The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-08-17
WIDENING HER SPHERE.


with those paid men for like services, is
attracting comment and drawing out
opinions from various sources showing
clearly that the leaven of human liberty
is working with the element of human
selfshness, and that the right of might
is being questioned. Those who ere
while looked on with stolid indifference,
or at most with a momentary twinge of
pity, at the hard task-master which GUS
tom has set over the labors of women who
must work, or starve, or beg, or GOOrSe,
now give the question careful thought,
and in many instances urge the break
ing of the tyrannical bounds that have
been set to woman's endeavors, and ad-
vocate giving her clear field for labor,
feeling sure that her own instinct is her
best guide.
The Snohomish Star, in recent is
sue, advocating the higher education of
women, and speaking of the injustice of
closing the doors of professional life or
competitive labor against them, gives
utterance to some appreciable facts upon
the subject. The writer is not one of
those who fear that women will unsex
themselves by entering professions or
following any occupation they may
choose when they shall by culture in
that direction be able to fill it with
honor, but says:
Those who fear that women will unsex them
selves by entering the learned professions are
the very ones that drive them to it, by forcing
them to become servants and hirelfngs for less
wages for doing the same labor as is paid men.
The sad way in which women unsex them
selves need not be named. But when we drive
them to the factory, to the sewing-room, to the
shop and the kitchen, do we not pave the way
for them to unsex themselves? They must
perform this drudgery or starve. They are not
as class sufficiently cultivated TO assume a
higher rate. There is no escape from it but in
matrimony, and nine times out of ten marriage
is only exchanging hard contractor to be-
come the bond servant OF a still harder task
master.
Whether the above was written by
the lady associate editor of the journal
named, we do not know; but we do
know that there is deal of truth in its
utteranees. Other papers throughout
Washington Territory have commented
freely upon a resolution passed by the
Teachers Institute, recently in session
at Seattle, which declares that "Women
teachers are entitled to the same wages
that men receive for like service" The
justice of the declaration is conceded by
all, and the very fact of it being made is
evidence that intelligent persons are
waking up to the idea of needed reform
in matter that was once considered an
ordinance of God, or at least an irrevo-
cable and unconquerable decree of ma
ture, to question which gave evidence of
shocking irrevefence, if not of total de-
pravity.
The Oregonian of Tuesday, discours-
ing of "Women's Wages" gives as a
reason of the meager wages paid to
them as teachers, that women cannot
find so many employments as men, are
not fitted for SO great variety of occu-
pations, by reason of inequality in
strength and training, hence crowd
each other in the few occupations they
are able to fill. The truth of this is ap-
parent; its plainness inaugurated years
ago what was called the "Woman'E
rights movement" which was and il
nothing more nor less than demand in
the name of justice and humanity, that
obstacles and restrictions imposed by
custom and prejudice be removed from
the path of women, and they be allowed
equal opportunities with men to entel
and possess any field of labor for which
their strength is fitted and to which
their inclinations tend. We must de.
mur, however, to the statement that il
is solely because women have not 6
wider range of occupation that such un.
equal wages are allowed for equal work
We are sure it was not from this cause
that the wages of the women teachers
in the public schools of this city were
several years ago reduced, and the
amount so 'saved" added to the al
ready larger salaries of the men teach.
ers. Most men have an idea-inheriteC
from their great-great-grandfathers
perhaps-but at all events adherlng tC
them tenaciously-that women do not
need money, are not capable of hand.
ling it, are a0onlell, in short, and should
have it doled out to them. Men, so fal
in this State, compose all the schoo
boards, and the very idea that a woman
should expect, not to say demand the
same sum for teaching term of schoo
that a man receives, carries with it 6
weight of presumption that overwhelml
her application in defeat. ave can ge
man for that sum-" is the rejoinder
and it takes an abiding faith in mans
chivalry to convince the applicant thar
it is her sisters in this instance who arr
crowding her to the wall.
Again we have heard il said that il
an ''off year in politics." 1. e., a year in
which no general election occurs, thai
the applications for women in busines:
matters are always more favorably con.
sidered (by men who are invariably il
power) than at times when party feel.
ing runs high and every man, however
ill-Qualified, represents a vote. and avarv