—which she had not done since the war—merely because her interest in the place was fired by a wireless talk. And I know dozens of women who listen every night to the Children's Hour. Those radio uncles and aunts can give hints to many parents who find it difficult to amuse their children. *⁠*⁠*⁠* But these obvious advantages of broadcasting to women are not the only ones, not the most important. There is a deeper significance in the subject, for I perceive a hidden yet vital change in the outlook of the women of this country which, slowly and unobtrusively, is being brought about by radio. Some years ago the majority of women were educated to live at home and, as soon as they married, had to settle down to a daily round of duties and ceremonies which seldom suffered much variation.

Monotony—soul-searing monotony—is the bugbear of many a woman's life to-day. Ever these same four walls! These eternal meals! Small wonder that the mental horizon of many thoroughly capable women is so limited. This awful sameness of day following day saps the strongest vitality. It dwarfs the vision. It shatters a woman's ideals. More, it quenches the dreams of her youth. And will you contradict me if I suggest that all the promise of a woman's future lies bidden, like a rosebud unfolded, in the dreaming of her girlhood? *⁠*⁠*⁠* It seems to me that the difference between a woman's misery and happiness is often just that difference between weakness and strength. The strong are those who have treasured the dreams and ideals of their younger days, yearning always to raise their lives to them, not lowering them to life. This spirit of aspiration and faith in ideals amongst women folk makes society sound, pure, and progressive. Its absence makes it corrupt. With women lies the task of fixing social standards as they should be. And if we fail in this duty, as the women of Egypt, Greece, and Rome failed, the result will not bear thinking about. *⁠*⁠*⁠* Unfortunately, modem conditions of life for women do not always foster the growth and expression of these ideals. But radio is acting as a powerful remedy. To listen to some of the women who have broadcast is to forget immediate limitations. You feel their personal touch. And when you take off the headphones, you know that you have absorbed something of their strength. Unconsciously, when you face your own little difficulties, you try to act as you think they would act in the same circumstances. In this way, broadcasting triumphs over the printed word, for it seems, as you sit listening, that what is spoken into the transmitting microphone is a message sent specially to you. The millions of other hearers are forgotten. The voice just whispers to you. It is a little tête-a-tête in the company of the great. *⁠*⁠*⁠* We have hardly yet attained that valuable community of thought which men have long enjoyed. Men move about, go up to town, gossip in their clubs. As a result, there is a helpful and enlivening interchange of ideas amongst them. How different Is the position of the thousands of women who, except for the blessing of a next-door neighbour and a few tradespeople, spend the best part of their days with nothing but their thoughts as company! But with a wireless set you can catch the interesting ideas of progressive women and immediately make them your own. You can go visiting, so to speak, without leaving your home. *⁠*⁠*⁠* Women have always been the chief inspirational force in the world. Men are the workers-out. The world still stands in sore need of women who have developed this power of inspiration, and such women, I am convinced, do not represent competition nor conflict with men. Wireless is a wonderful force that is helping to create in many women of to-day this queenly power. It is extending their vision, widening their sympathies, re-discovering those ideals lost sight of in the bustle of modern life, and stimulating interest in social problems. This is what women listeners gain. And the delightful thing about it is that whether you live in a surburban villa or away in the heathered Highlands does not matter. Radio is making the world grow smaller every day.