Sometimes during the Great War men who hadn't enlisted were sent white feathers as an accusation that they were cowards. It was usually assumed (why?) that only women sent these feathers.
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But 100 years ago this week the feisty "Clio" of Melbourne's Punch (and her socialite sisters) were seething at this assumption. "Clio" said they were all "somewhat incensed".
"A coterie of smart women lunched at our swaggerest women's club on a recent morning and passed judgment on the editor of a newspaper. He little knows how narrowly he escaped a deputation of indignant women to reprove him for an extremely unchivalrous and unwarrantable accusation he made against their fascinating, though complex sex.
"This ungallant man (who must be either a soured bachelor or a henpecked husband) dared to set down to a woman the contemptible act of anonymously sending white feathers to military officers. Is the perpetration of mean and despicable acts then solely exclusive to the feminine sex? Every member of the luncheon party ventured to think not.
"After some discussion it was finally decided to treat this calumny, this slur on our gorgeous sex, with the disdain it deserves. The women of Victoria need no stronger defence than their own acts and, in the face of the noble and splendid work they have done and are still doing for the troops and the Empire, this slur is not only extremely ill-timed, but very unmanly, very cowardly. In fact, it simply is not "cricket".
