The Washington herald., 1918-08-12
Put the Women to Work.
BY DOROTHY DIX
THE WORLDS HIGHEST PAID WOMAN WRITER.

Now that Uncle Sam has reached
out a strong hand. clutched the
masculine loafers by the slack of
their garments and dragged them
up to the work bench and is re-
quiring every man to show that he
is engaged in some useful labor,
let us hope that he will deal in the
same manner with parasitic women.
What is sauce for the gander is
sauce for the goose. The idle, lazy.
worthless woman Is just as much
| a menace to the country as the lazy,
idle, worthless man Is. There Is no
more excuse for a woman eating the
bread she has not earned than there
is for a man. and IL this war can
take the poor. spineless. purposeless,
ambitionless, useless specimens OF
humanity of both sexes and turn them
into energetic, efficient competent
men and women it will have done
something, at least, to atone for it's
horrors.
So far as women are concerned,
no one will deny that their chief
vice. as a sex, is laziness. They
adore softness. They like bodily
ease. 1t requires heroic effort in
a "OlI0h " 70 IIld lIlt
slightest effort, even to think. She
is too supine to get up and fight.
That is why women have been down
trodden throughout the ages. 1t
was easier to bear political, social
and domestic wrong than it was
to rebel against them.
All Of woman's much heralded
patience and endurance is nothing
but laziness, physical and moral.
Out of this laziness grew the ira
dition that it was a misfortune for
a woman to have to do any kind of
labor. and women cherished this
tradition so assiduously. and prop
agated it so artfully, that at last
they convinced man that it was a
reflection on him il he did not main
tain his womenkind in idle worthless
ness.
And to this day this theory still
prevails. The woman who has to do
her own housework looks upon her
self as a poor. prosecuted martyr,
and her husband feels ashamed of
himself that he can't provide her
with a maid, though why any
healthy, intelligent, able-bodied
woman isn't just as much called up
on to put her shoulder to the wheel
of the family chariot and boost it
along as the husband is. nobody can
say.
Also everybody pities and poor
things" the woman who goes out into
the world to work for her own Iiv-
ing, no matter how competent she
may be, nor how much money she
can earn. II she has a husband, he
feels disgraced by it. II she Is un-
married, her father and brothers
adopt an apologize attitude and ex-
plain it by attributing it to some
vagary Of the girls peculiar dispose
tion that made her freakish and un-
like real, feminine woman.
And when women are forced by
necessity to work. they nearly al
ways do ii under protest. and do as
little Of 1t as they can. That is why
they so seldom succeed in their un-
dertakings, and why woman's work is
so badly paid. They are too lazy to
even learn how to perform their Jobs
properly, and to do the extra work
that is the bridge over which one
passes from mediocrity to the place
of responsibility and the big pay en-
velope.
This is true in every department. of
womens work; Women cook for
forty years and never learn how to-
make bread that isn't menace to
peace and happiness. or boil a potato
that isn't an incentive to murder.
Women sew from the cradle to the
grave without ever finding out how
to put on q button or hook So Il
won't come of. Offices and stores
have a continual procession OF young
women passing through who have
plenty Of brains to make themselves
heads Of departments. private secre-
taries, or cracker-jack bookkeepers.
but who never get anywhere because