WHEN Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Russian delegation exchanged pointed remarks in the halls of the United Nations not long ago over the question of the housework done by United States' women, both sides, in the opinion of many, missed the major point.
The Russians charged that American women were slaves to their husbands and to housework routine. Mrs. Roosevelt replied, in effect, "Rubbish!" and demanded to know who did the housework in the U.S.S.R., adding pointedly, "The men?"
The major point, as many British visitors to these shores have stressed in giving their impressions, is that American women apparently have about the easiest existence of any of their contemporaries.
And another point, of which thinking Americans themselves are only just beginning - with some alarm - to become aware, is that all too many of their womenfolk are tending to dissipate their hours of leisure in anti-social or otherwise undesirable activities.
The United States is a big country and it still contains great extremes of wealth and poverty, so that any generalisation is likely to be full of exceptions.
But a generalisation can be made on the life of the typical middle-class American housewife - and it's considerably easier than that of her British "cousin." This-and remember it is a composite picture-is how Mrs. Average American lives.
LIFE RUN BY GADGETS
Her husband earns from $1,125 to $2,125 a year - yes, that's the average. She has one or two young children. She lives in either a middle-class flat in the city or a five to seven room house in the suburbs. And her life is run by "gadgets."
Washing is not for her. There's ample laundry service, picking up and delivering clothes, or an automatic washing machine in the home which washes, rinses and damp-dries the garments. These she places in an electric drier, which turns them out in a few minutes clean, soft and dry. A "mangle" iron, with a roller device which irons the clothes as she feeds them in, disposes of the pressing.
Her home is heated automatically by a fuel-oil furnace in the cellar, operated simply by setting a thermostat in the living room. An electric icebox is considered indispensable. Cooking is done on electric or gas ranges with many automatic timing devices. Electric freezers, which will store large quantities of food for many months, are coming into rapid use all over the country.
In short, from the time the electric alarm sounds in the morning until the thermostat automatically turns down the heat for the house at bedtime, Mrs. Average American does practically everything by flicking a switch or setting a dial.
The result is that most women have plenty of time on their hands. From this spring card clubs, "bingo" games (not unlike the British "Housey Housey"), theatre matinee crowds, the shrieking audiences at radio studios and the prevalence of "crackpot" ideas which periodically sweep across this country from one coast to the other.
Women's clubs are now waging campaigns to awaken American women to the fact that, with the many hours they have at their disposal each week, they could accomplish untold good in a multitude of ways. Some are urging a wider participation in politics, others are striving for increased efforts to combat juvenile delinquency. But still this vast unharnessed energy is flowing into the channels of gambling, drinking and "fan clubs."
Mrs. Average American, you will probably agree, has an easier life than her "cousin" in Britain, or anywhere else, for that matter. It's what she does with that leisure time that's beginning to wrinkle the brows of authorities who see the nation's domestic problems going unsolved-and uncared for.
.lcThis article was prompted by a small argument between the wife of the American president and a group of visitors from Communist Russia. One of the ideas here is that labour-saving gadgets can be dangerous, because they give housewives too much free time.
