The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-07-18
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman wr1tsr.
The Difference Between the sexes.-1.

The Difference Between the Sexes.-1.
Now that the war has forever done
away with that small and circum-
scribed circle that was called "wo-
mans sacred sphere" and has forced
hundreds OF thousands of women into
occupations heretofore exclusively fol-
lowed by men, employers are begin
ming to note with interest the essential
differences between the two sexes.
They say that girls learn more
quickly than boys, that they are more
accurate, more faithful and better at
routine work than boys. They are
more careful in handling goods. they
break and waste less, but they have
less initiative than boys, and no desire
whatever. apparently, to know why
they do such and such a thing.
They seldom even try to understand
the mechanism of the machine they
operate, or to learn the history of the
goods they are trying to sell. They
are content to do their little part and
get their little pay envelope, without
or feeling that they are an important
cog in the wheels of great snter-
prise.
But, according to the consensus of
opinion among these new employers
of feminine labor, while the boys are
indifferent to the men over them eX-
c. IT insofar as they are good bosses
or bad BOSSES" the girls take a lively
personal interest in their superior Of
ficers, and will do appreciably more
and better work for superintendent
that they like than for those they do
not like. Also the girls are found
most. effective in work that brings
fhar1 in CnntaN with nfhar
In other words. boys are interested
| in THINGS and girls are interested IN
PEOPLE. This is one of the funda-
| mental differences between the sexes
that you may see illustrated from the
cradle up. 1t is never the little girl
| who takes the clock apart to see what
made the tick inside of it, nor is ii
the little boy who plays lady-come-to-
see and pretends that she is mother
gone a-visiting.
| OF course there is biological prin-
ciple at the root of this difference be-
tween the sexes. Nature decreed that
mans chief interest should be II
things and in learning how to dc
| them, because it is his business in the
world to provide the shelter and the
| food for the sustaining, of a helpless
| family of young ones. And nature i'm
/ plants an undying interest in people
| in womanS breast, because it is hel
province to manufacture human be-
| ings.
When a group of men get together
| they talk business, politics, art, litera
ture: they tell each other humorou:
stories. When they talk about the
| war their, minds dwell on the mar
velous mechanism of the big guns
they speculate about the best type.
of airplanes; they discuss the raising
of the billions of dollars that must b
had to carry on the fight. So far a:
| a personal element enters into 1t, it I:
chiefly an appreciation Of the Drawer,
of some hero, or a weighing of the
rela i've merits of the great com
| manders.
When women get together their tall
is invariably confined to the persona
note. They talk necessarily abou
themselves, their children, their hus
bands, their friends They are equal
ly keen about hearing every detail o
their friends lives. They discuss by
giene, pure food, anti-tuberculosi
leagues and so on, because these di
rectly affect their own children ans
other women's children.
When they talk of the war they pas
over all the engines of death that tn,
ingenuity of man has contrived, ant
: they speak only of the suffering of tn
men in the trenches and of the sorrow
that wrings the mother heart of TIL
world. The majority of women don
even try to r~--stand how this grea
calamity was brought about. 1t i
enough for them to know that human
beings are being slaughtered. withou
asl-ir~ why.
A~@ 49,