New-York tribune., 1903-02-26
WOMEN 4ND WORK.
Popular Foliacy That They Are a
Leisure Class, S7gs Mrs.. Gilman.

What want to see people get rid off, said Mrs.
Charlotte Stetson Gilman at the Brooklyn Civitas
Club yesterday. is the idea that home is sacred
because the dinner is cooked there Home is
sacred because love and congeniality and com
partnership there
The woman Of the future will have nothing to
90 with the house except TO let herself out Of it
with key In the morning, and into * al night
She VIII be there when the man is there. What
more does he want? Her homework will be done
by specialists who viii do it with all the and
skill Of specialists: and she herself will have taken
her place in the specialized work OF the world.
which has developed men so marveIlously.
L isa't that women do not work. popular
faIlacy OF the day is that women in general have
become q leisure class That is so because the
conscious class the class that reads and thinks
and discusses these things. is composed mostly Of
women who have servants. But nine-tenths OF the
women Of the world have no servants Leaving
out the small but growing fraction Of women who
are working in the Industrial world as men do
rine-tenths OF the women Of the world are work
irs n exactly the same way the antediluvian
scuaw did
The only difference is that the wigwam has
heer changed into q house created by the highly
specialized Industry OF That house is full
Of utensils and conveniences and inventions created
ny the highly specialized industry Of man or by
women working in the way do. But nine
1enths OF the women Of the world are. under
these improved conditions. doing the entire work
If their own families with their own hands, just
the primitive squa'w did il
1t has been fndubitably proven by statistics that
fhs wastefuI individual mode Of living costs three
times as much il would under the methods
that prevail in every other form Of Industry The
cost Of liking could be reduced two-thirds by or
eanizng housekeeping as other industries or
ganized. Two dollars out Of every three are
wasted: because-remember what said-home isn't
home because the holy stove is there.
Besides all this financial waste, there is a waste
of the work Of nine-tenths CT the women and
that means nine-twentieths of the human
Because labor is hard, incessant and necessary
under present conditions, it doesn't follow that it
IS useful productive or economical Gladstone
might have worked fourteen hours day direct
ing envelopes al his life. He might have worked
faithfully and got very tired. but there would
have been social waste, and Gadstone's faculties
would not have been developed
The faculties Of half the human race have been
checked in their development. How great that check
has been and how much social waste has re-
suited cannot tell, but il must be great
How did man ever develop? BY going out and
meeting mis- fellows and combining and organiz-
ing and competing with them How Gid he get
his broad sense Of justice? In the same way.
Justice was born in the market place Where
did he get his intense love Of liberty? Because
ne was out among his fellows and learned the
advantages Of liberty.
-SUlposing the man had been taken. ten hundred
thousand years ago. and put into the wigwam and
kept there; never let out; never permitted to get
be exactly where the woman is There wouldn't
he house bigger than nut in the world; not
palace. z school. a church Not trade
would have developed beyond its primitive form
Tho great organize tions Of government and edu-
cation would not exist. All these things were de-
Veloped out Of mans association with his fellows,
his Ceaseless competitions with them mis- ceaSeless
combinations with them the ground Of mutual
interests or Royalties.
social life that no one branch OF II shouid lag
Nefalehlng the soil Win sIch, "isaI "oplS oF-
come Of the rest Of our civilization? II the great
transportation system Of America were reduced
70 horseback or muleback. squawback w1at
would become Of the rest of the social fabric?
Yet that Is what has happened In Yomans s work
Man is working in twentieth century ways. Wo-
by her tuentieth century environment We cannot
rec what or where the social loss and waste is.
bet may be that ii L. there. and that some
time the human VIII look back and see where
-To Illustrate suppose agriculture had retained
SIS first century form We would have each man
instead Of America feeding Europe. and all this
5ntercoEtinenLal and interoceanic eAcnange oI
work has Jagged behind
Home means sex TO the man: first his mother
then his wife; always il is the shrine of
Consequently. loves IL with that tenderness and
romance thar sex inspires in him. Hence. also he
regards II with that scorn which in way man
ever deals our TO the other sex de writes lovely
poems 3nG paints divine pictures or the home but
ne ae Woni stay in IT, II he has to stay IN IL tnrfe
Man has always believed that there Is no place
like hone-for The women"
mans lecture, which Women and Work,
and WAS prefaced by the scientific and biological
grounds for her belief At the close they asked
her many questions a. 20 practical ways Of be
ginning the r-VoUUicn implied IN her views. She
replied that il already begun 10y individual
women.
Let every mother bring up her daughter TO
work for money, she said and further advocated
her wen known view OF baby gardens" TO pre-
cede kndergartens. and ne conducted along similar
lines. She described also some beginnings OF
gaaize1i housekeeping
"AI the gains of ihe lssi forty wears viii he
done away with IL The pIesent 70 the
Tenement House law Tasscd,' said Miss Morse
They do away with lights IN the halls. They do
r"ay with aiTshafts- They bring BACK the dark
t.lsloe rooms They dc away with ali the moral
enc sanitary things secured by the agitation Of
fSrfs years This amended biz has been intro