Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-12-05
FALSE PRIDE.
.s- BY DOROTHY DIX
The WORLDS Highest Paid Woman
Writer.

= writer.
- HE reason that so many women
are failures is because so many
business women are ashamed OF
their jobs.
Lately ] have been thrown with a
woman who is we'' born and well edu'
Gated, and until two years ago moved
( in fashionable social circles. Then
her husband suddenly died, and as
they had spent everything he made in
: keeping up with their rich friends, she
was left destitute.
I. She studied stenography and was
given q place in a business office by
a man who had often been her guest
in her palmy days, but instead of be-
ing proud that she had enough intelli'
gence, courage and independence to
strike out for herself instead of becom-
ing dependent upon the grudgtng
charity OF others, this silly woman was
Inundated to death because she had
TO 60 TO work.
] think ] have never seen anything
more pathetic than her false pride,
pride that made her boast continually
of the four hundred and of having
spent a week end at some million
aires palatial country home, or taken
trip on some trust magnate's yacht.
II made you want to weep to hear her
recount her past social triumphs In
one breadth and In the next wall be-.
cause most of her former friends AMI
aequaintances had dropped her as II
she had been suddely smitten with the
leprosy as soon as she had become
poor and needy. p.
This woman had no interest in her
work, no ambition to excel IN 1t. Every
particle of brain and energy she had
was concentrated on banging on 70
what little social position she had left
and keeping up the fiction that she
had taken up stenography as a fad to
occupy her thoughts and keep her
from grieying too much over the loss
OF her husband, instead Of having
taken It up as business by which to
make bread and butter.
This poor lady's case stirred my
deepest compassion, not because fate
had forced her to become producer
Instead Of just a Waster and spender
for believe that none but those who
work have any excuse for living but
j because her false pride made the way
so hard for her and doomed her To-
ultimate failure.
She missed the thrill ana 10y Of In
dependence because she was ashamed
to be known as working woman.
She missed that deep satisfying exal-
tation that the craftsman has in good
work done because she despised the
labor at which she toiled. She missed
the sincere friendship and companion
ship that she might have had among
her fellow workers because she.
scorned them as beings Of inferior So
cial caste. She skunk into her BUSH
ness office as II she had been going to-
some disgraceful rendezvous and were
trying to escape recognition, and she
tortured herself wondering what some
brainIess cad she had once known
would be saying Of her.
Is It any wonder that such q woman
holds her place only on suffrancel
that will soon be worn threadbaref Or
that her. work Is bad? Or that she
Rill never get q dollar more salary,
or be advanced to any higher place?
No human being ever did work well
who was ashamed of IL Il Is only
pride that puts the punch in any
labor that makes II great To make e.
success. you have to believe that the
thing you are doing Is the finest and
best thing in the world and that you
are the iucIkiest person alive 70 have
been elected to do It.
People complain that women's work
a 30 often bad work This is true,
and their work is bad because they
are ashamed of It and have no inter-
est In it, but the fault does not lie
with the individual woman so much
as with the false teaching Of which
women have been the unfortunate VIC
tins.
Men have had the ideal of indepen.
dence bred into them. Men have been
taught that work was glorious, that is
was shameful thing for man to
PASS his life IN an Idle round Of
Measure, and that the most admired
iaan was the man who did his work
hest. That is why men boast of be-
sfig lawyers, doctors, merchants, manu-.
facturers, mechanics.
on the contrary, women have been
taught that II Il isn't actually dis
graceful for q woman to work it is az |