Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-01-17
OPENINGS FOR WOMEN
Vast Changes Have Come
About in Recent Years.
ALL WALKS OF LIFE
RESULT OF NEW CONDITIONS
AND NEW IDEAS.
Taking the Place Of Men-Demand for
Skilled Hands-Idleness
Is Unpopular.

Written for The Evening Star by David Graham
Phillips.
Only ten years ago the women numbered
less than one-fifth Of all the wage and sal
airy earners in the United States. When
these figures were published there was
great cutlery of wonder and alarm-wonder
at the changed conditions, alarm lest those
changed conditions might be permanent
and the old-fashioned woman Of the f1reside
and the stoveside and the cradleside might
be passing away. Today nearly one-third
of all the women in the United States earn
their own living outside their own homes.
and these Independent women constitute no
less than one-third OF all the persons in the
United States engaged in gainful occupa
lions.
It Is evident that the changed conditions
are not passing. but permanent; that the
new woman is the woman Of the future.
Yet we still have the old order talked Of.
as If 1t were not departing order, and the
new order criticised as II it were the crea-
ton Of few freak women.
The theory still is that man bears the
brunt Of the battle for food. clothing and
shelter, while woman is sheltered and is
comparatively at her ease. This theory
never was sound. From time immemorial
among the masses of the people every
where the men and the women have work.
ed equally for the support of the family,
both at home and away from home. But
latterly, under the pressure of modern con-
ditions which are forcing all into the gen
eral service Of society, the women have
been drawn from the obscure toll of occupa-
tons within and around the household; and
also into the ranks Of women toilers have
gone hundreds Of thousands of women from
the classes which. until recently, did try
to keep their women at home. We may
presently see practically all the capable
members Of our society self-supporting, and
the home fundamentally reorganized to
meet the changed conditions.
Modern Occupations Of Women.
Today the women vote In four states and
hold public office in all the states and under
the national government. There are wo-
men policemen and f1remen. women loco
motive engineers. women masons and plas-
terers and gunsmiths, women street car
drivers and conductors, women blacksmiths
and coopers and steel and iron workers,
and even women sailors-to take only a
few occupations which. on the face would
seem to exclude women. In fact, there is
not in this country single department of
skilled or unskilled labor, except only SOL
its women workers in swiftly increasing
numbers. In the professions there are
thousands of women doctors, lawyers. au-
thors. professors, musicians, artists, deco
rators, journalists, public speakers, and
more than a hundred thousand women
teachers In the trades there are thousands
OF women hotel and restaurant keepers, in
surance and real estate agents, bookkeep
ers, clerks. merchants, officers of corpora
lions, sa1eswomen, stenographers, tele-
graph and telephone operators. In manu-
features the women operatives almost equal
the men in numbers. There are thousands
hands, and many thousands of women are
in responsible positions in the manage
ment of manufacturing corporations. All
these occupations, with the exception of
such occupations as nursing and teaching
school and music. were once exclusively in
the hands of men.
The cause Of the change is the same as
that which has revolutionized every part
Of modern society-the amazing discoveries
Of science, creating an enormous number
of new occupations and radically changing
the method of all the old occupations, from
housekeeping to carrying on national
government.
Lack Of War Responsible.
War was the department of human en-
deavor which not only excluded woman
from itself. but also kept her fast anchor
ed at home. Until the second quarter of
the last century war was the chief thought
the chief pursuit Of the human animal He
was either just going to war or just coming
home from war, or engaged in war or pre-
pairing for an imminent war. Obviously
so long as war occupied this position in
human affairs, woman was inevitably In
the background, in the secondary places,
household drudge or plaything. But war
is no longer the principal business of the
race, with peace tolerated as a breathing
spell now and then. Peace and its arts are
now the serious business OF civilization
| with war as dreadful nightmare. Ciyili-
cod hoe
by discovery and invention. 1t clamors for
skilled hands, not for brutal hands. Hence,
the vast opening for woman and the vast
thrush Of women.
This country was remote from other
great nations and, therefore, from the ever
present threat or actually of war. 1t was
also-perhaps through its freedom from
war and war alarms-eagerest In Selling
upon and using the mighty industrial ma
chinery which science gave to the race
Thus. it has come to pass that with us the
progress toward the industrial equality of
the two sexes has been most rapid
Where European societies had a very COM
pick organization. our society had from the
beginning simplicity as its chief character
istic. We were really all toilers-until re-
Gently almost all toilers at occupations close
to manual labor. The women and the men
were throughout on that equal basis which
in Europe was. and to great extent is yet,
keeping classes. And the new era-the
era Of steam and observation-disclosures with
US, our women and our men naturally re-
NAMED side by side.
Backward In America.
| Our government was founded in war It's
founders assumed. from the history Of all
other nations. that offense and defense were
to be its main functions. That explains the
tagging of the political rights of women be-
hind their Industrial and civil rights-or,
rather industrial and civil necessities; for
no right ever has been. probably ever
will be, recognized until it becomes a ne
cessity. The development with us Of a
class Of women who were housekeepers only
and were. for the most Of the time, idle or
half idle. is a development unnatural to the
spirit of our democratic republic.
1t was due in the main to three causes.
First, the survival of the old world, old era
ideas Of "woman's sphere of the coarsen-
ing effect of labor upon her finer nature"
of the "aristocratic favor and high
breeding" of uselessness and idleness. Sec
ond. to the simpler tastes of even the better
educated classes among our ancestors. and
the comparative ease with which the labor
of one individual in the family could pro-
vide money enough to satisfy those tastes.
Third, to the very tardy development Of a
class Of domestic laborers and providers to
relieve woman Of the care of the house
hold and the nursery, when her talents
could be more proitably employed In other