Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-10-23
ARE WOMEN FAIRLY PAID?

ARE W0MEE FAIRLY PA1D2
In the Forum, Professor Van Buren,
Denslow answers the question: care
Women Fairly Paid ~ by saying that to
compare her with the male laborer is an
unfair statement of proposition, since the
abatement of pay for specific quantity of
work by women is due to the fact that her
labor is less profitable, or that women dis
criminate against so many occupations as
TO leave their wage smaller in those they
do enter 1t is natural for man to help
woman, and to always desire to do so, Just
as it is natural for a woman to desire to be
helped-and he holds this applies ire
spectiye of the value of the service as a
commodity He holds that, 50 far as
society is a success, woman's work never
will be marketable commodity, to be
paid for on competitive principles.
We cannot agree to this. We are not
willing to admit, as the Professor insists,
that the compulsion that sends a woman
into the market to sell her labor for what
it will fetch, lowers the value of her work
because her seeking is an evidence that
she has failed to find her true place. He
would take it for granted that woman has
but one true place, whereas it is by no
means true that she is fitted only for the
home. There are women who in the home
would be out of place, to whom outside
work and business are as natural as to men,
Surely these by seeking do not lessen the
value of their work. 70 lay it down as a
rule that labor competition by women
dis calamity, initiating against
the perfect order toward which the
instincts of both men and women
tend" is to state the case in the
extreme. Social influences it is true, in
the majority of cases. tend to confne the
+ career Of woman as a wage-winuer within
very narrow bounds, but this is as truly so
because of the traditions and convention
alities OF society that are the outgrowth of
an age When woman was partially en-
shaved ,as because Of physical conditions.
We prefer the statement that, 50 far as
woman's physical being capacitates her,
she is as legitimateIy and justly in the
competitive field of labor as man, and en-
titled for like work to like compensation.
The proofs that stand out against Prof
Denslow's position are those Of experience
Women as inventors, managers of business
capitalists, employers, employees have
proved in no small number that they are
not dependent upon the chivairy or the
pity of men in active walks. True, the
larger number for physical reasons are in
the home, nor would it be desirable that
this number should pronortionateiy lessen
as populations increase. But 10 say that
women in the labor field are objects of
pity and reminders Of misfortune and fail
ure is putting the case too strongly. To
vast number of employments women are
called because they are filter for them
than men, and no sentiment of phiIan-
thropy enters in Now this being So if
woman is paid for her labor ratably less
than the actual value of her work, meas
ured by The same standards that apply to
men no more competent, an injustice is
done her.
The essayist declares, with an air of
strength, that after Mr. Storey, of Chicago,
had trained force OF girls to take the
place of men as compositors in the Times
Office, the first bali dispersed them-they
must 90 to the dance This is a silly argu-
ment. When it comes to that, force
of men under rs strong temptation might
have gone upon a dehauch. If
the Tines compositors would 90 to the
dance, the compositors of the opposite sex
,ciR go to the saloon, where, at least, the
female industrians do not congregate. In
fact. as a rule, there is more devotion and
self-denial aud LOYALTY to duty among
women than among men, and fewer betrayals
of trust among them. Let us go farther :;
Men as employers of women exact more of
them than of men as rule, because they
can No male mechanic is chained to
labor as is the sewing women. Male
clerks, as rule, dare to take great liberties
with the time of their employers than do
the female clerks, saleswomen, copyists,
compositors not because they are not
worthy as full wage for accomplishing as
much. but because men accord more to
men, for the reason that they recognize
greater financial burdens resting upon
them as heads of families as factors in
government, as dominant among social
forces.
Women are under paid, but should not
be. If paid for precisely what their labor
is worth to the employer their work is
not cheapened, but very rarely indeed is
this rule applied. The question Is not
asked. What profit viii her work yield
me?9 but the Judgment of her value as
n worker is based upon her sex. Thus the
teacher Of class of infants being woman,
fully discharges all that can possibly be
asked of any teacher of her sex, and bet
ter than any man could do, yet because
she is woman, and for no other reason,
she Is seldom accorded wage for the
service that if asked by a man would call
forth 10 remonstrance. Women discrimi-