BOMBAY: The 17th Session of the All-India Women’s Conference commenced this evening [April 7] in the Vanitha Visran Gardens. Over 200 delegates and large numbers of visitors were present. Prominent on the dais were Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, Mrs. Vijaya Lakshmi and Mrs. Rameshwari Nehru.

The women’s movement is essentially a social movement, it is not a sex war, said Mrs. Kamaladevi in her Presidential Address. [It] does not seek to make women either fight men or imitate them. It rather seeks to instil in them a consciousness of their own faculties and create respect for those of the other sex. Thus alone can society be conditioned to accept the two as equals.

The correct premise to start from is the recognition of the social division of labour between the sexes, which gives the lie to the middle and upper class conception of women as domestic and social parasites.

The entrance of women into extra-domestic activities has to be welcomed, for it provides a wider field for women’s talents, and relaxes the restrictions that otherwise narrow women’s functions. (Dawn, Delhi)