New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-07-16
WOMAN'S WORK.
What Prominent Woman Writer Says.
Howard Glvndnn in Naw York Mail

What Prominent Woman Writer Says.
Howard Glyndon in New York MALL
am old-fashioned enough to think that
the more the average woman land few
women above the average have tastes for
public life) keeps at home and out of the
public haunts of men the better it Is for her
If she is obliged to mingle daily with
strange men on an equal footing, and do all
her work in their company, | regard it as a
misfortune, and | am sorry for her, and that
is the best | can say.
want-and | think all good men want
all unprotected women without incomes to
be as independent as they consistently can,
and to have as large range of employ
ment as they can have while preserving
that dignity and exclusiveness of associa-
ton most conducive to the purity of the
sex. But only tew-barely one here and
there-will have a genuine call to do a
mans work and be able to do it in man s
way. One, here and there, will have suf-
ficient character to stand and struggle
alone and succeed. 1t will not be so with
the mass, and it should not be; for if this
generation of women mingle freely with
men, on the same footing as men with each
other; If they live in great part the same
lives, which will follow if they do the same
work under the same pressure of circum-
stances, and are subjected to the same
their unborn children For soon there will
be no women, only females with the worst
characteristics of men. boy inherits his
fathers strong passions and the peculiari-
ties begot of his fathers hard, muscular
life. So it will be with the daughters
of these unnatural women. They may
gain in strength, but they will lose
in purity. They will be born to more
license, but to less delicacy of mind and
hly f,,f &I,a4 +Io+
the average woman is to be developed into
something as pure as good woman and as
strong as good man by degrading associa-
tons and impure contact. You can not
touch pitch without detilement," and We
see the truth of the old adage Illustrated in
the lives of most men whose surroundings
away from home are not good. 1t is hard
for the strongest and best of both sexes to
withstand the continued influence of bad
associations. Therefore, | say to women,
trench as little as you can on what seem to
be the peculiar duties of men. Wall street
and its purlieus is far more dangerous
place for you than Newgate prison was to
Elizabeth Fry. You must remember that
you go there with very different aim from
hers. She went to read the Bible to sinners:
you go to worship Mammon-to make
money, if you can. And Unas lion isn't
circumstance to an intelligent aud gentle
HOcTllut WHO las lOSt Ills IdlCu III
God and in woman.
Choose, as far as in YOU lies, work that
will not bring you into perpetual contact
with all sorts of men. Above all, never
choose an employment in which it is neces-
sary to ask favOrs of men. They may seem
very generous where women are concerned,
for they are often strict advocates of the
law of something for something, and
though you may give a smile for a service
and think it no harm there are some who
will be emboldened by it to ask for some
thing more; and it will require centuries to
get the average man into the habit of think
ing that when ii comes to a question of
give and take, women have nothing more
valuable to barter than their personal par
tialities and their cunning little coaxing
ways. But it, after all. you should think
that | am wrOng-if you are resolved TO
make yourself common object in the eyes
of men, to go among them on an equality
remember that you have no right to ask
favors unless you wish to be misinterpreted;
no right to expect kinder words than man
gives to man; no right to demand that your
halfway job shall bring as high
price as a mans better endeavor, sim
ply because you are a woman. In short,
you must consider yourself worker among
workers, with no more privileges than your
companions have, and you must not ask
more than the fair play that men give to
each other; and if you are not qualified or
not content to subscribe to these conditions
you had better keep aloof, for you will do
yourself more harm than good IN the I'M
equal contest.