The Selected Works of Arnold Bennett: Essays, Personal Development Books & Articles. Arnold Bennett

      Chapter X

       "Woman's Sphere" in Journalism

       Table of Contents

      There are certain departments of journalism which women have always had, and probably will always have, to themselves: I mean the departments comprising fashion, cookery and domestic economy, furniture, the toilet, and (less exclusively) weddings and what is called society news. It is unlikely that men will ever seriously compete with women in the business of supplying the stuff which women as a sex are supposed to read. My own belief is that men could deal very capably with these subjects, or most of them, if they chose to assume the task; but there happens to be a superstition that such matters are beyond a man's scope; men accept the superstition, and leave them alone. Hence the distinctive "woman's sphere" in journalism.

      Now almost all the work falling within this sphere is done badly--with a lack of technical skill which can only be described as shameful. I have argued (in Chapter II.) that the defect is attributable to the early training which women receive. A further explanation lies in the fact that, in their particular field, they are never stimulated to improvement by the sight of better performances than their own; the result, viewed dispassionately, is deplorable.

      In the first place, nearly all women's work dealing with feminine subjects is in a special degree disfigured by slipshod writing. This is particularly true of fashion articles, which are on the whole worse written even than police reports in country newspapers. Of the scores of fashion articles appearing week by week in journals of standing, not five per cent. would pass muster as the work of men. I take up, for an example, one of the "great London dailies," containing a short signed contribution by a journalist whose fame as a chronicler of modes is unrivalled, a lady who earns the wage of a Cabinet Minister, and has indeed arrived at the highest places in her profession; and I find in the article the following--shall I call them?--lapses from the rectitude of sound writing.

      Hackneyed phrases and quotations:--

      "Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."

      "Inclines towards the portly."

      "De rigueur."

      "Hold on our affections."

      "Ignore the charms of."

      Strange word:--

      "Becomingness."

      Bad punctuation:--

      "So that such a jacket be cut well and worn by a woman of fairly slim proportions round the waist and hips it will be exceedingly successful, but she who inclines towards the portly should rigidly ignore the charms of the jacket with the belt." Unless this sentence has a comma after "well," it bears a meaning quite different from what the writer intended; it needs also a comma after "hips" and a semicolon after "successful."

      Words wrongly used:--

      "It is one of the earnest principles of my faith to commend fashion." A principle cannot be earnest, and faith cannot be an action. The writer probably means that she sincerely thinks it her duty to commend fashion.

      "There are only two hats well worn in Paris just now--this style and the small velvet toque trimmed with a group of plumes." For "well," read "largely" or "extensively." Note the other fault in this sentence.

      Wrong or clumsy constructions, laxity in the use of metaphors, &c.:--

      "[We may] read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest their different charms." Fancy reading or learning or digesting a charm!

      "I have no objection to the lion lying down with the lamb--the Persian lamb--or rather, I should say, to the sable being allied to this fur, or to the combination of black caracule, or sable with ermine; any two furs, or indeed three furs, put together, I recognise as appropriate and elegant, but the frivolous working of furs with coloured satins and silks now obtaining the affections of the many is not at all to my taste." To comment on this piece of composition would be wicked.

      "There is a great fancy shown by the authorities this year to elaborate furs." In English one says "take a fancy to" but "show a fancy for."

      "It is small wonder that the fashion has obtained such a hold on our affections, because it is so becoming if it is not overdone."

      "A single row of white pearls next the fair or even dark throat of a woman has always a beneficial effect upon her complexion." Has a woman then two throats?

      "And talking about a beneficial effect upon a woman's complexion, let me mention once again the exceeding becomingness of the new shades of blue, these being rather of the sugar-paper order of blue, but a little lighter in colour perhaps, yet having that vivid tone about it. This is freely mixed with dark blue, the lighter shade being used for making trimmings to bodices, or indeed to make an entire bodice, while the dark cloth forms the skirt and coat. The hat which completes it will take every shade of blue." Observe particularly the two "its" and the "this," neither of which refers properly to any substantive.

      So much for the craftsmanship of one of our most celebrated women-journalists! When such a person, writing over her own name in the columns of a renowned and powerful paper, may thus brazenly ignore the elementary principles of composition, it may be guessed what latitude of carelessness and error is allowed to obscurer performers in obscurer sheets.

      * * *

      It is not only in the apparently trivial but really important details of style that women's work falls short, but in qualities even more vital. Fashion, to refer again to that branch of journalism, is a complicated and difficult subject, requiring for its adequate treatment the utmost orderliness and lucidity. Yet fashion articles are seldom arranged with any skill, and seldom lucid. The subject is usually handled after a haphazard method resulting in misty paragraphs of which often not even the writers could explain the meaning. It is said that men cannot understand fashion articles. Certainly they cannot, but the fault is not theirs. Over and over again I have heard expert fashion-journalists confess that they had failed to comprehend the writings of their colleagues. If articles on dress were properly done, men could understand, though they might not be interested in them.

      Fashion gives the widest scope for the journalist's art. The constant change, the bewildering variety of it, offer opportunities for descriptive and critical work which, if they were seized, might result in articles as interesting, as accomplished, as distinguished, as any in the literary reviews. But these opportunities are uniformly missed.

      Cookery, that is to say practical cookery, gives fewer opportunities than fashion for the display of merely literary skill. It is a subject which demands from the journalist clearness and thoroughness. The average cookery article may be passably clear so far as it goes, but it is rarely thorough, and so it fails in usefulness. Writers upon cookery in women's papers have been content, without thinking upon what is really wanted, to follow the methods of cookery books, ignoring the truism that cookery books, by reason of their omissions and silences, are valuable only to efficient cooks, who stand in no deep need of them. It is to the inexperienced cook that cookery articles are designed to appeal, and therefore they should be exhaustive, describing processes exactly, measuring quantities with precision, taking nothing for granted, leaving nothing to the imagination. That cookery articles, even if read, are certainly not acted upon, is proved by the monotony of the suburban dinner. And they are not acted upon because the reader finds them incomplete, "sketchy," and superficial.

      It would be possible to take all the