Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/76

 As in France, women of means have excellent educational opportunities, and Italy now has some very distinguished professional women. One is lecturer in the Philosophy of Law, another in Anatomy. Dr Maria Montessori, a physician in the Roman hospitals, and specialist in the treatment of weak-minded and imbecile people, is exciting much interesting controversy in this country at present relative to the Bill for the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded which is now before the British Parliament. Neither in Belgium nor in Italy could women be admitted to the Bar until recently; but one woman in Turin has succeeded in attaining this ambition.

The women of Spain are in a deplorably bad position. In the lower classes they receive no training for any special work in life; consequently they receive miserably inadequate wages when absolutely driven to work, which, however, they avoid as long as they can. Driven back upon themselves, confined to one interest—the interest in themselves and their sex—they use their sex as a weapon to win what they want, thus degrading both themselves and their men. In the higher walks of Spanish life, the women may be educated, and a number of famous Spanish women have brilliantly distinguished themselves in literature.

Portugal has recently overthrown its King