The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-12-11
WHY WOMEN CAN'T MIND
THEIR OWN BUSINESS
BY DOROTHY DIX,


Every now and then L am forcibly
reminded of the fact that the mill
lennium will have arrived when we
learn to mind our own business.
But it will be an Eveless Eden, with
out a single woman in it.
No woman has yet arrived, or shows
signs of arriving, at the point of
grace when she can behold another
person making a pie, without putting
her finger in it. 1t has always been
that way. And it has always been her
bane. She has broken her heart over
other peoples sorrows. She has lain
awake nights, and lost sleep over 9TH
err peoples worries She has brought
on more nervous prostrations trying
to run other peoples affairs, and
stirred up more heartburnings and
jealousy, and bitterness and strife,
than all other causes combined, just
because she would not mind her own
business.
1t is a distinctly feminine mania,
the end whereof is trouble and tribu-
lation. The average man feels he has
got about all he can manage with his
own affairs, and trouble enough of
his own, without borrowing his neigh
boris. The average woman attends to
her business in the intervals she isn't
specializing about why the Browns
don't send their children to the pub
lie school when Brown is only on
salary, and how the Smiths, across
the street, can afford new carpets this
season. And the aueerest part Of II
all is that, by some quirk of feminine
logic, this unwarranted me 1dling with
other peoples affairs is accounted a
virtue. A womanS definition CT an
other woman who was a selfish cred-
ture would be one who attended
strictly to her own business and didn't
interfere with some remedy of her
own w:.elsthc chill jcen next door h5d
the croGr.
This inability to attend to her own
business, and leave other people to
run theirs without any assistance from
her, goes long way toward explain
ing many of woman's failures. 1t is
one reason why SO many women break
down. They try to carry the universe
on their shoulders. They could man
age well enough with their own work,
and bear with sufficient fortitude their
own troubles, but when they add to
that the accumulated Affections of
everybody in the neighborhood they
collapse under the nervous strain. 1t
is doubtless a pity that Mrs. Jones
should be such poor manager, and
SO wasteful and extravaganza; it is
much to be regretted that young
Blank does not go to work and sup
port his widowed mother, possibly it
is a crying shame that the Gray baby
should be fed on Sauerkraut and beer
instead of steriliZed milk, but, after
all, we are not responsible for these
affairs, and there isn't blessed thing
we can do about them. The Jones
and the Blanks and the Grays of our
respective neighborhoods don't want
our advice, and wouldn't take it at
any rice. and we merely wear our
selves into frazzleS with unavailing
worry over something that doesn't in
the least concern us.
OF course, when there is any real
need for a Solomon we all feel capable
of speaking right up, but it is we'll to
occasionally reflect that other people
are almost as capable of running their
own affairs as we would be. This is
always a surprise to U.S. There was
probably never marriage when
everybody in the community didn't
feelf that they could have made
much more judiciOus selection for both
parties than they made for them
selves, yet divorce is comparatively
rare Every one of us is dead sure
that we could bring up everybody
else's children much better than they
are doing it, yet the children go along
turning out all right in spite of our
predictions to the contrary. We really
aff1ict ourselves about these matters.
We are reduced to tears because Sally
So-and-So is going to marry the man
she wants instead of the man we think
would suit her, and we aggravate our
souls in vain because little Mrs. Some
body else lets her babies play in the
back yard with the cat instead of
having them folding paper mats at
the kindergarten. If the sympathy we
lavish on people who don't want it
and don't need it, and the amount of
wasted energy we eXpend on other
peoples affairs could be applied to
some useful purpose, it would revo-
lutionize the world.
1t sounds a bit contradictory to say
that woman's fondness for having a
finger in every pie is at the root of
the servant girl trouble, but it is a
fact, nevertheless. In trying to at
tend to her own business a woman Of
ten overdoes it. She attends too
much. When man hires a clerk
or book-keeper he permits him free
dom to do the work within certain
lines, pretty much as he pleases, in
his own way. If he accomplishes sat-
1sfactory results 1T is all that is neces-
sary. No one nags him continually
or aggravates him with petty and in
finitesmal. hair-splitting details about
the way he does it. When he is in the
midst of making out a bill or adding
up a column of figures the proprietor
doesn't rush in with a few suggestions
or take a hand just long enough to
knock the other fellows system silly. |
On the contrary, he knows it would
simply put the clerk out. But that is
the helpful device we use toward our
servants. We never let them plan
anything out or do it in their own
way or have chance to use any