The Day of the Women, by Pamela Kettle, New English Library, London, NEL 2800, $1.00 (equivalent), (paperback), 175 pp (1970).

This has not appeared in the US yet, as far as I know, but it's overdue and HAS appeared in the UK, Australia, N.Z. and Spain. Fiction, but with a message. I do not like the message, but must listen with respect to Mrs. Kettle as she makes a terribly plausible

case.

―

The story starts off mildly enough with a little party held by a moderate in the British Women's Lib movement for one of their leaders, Diana. The party goes somewhat downhill as Diana gets on her high horse and offends both husbands, but all part as friends. In Chapter 2, the moderate (Eve) is back in England after several years away and the death of her husband. Diana has no trouble recruiting her and another moderate to serve as public relations officers for the Movement, which has picked up astonishing strength. After a whirlwind campagne, whirlwind campagne, they carry the general election and Diana is Prime Minister to the incredulous surprise of the male politicians. And then starts a series of quiet moves to perpetuate the situation; nice gentle things like day-care centers, hospitals, a newspaper for women, a Workers Protective Tribunal for upholding labor rights; all very bland but with plenty of teeth underneath. And so on, peacefully, until the second election. By that time, the men are all either violently opposed to Diana, or com- pletely under her spell. There is a frantic effort to unseat her, but with only half the men trying to outvote all the women and the men who have accepted this new "welfare” state, it is a landslide. And then the clamps come on; Diana is moved to reply to Eve's weary sigh that she couldn't go through another election "Per- haps we won't have to." And she is right; elections become a thing of the past and Diana is absolute ruler. At this point Eve's partner in PR rebels. She was already under a cloud for "lack of loyalty," and now suffers a fatal auto "accident." Eve, suspicious at last, launches an enquiry which reveals that her office is bugged, her mail read and finally her secret diary confiscated. It is no great surprise to her when she is dispatched on a fool's errand with a letter to Diana's counterpart in South America which she opens, to find it her own death warrant. And so, we leave Diana with all the power of Adolph Hitler, and not a cloud on her horizon. Can't happen? Read and then say that!

51

―