Mgr. Jackman Attacked for

His Views on Women Doctors
PAMELA HINKSON IS LATEST ANTAGONIST
" WOMEN DO NOT LIKE FEMALE DOCTORS-THEY ARE HARD "-words spoken by Mgr. Canon A. Jackman, of Holy Rood, Watford, in an interview published in the " Catholic Herald" (December 2) raised a storm of protest.
A • letter was published (December 9) pointing out that. women doctors are not hard.
Mgr. Jackman apologised (December 16) but the hurt had been inflicted and further letters were published in sueceeding issues.
Latest of Mgr. Jackman's antagonists is Pamela Hinkson, daughter of the famous Katherine Tynan.
" AMAZING WORDS . . . NO DENIAL"
By PAMELA H1NKSON
Mgr. Canon Jackman, in the course of an interview, is reported as having made the following statements: 1. " . . women do not like female doctors. They are hard."
2. "Best leave all those (jobs) possible to men and let the mistresses who are not nuns get on with having boy babies and preparing them for the male teacher."
There has been no denial of these amazing words attributed to Mgr. Jackman, and so I must conclude that, Incredible as it appears, they were actually used by him.
Taking them in order, the first one first, I would ask Mgr. Jackman on what grounds, with what proof, and above all, with what purpose, he has made this strange and all-embracing statement about a large and noble body of workers. Not even " some of them are hard," but simply, " They are hard "! I have rarely read or heard a more sweeping statement, or one that, if reported correctly, appears to have been made with less thought.
No Need For Defence
I do not write to defend women doctors. I should feel, if I were to set out to do so, somewhat as I might feel if I were to start to defend a man who had fought in the war from a charge of cowardice. I only pay my grateful tribute to them.
I have had personal experience (as a patient) of several women doctors. I found them, without exception, kinder and more imaginative, more sympathetic, and quicker and more concerned to relieve suffering than any other body of people I have met.
I have had experience of them also in connection with the alleviation of suffering among the poor, and I have found their generosity and charity boundless, and their softness all that God intended it. to be when He directed women into this most noble and womanly profession.
Why, if nursing does not make women hard, should the even more skilled branch of the same profession be supposed to have this strange effect? Or would Mgr. Jackman close the nursing profession also to women?
An Awful Thought
Until I read Mgr. Jackman's statements, I did not think of them apart, but in the natural and helpful co-operation of men and women in a work of mercy, which is the scheme of God's creation.
But after reading Canon Jackman's words I began to consider for the first time one against the other-which fact proves the terribly serious possible consequences of such speeches, when made by someone in high authority, Nothing could be more disastrous at any time, but particularly at this period of the world's history, than any movement or attempt to stir one, of sex-antagonism.
Considering this question of " hardness," as between the sexes-a thing I had not thought of until Mgr. Jackman set me to thinking of it-I discovered that I had been told, although rarely, of hardness in a male doctor-once, lately, in connection with child-birth and a slowneas to relieve the agony of a difficult case by an amesthetic. In this case it was the nurse who declared at last that the suffering could not be allowed to continue. She had stayed in the room with it, while the doctor, who knew comfortably that all would be well in the end, waited downstairs until he was actually needed.
Thus, in this department and there is none more important-I think women doctors are usually more merciful because they know, whereas nearly all men shelter, or try to, behind the comforting but, alas, utterly untrue theory that women's natural sufferings are painless, because they are natural.
What About Hard Priests?
Finally, as to " hardness," Mgr. Jackman knows better than I do that there have been hard clerics since the Church was established, and that there are clerics to-day who are hard. As there are others, whose mercy and charity and all-embracing wisdom and kindness and understanding are a proof of the grace of God.
It would be as reasonable for members of the laity to say (following Mgr. Jackman, if he has met one hard woman doctor): "We do not like priests; they are hard," because they have found some of them so.
As there are particular branches of medicine for which men are especially suitable, so there are others for which women are naturally suitable, particularly, I think, in attending children and young girls.
I have known a young girl of the poorer classes to suffer torture in her first experience of hospital, when she was examined in the presence of a number of medical students, regarding her as case. This first shock to her modesty would, of course, have been spared her if the students had been of her own sex.
