Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1911-12-26
Woman Worker Must Be Brought
to Take Her Labor as a
Serious Matter.
ROUTINE WORK NOT ENOUGH
In the Economic Field Every One Suf-
fers by Almost Universal IncIina-
ton to Consider Employment
as Mere Preliminary to
Marriage.


What can be done to make the wom-
an worker take herself seriously? In
other words, how can women be
brought to regard their work in the
same spirit as men do. and not as a
mere means of filling in the time be-
tween leaving school and going to the
altar?
1t is this almost general inclination
of the feminine wage-earner to look
upon her work as something temporary
that presents one Of the most serious
problems in the whole of the econom-
ic field. Every one suffers by it,
Generally speaking, the employer of
girls and young women would find his
business slowly starving to death if
he had to rely upon them for those
Illuminating ideas and originality that
are the life and soul of commercial,
enterprise. Women in a business con
Germ rarely bring anything into the
common fund except a capacity for
routine work. Once a typist always
typist, once shopgirl always shop
girl-always, that is, until marriage
worker is always expecting,
There is also the effect of this atti
tude upon the economic position of the
women themselves to be considered.
The majority of feminine wage-earn.
ers are content !, they can earn suf-
ficient money to keep their self-re-
spect and to provide themselves with
food and clothing and shelter during
the problematical period of waiting
for husband to turn up.
They make no effort to improve
their position. In many cases they re-
gard it as a waste of time and en-
deaVor to attempt to increase their
wage-earning capacity. Sooner or la
ter they viii be carried off to the altar
to begin new existence-the life that
really does matter.
Now, so long as women thing on
these lines so long will they be salts
fed with low rate of wages. We may
go even further, and say that so long
also will they remain deserving of a
low rate of wages. for they will only
be capable OF filling positions that
ability.
1t is easy to realize the evil effects
this state OF affairs has upon the
economic position of men workers. I'm
scrupulous employers are tempted by
the enormous competition existing for
easy berths that demand little knowl-
edge or ability TO reduce wages to the
lowest possible, trusting that the more
skilled and earnest male will be forced
into putting up with them in prefer
ence to starving, which. indeed. hap
pens in most cases.
Now as to the future. Will woman
mend her ways, or viii she continue to
create confusion and mistrust in the
labor market? AS far as one can de-
termine, a change will probably come
over her outlook She will take her
self seriously as a worker from the
time when she commences her ca
reer in the world as a young girl
Whether she welcomes this solution
to the problem or not, 1t is being slow
IL forced upon her.
The birthrate is the chief factor in
the situation; with its present three
women to two men standard, at least
one woman out Of every three must
perforce go husbandless. Nowadays,
of course. it takes a lifetime to decide
which shall be the one who is to be
left to work undisturbed. Later on.
perhaps, some process of natural Sc
lection will take upon itself the bust
ness Of making this decision. and do
so unerringly and at time when
woman is one the threshold of life.
Then, like the bees, we may achieve
a race of woman workers quite dis
tinct from their sisters dedicated to
domesticity, a race who will establish
for themselves monopoly of all forms
of labor for wages, and constitute. as
It were. a third sex.-Exchange.