, 1921-12-08
THE MANLEss MILLIONS.


Margaret Walter, writing in Leslie's, asks the ques-
ton, What are England's two million extra women
going to do with themselves7" She admits the sub
ject is agitating everybody except the two million
themselves. Then she proceeds to tell US. q.
"Some people talk about dual marriages. There is
a whisper going the rounds about a new sex relation
ship, but Miss Lillian Charlotte Barker, c. 3. E., who
knows more about English women than anybody in
the world, says there is a simple answer to all the
agitation, and that answer is work.
Miss Barker began as an elementary school teach
e. at the age of eighteen. and gradually worked her
self up until she was acknowledged to be the au-
thority on common school education for girls. She
was the principal of the largest women's institute in
the country when war broke out and Immediately it
was formed she enlisted in the Women's Legion, be-
coming its first commandant. The government put
her in charge of the &c, 900 women employed at the
Woolwich arsenal, at the same time making her chief
inspector of women munitions workers all over the
country. Then she was transferred to the women's
training section of the ministry of labor and is now
executive officer for the training and employment of
women who suffered during the war through the loss
of their men supporters.
''Two-thirds of the female population Of this coun-
try have passed through Miss Bankers hands as school
children, munitions girls and women and industrial
workers.
THAT 2,ooo, 900 of extra women in England is
perfectly all right and don't you forget it," declared
Miss Barker. Don't you worry one particle about
them. There's a big lot of work to be done in this
country and the women are going to do their share
of it. You just keep your eyes fixed hard on them
and you'll see 'em on the job.
But don't they want husbands? Aren't women a
a discount n menace to civilization, as Professor
Geddes says?" I began.
Eyes, they want husbands and let me tell you one
thing that every woman knows. Every one of those
100000 girls thinks she's going to have a husband,
every girl born thinks she'll have a husband when the
time comes. What we have got to, do is to help those
girls to get work so that they will forget themselves
and their own personal desires in their job. They did
it in the war.
England is a moral nation; we women aren't 60
ing to forget all our traditions and prove false to our
ideals now after the test we have passed these last
Go ,ao-- NJ 4, la E - III -. u 4
remember what the women did in the war. There
was a big job to be done then and not a single woman
too many. They left off being just women, they dried
their tears for their men at the front and every last
one of them buckled to and did her bit, and did it
fine.
"Then came the hardest test of all. The men came
home. They wanted their jobs back and the women
gave them up. Did anybody hear any squeals about
that? Did the women say that they could do the jobs
better than shell-shocked, wartorn, nerve-racked SOL
diers? They did not, and they never will. They just
quietly stepped down and out. Most of them, and a
good many men, too, have no jobs at all.
"But we have touched rock bottom, the worst is
past. Trade is picking up and the women will soon be
swarming to the factories and the offices, contented
and Industrious, as it is the nature of English women
to be.
mo, English girls are not going downhil. but up-
hill. And it is uphill in every sense. They can't ex-
pect and they don't get the help from the men that
they might at another time, because the men are up
against the stiffest proposition of their time, too. But
at least this is a problem that is being fought shoulder
to shoulder, men and women, and it's being fought
straight and clean.
"a girl has never come to me and complained that
she wanted a husband and couldn't get one. Some
times they say they want babies. Then we train them
in some department of baby service and they make
good every time. There is always plenty of employ
ment for the best highly trained nursery worker or
teacher.
"Let 'enl work. That's all we want for the 1000.
oo0 that's all they want for themselves. But at Jobs
they have chosen themselves. And after all, we WON
en- are not all born mothers. Remember that"