However, human nature being, thank God, natural as He made it, the natural and masculine male doctor will be stirred to particular kindness and tenderness for a woman patient, just as a woman nursing a man will have other natural instincts, besides the maternal one, stirred. But my experience of wonderful nurses has been that they are equally good to their men and women patients.
Man-made Hardness
I have lately returned from the East, where I found, in some places, a manmade world and law for women as hard as anything under the sun. So hard that, studying the results of child marriage in parts of India, one wonders, inevitably, where the pity of God is for these girl children. But the Hand of God on earth must be a human hand, we are told, and that Hand in this case Is the hand of the woman doctor, British arid Indian, who alone can relieve this agony.
And, alas, the hand is there, in only one case out of many thousands where it is needed. I did not find the women doctors, who were doing such heroic work, hard, or the men doctors either, who were helping them wherever possible.
Men have ruled since the world began, and it is men who are responsible for all this particular suffering of women and children. Yet I would not make the statement that men were hard. I know too many who are not and are as troubled and busy as any woman over these terrible wrongs. But I know that many others must have closed their eyes and ears tight, or these things could not go on.
Missionary Nuns
A new Order of medical missionary nuns are about to start their work of mercy in the East. Would Mgr. Jackman be responsible for delaying the arrival, by one minute, of one or more of the women doctors who are the only possible mercy to the married girl children of India?
I would like Mgr. Jackman to read the Joshi Report on Child Marriage and see if he considers the women doctors, who gave evidence before that, hard, and if the masculine rule that is responsible for the horror, and that which permits it, is soft. Will not Mgr. Jackman use his pen, his voice, his power, against the cruelties and injustice of the world, the oppression of the poor and helpless, the conditions in which workers still exist in England, especially women workers, who are obliged to earn their living, and sometimes that of their children also, the wages that some of these are paid, with the possible terrible results of that unliving wage?
Will he not strike at these things, instead of using his great power to attack, and perhaps discourage, the body of all others that may help to Improve these matters, the noblest profession that women could adopt, following and using their natural and Godgiven gifts to heal and mother?
Is It Herr Hitler ?
The second paragraph I quote at the beginning of this article is even more
astonishing. If it were attributea to , anyone of less importance than Mgr. Jackman one would not read it again or think of answering it. Is it Herr Hitler speaking? Or ie it a high dignitary of the Church which has upheld the dignity and noble position of women through the ages, has made marriage not only a great Sacrament, but the most beautiful relationship of human love, which is part of its fount, the Divine Love?
The perfect sanctified union of a man and woman and two souls. "The mistresses who are not nuns get on with having boy babies and preparing them for the male teacher." I find it hard to believe that this speech has been accurately reported. But there has been no correction or denial, and so it stands. One expects, naturally, from Mgr. Jackman's office and position the clearest example to laymen and women in courtesy.
The medical missionaries I have referred to earlier go to their great work under the patronage of a woman who would not have been born if Mgr. Jackman had given orders and been obeyed in Nazareth nearly nineteen hundred years ago.
By what authority does he tell women to have boy babies? These are holy mysteries to be treated as such, and I cannot, in answer to such a speech, speak of the tender and beloved girl children that many women and men ask God for, and thank Him for, with every reason, all their lives that are blessed by the precious possession of a daughter.
I think of the Women by the Cross, who were there when His disciples, all leaving Him, fled away. Of Joan of Arc, who went neither into a convent or to have boy babies. Of Florence Nightingale and the many unfamed Florence Nightingales we all know in our own circle, No doubt, there are several such, serving God and the world, in that body of school mistresses which Mgr. Jackman so addressed. We are not living in the East, nor in the dark ages, but I have to remind myself of that fact after reading Mgr. Jackman's statement again.
I meant to answer this second statement more fully. But I find myself suddenly quite unable to speak of some most sacred things of Life in connection with such a sentence. They refuse to be associated with Mgr. Jackman's insult to women, which must therefore remain unanswered. I would ask him to re-read this speech and see if he is content that. it should stand in his name, and perhaps be read and quoted by nonCatholics as representing the Church of which he is a high dignitary.