See what a conscientious student can learn in its train—history,
geography, foreign languages, the literature and the psychology of
different races. Then comes the longing to visit foreign lands, to see
and judge their civilisation, and to understand them through their art
and music. What better League of Nations Study-circle can there be than
this?
And now, when in spite of conferences and meetings and reunions, the
great cry is “less Europe and more England,” is there any chance for
a serious study of foreign policy? The papers give us less and less
foreign news; and how then are we to stimulate the great cosmopolitan
spirit which ought to awaken a new breath of life?
If only such women as Lady Astor would revive the political “Salon,”
where the great statesmen of the world could meet and discuss the
affairs of nations, they might surely accomplish more for humanity than
as members of Parliament?
Those wise old French _salonières_ who have passed into the realm of
history, could no doubt have secured direct representation. They had
no such desire—and therein showed their wisdom!
VII
SEX IN WORK
Some women workers are curiously inconsistent. They have declared that
sex shall not on any account enter into the business world. They cut
off their hair and dress themselves as nearly as they dare in men’s
attire; yet they deliberately put a _feminine label_ on their work.
Why the label? Is it lack of sex confidence, or is the work so weak
that it must trust to that label and beg for mercy?
Take the title of “Women Journalists.” What does this suggest? Either
an agency for supplying articles on dress or cookery, or a group of
women banded together to demand their professional rights. As neither
is meant, the term is misleading. And why should a journalist, whether
man or woman, want to belong to any but a Society of Journalists?
It is the same with the Women Artists. Why the label? At the Leipzig
Palace of Women’s Work in 1914, the work of one artist drew everyone’s
attention, and presumably she was a woman, since the Society had taken
her to its bosom. Her pictures of Berlin’s underworld were so powerful,
that they gave birth to all kinds of important prison reforms. But what
was she doing in that anæmic assembly? Kathie Kollwitz was her name.
Her idea in allowing her work to be labelled “woman” was to help other
women. Alas, how often the Christian spirit achieves the precise
opposite of its intention! Kathie Kollwitz’s work, rather than helping
women, killed by its superiority any chance of appreciation others
might have secured. The terms artist, writer, author, musician, actor,
professor and doctor should be used for both sexes. Work must be judged
regardless of sex, or it is not worth judging at all.
Yet however much we protest against the label, sex is there all the
same. Lifeless work is sexless work. Sex is like fire, water, and the
other vital things of life, a great power when properly dominated. At
the same time its legitimate use in art, as in life, is too subtle
a weapon to be flourished recklessly as we stumble over the rocks of
progress.
In the world of workers, sex often makes difficulties in business
relations. It is for men to judge exactly how a woman handles the
men under her control. Towards other women she is often the hardest
task-mistress, when not actually unkind and unjust. In her search after
the tiny flaws in a piece of work, she loses the great spirit of the
whole. Her values are wrong; for this reason it is dangerous to give
average women the final word.
It has been said that men put up more readily with incompetence than
women. But this is not quite the case. They are more patient and more
indulgent, and they take the trouble to judge from all round. The most
aggravating little imperfections may well be balanced by some sound
practical efficiency which, in the business eye of an employer, cancels
all other faults. He knows he cannot expect perfection, and is content.
Women are not so much exacting as unreasonable. With the exacting
one can deal; but not with the unreasonable. In business the terms
_unreasonable_ and _incompetent_ are synonymous. In time, no doubt,
women will learn to take broader views of life and will acquire sense
of proportion. The question of kindness to their own sex will thus
adjust itself, but in the meantime only a very limited number of
them are _big_ enough to employ others: which obviously means much
unnecessary suffering for the workers.
On the other hand, relations between men and women in business are
not always easy. A woman may be allowed to take positions of such
importance in the office that she will shake the whole foundations of
business; which is obviously unwise.
On the other hand, a man will often take advantage of a woman in
business and find her an easy prey, just as he makes a good bargain
for himself with a less wide-awake rival, without any offence to his
business conscience; or if, under the influence of a smile and pearly
teeth, he make a bargain that he regrets when thinking it over, he will
soon find a means for catching up the pretty incompetent. Sometimes,
again, a feeling of pity for a woman fighting life’s battles leads him
to do things for her he would never dream of doing for a man. Alas! how
many business careers have been wrecked on the rocks of sympathy.
The much criticised _impresario_ is not the only sinner. Wolves in
sheep’s clothing are to be found in every walk of life, and the very
harmless act of accepting a lunch from an employer may swing the
business relations on to entirely the wrong footing. After that, it is
too late.
A woman who has business dealings with men must train herself to be
two personalities—official and private. The more she is accustomed
outside the office to being her own sweet self, the more must she
school herself to leave the charming female on the doormat, and convert
herself into a shrewd business woman who wants all her wits about her
to conclude a bargain.
