Middletown transcript., 1896-11-14

Nr H3E<- vival of old no
- iis>G - tions about wo-
mans business incapacity. People do
not yet think straight and see clear.
Again competition is sharp among wo-
men. They underbid one another.
Workers for money can work for less
than the one who must buy food and
shelter and clothes. Thirdly woman
can, or will, live on less than men.
That has much to do withholding down
their wages.
The following example win serve to
illustrate other reasons: An editor en-
ployed the best typewrit in Boston.
She had been victorious in competitive
effort. Before she came to him she
had bcen employed in a wholesale dry
goods houss at SIS week. In her
place the firm took a young man, in
no wise better typewriter, and p.id
him $25 week. Now they would NOT
purposely waste $40 a week. Why did
they think it economical to pay the
man moreP
One advantage the man has lies in
physical qualities. He can endure
more. He gives you the feeling that
he can be more relied upon. The type
writing woman was not at haad so reg.
ularly. In this drygoods house bust.
ness had to be done daily. They paid
ten dollars week for the certainty
of having some one always at hand
Now, it cannot be gainsaid that men
are physically stronger, and that wo.
men cannot be strong 50 long as they
live in contravention Of nearly eve ry
law of nature. But history says the
Spartan women were strong and health.
full, and Spartan typewriting woman
would doubtless have insisted on the
twenty-five dollars week.
But reasoning about such physica
disability may be at fault. We all
know women who do the work of men
along with men. They are as regular
in their business habits as men. And
such cases are not exceptions. Look
at Vassar, Smith and Bryn Mawr, fol
instance, where educated women are
employed. am inclined to believe
that the typewriter's Irregularities were
not 50 much physical inability after
all. They were rather deficiency in
training. Very few women have been
taught regularity and method in work.
1t is deemed right to teach it to boy,
but it is rarely thought proper or nee
essary that it should be bred in the
bone of girl in the formative period.
The only reason that after such educa-
tion women take the cares and burdens
of married life so sublimely, and carry
them SO successfully, is that the best
part of their nature is touched and ap-
pealed to. ~
1t is then primarily the instinct of
self sacrifice in women; again, the un-
methcdical habits in which they have
been brought up; again, their ''little
health, as Miss Frances Cobbe calls
their lack Of strength-these, as well
as the three first named, are the rea-
sons why men are paid more than wo-
men when both are engaged to do, and
do in truth accomplish, the same work.
Paymasters say-paymasters of a
great magazine Office, for instance,
where many are employed-that wo-
men are apt to become iaere machines
in business; that they work mechani-
cally, and never suggest change or bet
termcnt; they are idealess. This
doubtless affects their pay. But they
are idealess for two apparent reasons:
First each one hopes it is not to be her
life's work. Every woman, generally
speaking, hopes to marry. Nature and
convention and the social laws at large
indicate to her that the home life and
the married life are her best life. Sec
ondly, to rise in the ranks in such Of
fees as I have named is not open to
her. Incentives to energy and origina-
ting effort, permanence and probably
increased pay are taken from her.