The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-02-05
DOROTMY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Does Business Harden Women?

world on the ground that it will
harden them, and rob them of their
feminine charms and virtues.
When you ask these DIRECTORS which
OF the essentially feminine character
istics are likely to be so injuriously
affected by the entrance of women
into the trades and professions, they
hem and haw, and finally say, "Oh,
well, you know-er-er-women won't be
SO sweet and womanly. They won't be
so trusting and confiding. They'll be
more suspicious, and worldly wise, self
assertive and all that kind of thing,
you know
IF you mean that the woman who
has acquired enough strength and
backbone to stand alone won't be a
clinging vine any longer, you are
right" you answer patiently but is
there anything so peculiarly admirable
in floppy, spineless, wet dish rag
sort of woman, who has to hang on
to any man upon whom she may get
her clutches? Do you really think
that the parasite woman is the highest
type of womanhood? Do you think
that the girl who marries to get some
man to support her shows that she is
of finer and higher nature than the
girl who rolls up her sleeves and goes
to work to support herself?
Don't you know from your own
observation that there is nothing else
in the world that so utterly democrat
ICES character, whether it's woman's
character or mans character, as de-
pendence? Did you ever know a hui
man being who grated his or her
living who wasn't a liar and a
sycophant, and filled with envy and
spite? And on the other hand, don't
you know that there is a magic in
Independence that gives people self
respect, and poise, honesty and
dignity?
II know two girls, both of whom
are pretty, and attractive and poor.
One of them sponges around, a self
invited guest, who is never wanted,
and who is forever hunting for gifts
of clothes and money, and who will
marry any man on earth who can sup
port her, regardless of her feelings
towards him.
The other girl refused the offer of
rich relative to become member
of his family. She studied stenog-
raphy. and is holding down a good job
in business house, and when she
marr1es it will be for a high and holy,
not sordid reason. Which of these
girls character do you admire the
more, the one that has been nodded
by society OF business?
perhaps business training will
make women more suspicious and less
trusting. Let us hope SO, at any
events. A trusting nature has never
gotten anybody anywhere except into
trouble, and it's been wonan's ever
lasting undoing. There isn't a trag-1
edy of a lost woman that doesn't begin
with her blind trust in some faithless
man. Anything that will make women
use their heads more and their hearts
less will be a godsend to the sex.
las for business robbing women of
the finer feminine qualities, give your
self no uneasiness about that It sim
ply gives them room for freer and
fuller expression.
/ Take self sacrifice, for instance
That has always been considered wo-
mans star virtue. Well, the business
woman exafts self sacrifice to the nth
power. have worked among working
women for a quarter of century. and
! have known thousands of them in
timately, and from Sarah Bernhard
seventy-three and crippled still work
ing to support her family, to the hum
blest cash girl who turns over her thin
pay envelope to her mother, L have
never known a single working woman
who wasn't giving the best part of her
earnings to taking care of somebody
else.
There isn't an office, there isn't
store, there isn't a factory. that hasn't
in it some woman who is making a
heroic sacrifice of herself on the altar
of her family, who isn't sacrificing her
chance for happiness in life to take
care of her old parents. or give her
younger brothers and sisters the OPP
portunitieS that she never had.
And as for the other bromide fem
mime virtue-sympathy-i you want
to see it in its flower look for it among
working women. The woman who has
never known what it was to be hun
cry, cold, or racked with anxiety
about the rent money, does not know
how to feel. Her heart has never
really been touched. 1t takes the wo-
man who has been thru the hell of
poverty to sympathize with the poor
IF you want help don't go to the
rich society woman, go to the business
woman. She will split her last nickel
with you. She will help you get work
She will teach the new girl her job
and above all she will extend the char
ity of kindly judgment and pity
to the woman who stumbles and falls
because she herself has trod the road
and knows how many and dangerous
are its pitfalls.
"Of course no one will deny that go
ing into business will mould the fem
mime character along different lines,
but it seems to me that the change
will be for the better, not for, the
worse.
ITO begin with. the business girl
will be far less easy to please about
men than the domestic girl She viii
also be less eager to marry. The girl
who had no occupation, no interest in
life, ana whose family made her feel
at every turn that it was time she. was
getting off of its hands. could not
afford to be overly squean1ish about
men, and she practically had to- jump
at her first chance
1.-The girl who is able to make
enough money to support herself quite
as con1forta bly, as any man is likely
to. and who has the absorbing inter
est of a congenia1 occupat ion. does not
have to marry either for career or
a support, and she thinks a long time
before she exchanges a job for a hus-
band.
But the man she marries has the
blessed assurance that he is being
married for himself alone, and that
he must be regular fellow if a clear |
headed intelligent young woman
thought him worthy to be her mate
1.-The business girl will undoubtedly |
be less emotional than the old fash |
toned domestic girl was. She won't |