The woman in business who allows a man to take any but a business
footing with her, must lose, _the odds being against her always_. By
not putting her foot down at once, she finds herself quickly out of
things altogether, with no chance of return.
There are, of course, many trying feminine types in business. For
example, there is the woman who wants to be treated with 18th century
courtesy. When asked why he objected to women lecturers, a secretary of
a big society replied: “We hate being discourteous, but we really have
not time to meet women at the station, dine them, and look after them.
A man looks after himself. You will say a woman ought to do the same.
Well, she does not. You can’t let her. A woman’s a woman....”
A very distressing type of worker is the one who, having signed a
contract, wants to get out of it directly a better offer is in sight.
This happens too frequently. She knows very well a man would have to
pay heavy damages for doing such a thing. So she plays the feminine
note, and the employer is cornered. All he can do without scandal is to
cut his loss and get rid of her as quickly as possible. But his whole
attitude towards women becomes filled with distrust, and the innocent
have to suffer in consequence.
Once women learn to work more as the associates of men, these
uncomfortable questions of “sex” will necessarily to a large extent
disappear. But at the present moment they must unfortunately fill a
large space in any attempt to sum up the disadvantages under which
women work.
VIII
IS FEMININITY AT A DISCOUNT?
Femininity is a disadvantage to the professional woman, first of all,
because it is expensive, and secondly because it takes up too much time.
If the hours spent trying on dresses, hats and other items of the
wardrobe were presented in the form of a bill, one may wonder how many
feminine existences would have a life balance at all.
Some women make dress their life work, the planning of their clothes
and going out to show themselves in them, dominating all else in their
minds. While others, the workers, are sighing for just a little more
time, mostly to keep themselves neat and tidy. Life does sometimes seem
out of proportion.
The subject of dress in a professional woman’s life is a vexed problem.
How is she to find time to attend to her wardrobe? A short while ago,
I saw a woman at the club sipping hot water. She owned she was banting.
“I’m getting fat,” she said, “too fat to be stock-size, and that
would be a calamity. Where can I find time to wear any but ready-made
dresses?”
Yet unreasonable as it is to wear lace cuffs, collars and blouses which
require constant washing and ironing, what true woman would give them
up? Laundry bills are too heavy, so these things have to be done at
home, and the already long day must begin an hour earlier, probably
at six instead of seven. And how much time is squandered sewing on
buttons, mending, and other things. For a woman suffers when she feels
all her garments are not in order; those unseen, as well as those
seen. Whilst the man worker goes off to tennis, cricket or football
on Saturday afternoons without a thought of the clothes to be mended
for him by some female hand, the woman worker stays at home to do her
tidying up herself.
Although the final result is often quite as satisfactory as when the
work is done by a woman, there is something pathetic in the sight of
a male using a needle. He holds his garments in such awkward, though
mathematically correct, positions, and the table is his thimble.
Nothing more quickly arouses the maternal side of a woman than the
sight of a man with a needle. “Has he no woman to look after him?”
is the question which comes instinctively. And, in the same way a
chivalrous man will ask, “Has she no man to take care of her?” when he
sees a woman wearing herself out in an office.
People may argue as they like; the old primitive division—man the
hunter, woman the tent-keeper—is the natural order of things. Will the
world’s mind really grasp any other? It is true that women workers are
to be seen everywhere in England, but, as one witty woman said, “their
real work has to be done out of hours.”
“However severe the orders given my servants to leave me to work
undisturbed,” said Flora Annie Steele, “just when I am wondering how
I can best kill off my hero, the cook comes in to tell me she has no
lemon.” Such a thing would never happen to her husband were he the
writer of books.
Another woman, the editress of a big woman’s paper, tells me she leaves
home to this tune—“the pipe has burst,” “the gas is out of order,”
“the ceiling is leaking,” and then more of these important items are
sometimes communicated by telephone to the office during her busiest
days. All this side of life, of course, is kept from a busy man. He has
to think only of his work.
Knowing, as she does, the time that clothes take to keep in order,
knowing that long hair means at least an afternoon to wash, and always
constant attention, a feminine woman defies all reason and somehow
makes time for these things. And so it is with the care of her house or
flat. She could live in lodgings or have a corner in a hostel, but she
cannot bear the atmosphere that is not of her own creation. She must
therefore have a place of her own. The whole of her income probably
goes on the upkeep of her home; she cannot afford a servant, she cannot
even really afford a flat if she looked into the future as a man looks.
But she will have it. From an outsider’s point of view, one wonders
where the pleasure comes in. She begins the day by getting her own
breakfast, and having worked in an office all day, she returns to shop
and sweep and dust and sew, or to cook and wash up for friends when
they come to spend the evening. “It’s silly, I know,” said a bachelor
woman, “I’m always having to draw on my sleep capital, but I couldn’t
stand “apartments,” and I’m not going to try.” Were women really
intended to live in this way?
