San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-07-20
WOMAN AND HOME.
CLEARING THE DECKS FOR ACTION
ON WOMAN'S WIDENING SEA

They Have Been Mothers Of Good Men.
Woman Not q Joker-A Clergyman
Tribute - Something Concerning Little
Men and women-Household Hints.
The rapid changes in social habits indicate
that women are destined to share more and
more the work Of men. It is now common
to meet women in places where formerly they
were never seen-in postoficss, libraries, lab
oratories, observatories, counting rooms, ed
itorial rooms, lawyers offices, and so on
indefinitely. In great buildings created ex-
pressly for mems work, which formerly we're
never trodden by the foot Of any woman but
an occasional scrubber Of floors, the opening
Of any door may now reveal a modest clerk
or typewriter, and nobody stops to criti
else the invasion. change Of habits so
great necessarily involves other unconscious
changes The employer of women IN all
these cases is apt to become little more dec
orous and orderly, to exercise more control
Of temper, more propriety of speech, than
where he had men alone as companions or
observers.
On the day when women were first to vote
for school officers in Massachusetts | hap
pened to meet one Of the leading political
managers in my own ward, who had never
favored their voting / expected to find him
shaking his head over the innovation but
be was, on the contrary wholly absorbed in
making the ward officers clean up the voting
place and put out sign. mo smoking al
lowed here" He said, THE ladies are
coming; we must make it decent for them
And soon after the state passed a law for
bidding smoking at the polls to the great
relief of the ward officers. Men cleared their
decks, in manner, before admitting women
to share their undertakings, just as the order
is given on naval vessels to clear the decks
before going into action.
But it is not men alone who need to do
this Women have right to demand that
all should be done which is fitting in the way
of moral propriety and reasonable courtesy
when they enter the counting room or the
workshop On the other hand, it is for them
to remember that business is business, compe
tition very great, and the demands Of en-
ployers are necessarily exacting. Men do
not commonly employ a woman rather than
a man for any particular work, because of
chivalry or sense of justice, though that
may occasionally happen They employ her
as being nd pre convenient, more economical,
UT LII SOule way ulOIe USEFUL nav my luuS W
compete as a woman, she must try as WON
an to make herself as useful or available as
possible, and to reduce to a minimum all in
conveniences that stand in the way There
is the matter of dress, for instance.
Many men really like TO have women about
them as employees, were it only because they
usually look heater and tidier than young
men in the same station. So far their mode Of
dress is an advantage But when, on the
other handSthe employer desires to post a
letter at the street corner, and knows that "a
male clerk would simply throw his hat on
and go there and back while the young lady
was adjusting her bonnet, he is stricken with
doubts as to the advantage of employing wo
men. A young lady studying in a college
town complained to me that she had to give
more of her daily time to the buttons on her
gloves, in order to go to and from her recita-
tions properly, than her brother in college
gave to his whole wardrobe.
Far be it from me to recommend any dar-
ing changes in female costume but the first
study of any young woman who has her OWE
living to make should at least be to dress III
such way as to reduce all these discomforts
to minimum, that she may be, wherever it
is possible, as alert, as free, as ready for
action as if she were a man
And in the same way young woman who
has her own living to make needs to disem-
barrass herself of all false pride, keeping al
ways closely, of course, to true self respect.
| remember an old fashioned employer who
used to say that he would never employ a
young woman until she was as willing as a
young man would be to go through the streets
with bundle. Most women, he thought,
would only do this at Christmas time, this
being, in respect to bundles, a sort of carnival
season when all rules seem to be suspended
Harper's Bazaar