The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-01-03
women's Right to Work.

Charlotte Perkins Stetson, in Success.
Work is a human characteristic We
human beings, however, with our pre-emi-
nent intelligence and remarkable faculty for
getting ourselves into trouble, have mixed
up the facts in this case most la
mentally. Every man cheerfully allowed
woman to do all the work for him. AS
soon as work began to d~evelop-and be-
gan to be paid for-he took it up and has
so consistently and persistently kept women
out of the larger and better-paid branches
that he really thinks work is a masculine
characteristic-like a bass voice and whisk-
ers. Therefore, he wants women TO stay
at home and work for love and not come
out into the world and compete with him
for money.
AS we have seen, neither of them should
be competing for money; but all the world,
men and women, should compete in doing
the best work.
Then our disbeliever in woman's work
ing uncovers a little more of his objection.
The best work-for women-is at homel
If married. she should be doing that, and
if unmarried she should stay at home and
wait till she is married. If that does not
befall her-why, let her keep on waiting
at home!
The fallacy here is a big one. In the first
place, to take the bull by the horns, wom-
ans work at home is not the best, for her
or any one else. 1t is the poorest and worst
done of any work we have. 1t belongs to
the proto-social, not the social stage of hui
man life. Instead of best serving humanity
by doing her work at home, she greatly re-
tards and Injuries it.
This / have tried TO prove at length in a
recent book, but here il must stand as an
assertion, while L go on to show that young
women's desire to go out and work is a
great benefcent social impulse, and means
more for the improvement of motherhood
and wifehood than seventy centuries of
staying at home. 1t is really an amusing
thing-if you look at it in that way-our
profound conviction that marriage and ma
ternity rest absolutely on the domestic limi-
tation of women. The conviction is COM
mon, almost universal. "Wife" means
cook; mother" means cook; home" means
cOok-we cannot seem to conceive of wife
and mother and home unless the wife and
mother is the domestic servant. And yet,
at the same time, the human mother makes
a very poor showing at her specialty-bu-
ries her children by the half, has them sick
on her hands, and turns out an average of
population open to much criticism; and, as
TO the wife OF humanity-why, men have
done nothing from the beginning of history
but criticise and lampoon the kind of mar
riage they insist on havingi
We have tied up our women at home TO
do the housework and nothing else, and
have sworn we like them best that way.
We pay their bills and bear with their
weaknesses, their ignorance and littleness
and eccentricieies, and think they have To
be characterized by such things.
How did we come to be so sure that wom-
en- could not be improved-as men have been
improved-by larger contact in legitimate
social activities? Women need to come out
of the home and work together in special
lied and organized industry; not only from
that great duty 10 society which calls for
the best work of every one of US, but also
from two great duties more. There is a
duty of acknowledgment, of raising the
narrow mind, the too-limited heart and con-
science and the weak body UP to their true
standard of human efficiency; and, beyond
that, beneath and behind and through and
all around it, the duty of becoming better
mothers.
The success of human motherhood is
cruelty limited by the law, monotonous Level
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