Seeing then the time that femininity absorbs in a woman’s career, can
we not understand those who cast it aside for ever? They cut off their
useless hair, buy substantial masculine boots with low, flat heels,
and dress themselves as nearly as they dare in the comfortable, ugly
fashions of men.
From the artistic point of view the result is often deplorable. It
needs a brave woman to be seen in such clothing, except at a carnival;
but for the work they have to do perhaps male attire is more consistent.
Such clothing, however, convenient as it may be, tends to unsex the
wearer. No longer feminine, unable to be quite masculine, she becomes
a _neutral_, and her real friends, male or female, are few and far
between.
I shared a cabin, crossing the Atlantic, with one of these “neutrals.”
Except for a very short skirt, her garments were all masculine until
the evening when, remembering her original sex, she extracted some
rings from a grandmother’s pocket somewhere in her nether garments, and
at the same time allowed her femininity to go the length of wearing
lace stockings, without ceasing, however, to don her major’s coat. Such
a woman would probably never do any great good nor any great harm, and,
supposing she had sex, it could easily be transmuted to her work.
This type, nevertheless, gets a perfectly square deal from a man
employer. “With such a woman as a business associate or a secretary, I
can treat her like a man,” said a member of Parliament.
Probably this type of woman would be excellent on a jury, even a jury
to try a murderer. But to ask some women to sit on juries is next to a
crime. It is not at all in their line of thinking. They would be much
happier buying silk stockings and leaving this grim and complicated
subject to men or to other women of tried experience.
In the question of juries we have another example of the part being
made greater than the whole. For one woman who can be of any real use
in a police court, a hundred are no good at such work, at least until
they have learnt to be more just to their own sex, and more balanced in
judgment. No woman should sit on a jury against her will.
Face to face with two million superfluous women, perhaps the “neutral”
may offer a solution, who can tell? They work mechanically, like the
bees, and judging the work, one forgets the worker.
But it was neither as a hybrid nor through any male mentality that Mme.
Curie succeeded in helping her husband to discover radium. It was the
feminine quality of her mind that was of such great value. And when he
was killed in the most stupid of street accidents, that female mind
became sterile until the day when she found a substitute for the great
masculine mind at rest.
George Eliot, before she met George Lewis, was no more than a competent
journalist. With the assistance of his mind she wrote _Adam Bede_.
Without him, would her novels have ever been produced?
And the hybrid can never be good for the community. It may be
convenient for us to ask women to give up their femininity, but the
sacrifice is too great. It is marking her with the same gender as a
table.
IX
PIN-MONEY WOMEN
After health, women’s great obstacle in work, comes the pin-money
woman. There must be something fundamentally unnatural in a system that
makes women disloyal to one another, yet it is pin-money women who are
the hardest on those who must work.
When the proprietor of a girl’s magazine can obtain a Girton Honours
student as editor for thirty shillings to three pounds a week; or
when another University graduate, with five years linguistic training
in Germany, France and Italy, will work in a Government office for
three pounds a week, how is the woman who absolutely depends on her
own efforts to compete with her? Thirty shillings is the price of a
none too luxurious room in London, without a meal; it is, therefore,
very wrong of qualified women with enough to live on, to accept three
pounds a week. A competent woman secretary may be satisfied with one
hundred and fifty pounds a year, because she has a handsome allowance
from her father so that she need not live with her step-mother. She
has two incomes. Work keeps her from getting bored and gives her a
certain _raison d’être_. But it is her low salary that helps to kill
all possibility of women’s work being taken seriously.
Apply for the post which Miss X. has given up for another hobby, and
ask for a living wage. You will be stared at in amazement. “Miss X.
with her exceptional qualifications did it for so much,” they say, “we
must find another Miss X.”
How do pin-money women come into existence? And why do they increase?
“It is useless having more than one or two daughters at home,” says
the father of four daughters. “Supposing my daughter can earn only one
hundred pounds a year, that will keep her in clothes and pin-money and
save me that amount in allowance.” But her work cannot be considered
either a career or an independence. She does not even supply her own
“bread and butter,” whereas most of the salary of the serious worker
goes on that alone.
The head of the house supposes, and continues to hope, that his
daughters will marry, and his responsibility come to an end. With this
in view, he thinks that a little office experience will do her no harm.
It will teach her at least the value of money. And so, year in, year
out, the army of pin-money women, marking time, make it more and more
impossible for those who must work to earn their living. One sometimes
wonders whether these pin-money women have any idea of the sorrow and
hardship they bring to other women; only the wearer feels the shoe
pinch. The amateur, who is not forced to work and can give it up at any
time, so easily becomes slipshod. Hence arises the tendency to class
even the best women’s work as amateur.
Amongst those who are making the professional woman’s career more
difficult, we can now also count the Society women.
