100 years ago in Spokane: At women’s school commencement, professor warns against equal rights

From our archives, 100 years ago

Francis M. Thomson, the Washington State College chair of the mining and engineering department, delivered an eyebrow-raising (by today’s standards) commencement address at Spokane’s Brunot Hall.

Why an engineering professor would be chosen to speak at Spokane’s high-class finishing school for girls is not explained. Yet Thomson had no hesitation in telling the eight young female graduates what their place should be in the world.

“Personally, may I venture the hope that you will find your opportunity for service in womanly lines, and not allow yourselves to be led away by the ‘ignis fatuis’ (delusion) of equal rights or any other faddism, to attempt any invasion of the fields of labor generally occupied by men,” he said. “That women can do men’s work we have evidence on every hand, even without looking across to blood-bathed Europe in the delirium of war – but we have no evidence that men can do woman’s work nor are we likely to get it.”

He also took the opportunity to explain what “men look for in women.”

“First, I would mention womanliness, feminineness,” he said. “Nothing is so universally repugnant to all men as a masculine woman. A second quality more admired of men than is usually credited is the good, old-fashioned quality of goodness. Men by base motives are led sometimes to seek the company of women whom they believe are not good, but no man ever wants to have as a friend, sweetheart, wife or sister a woman of whom it cannot be said, she is good.”

He also told the young graduates how to dress: simply and modestly.

“If apparel oft proclaims the man, it always proclaims the woman.”