The number of Society women who, since the war, have pushed their way
into literature, art, films and the business world, is bewildering.
It frequently means that the poor girl, who naturally cannot compete
with the beautiful and much advertised fine lady, has to serve as
“ghost” and rewrite the Countess’s articles, for which she gets a
mere pittance. The Countess is paid for her name: and the “ghost” must
submit, as she knows that hundreds of other women are ready to take the
work.
In business there may be nothing against a combination by which the
Countess X supplies the capital and Miss X does the work. Men lend
their noble names to help along financial schemes, and women may do the
same, if only a fair share of the profits be allowed to the worker.
One must admit that nowadays many Society women are out to make money,
and generally succeed, thus doing far less mischief than the pin-money
women who are qualified to make money and yet work for a pittance.
There were days when the middle-class professional worker was
considered the backbone of the nation. Are those days past?
Democracy, with its blundering fingers, has shuffled the cards so badly
that it is difficult to see where things will right themselves. It is
as useless to sigh for the days when a countess was a countess, and an
actress an actress, and a worker a worker, as to weep for the fine men
of England who are asleep amongst the Flanders poppies. No competent
worker fears competition; lack of competition means stagnation.
There is a great difference, however, between _competition_ and
_under-cutting_, which is what the pin-money women are systematically
creating. Competition builds the edifice, under-cutting makes it fall.
And no words are sufficiently harsh for the amateur worker who, to
avoid _ennui_, does not hesitate to ruin her poorer sisters, actually
lowering men’s wages in the process, and—indirectly—forcing more women
into the labour market. There is great importance in the distinction
between the woman who works in collaboration with her husband, and
the woman who works to help keep the household. The latter is always
a dangerous experiment, and one which often ends in the wife having
to keep the whole house. When a woman is able to earn money, the man
so easily falls into the habit of letting her do it, till gradually
his efforts become slacker and slacker and he often leaves off working
altogether. _An energetic, wage-earning wife always demoralises a man._
An able-bodied man who allows his wife to keep the family is a poor
being; yet in these days of women’s work, it is becoming more and more
frequent, the energetic, clever woman attracting a weak, lazy type of
man. Women ought to let men understand from the first that husbands
are responsible for the family expenses. In the day of misfortune, of
course, normal rules do not apply.
At the same time, the married worker may be as great an obstacle to the
single woman as the pin-money woman. Under the shelter of her husband’s
roof, she can do work for a comparatively low figure which must injure
her less fortunate rival.
Work has been done from mere vanity! In fact, as one man said about his
wife’s work: “One requires a really large income to be the husband of a
literary woman.”
X
WHAT IS WRONG WITH MARRIAGE?
Pages have been, and always will be, written about love and marriage,
or marriage without love, or even marriage as a profession. All the
roads of romance lead that way, all sorrows spring from its wrong
vibrations, or because it never came. Whatever may be written or
thought to the contrary, marriage will always remain the woman’s
vocation.
When one sees a worn-out, middle-aged, woman taking notes at some
tiresome political meeting and knows that she still has to write her
report before she can struggle home in the small hours of the morning,
one asks: “What has she gained, morally or financially? Would she not
be far better at the fireside mending stockings?”
We have set out, one by one, the disadvantages under which women labour
in the different professions they have taken up. What, after all, is
safer or better than matrimony?
Not, however, the matrimony of our grandparents, but matrimony on the
basis of _moral partnership_.
In the past century, when the wife was a kind of head servant and
obeyed the master without questioning his authority, matrimony ran on
easy enough lines. Now, when modern woman has a distinct personality of
her own, unless both husband and wife have a high sense of duty and a
feeling of partnership in the family they have created, their home-life
cannot be a success.
And yet, with all its imperfections, on what better arrangement can
they co-operate?
We have admitted that exceptional women, with unusually good health,
can succeed in the professions, but certainly the majority are, both
physically and morally, best fitted for married life. All the emotional
qualities of women, the worrying over details, the love of order, the
forgive-and-forget process of training children, are home virtues. The
qualifications for success in business are entirely different.
And, for our generation, noting the moral upheaval and depravity
following the war, there was never a time when clear-thinking women of
high principles were more needed in home-life. There was never a period
when young men had more need of the one love that will never betray
them—the mother love.
We in England have so much that could never be found in France, but we
now need to learn a few lessons from France with regard to family life.
Most unfortunately, the literature of France seldom depicts French
home-life. Frenchmen read novels that, in frank contrast to their
lives, scoff at marriage and extol adultery. Are we not, alas,
following in the same tragic footsteps? It is more tragic for us, for
we have not the same critical balance. Sentimental natures like ours do
not reflect, and thus easily digest the tainted food which the French
are critical enough to analyse. Those who have lived in France know
that the Frenchman loves his home. It is his one ambition to have a
home and family, and for this ambition he can depend on encouragement
and support from all.