The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1922-08-01
10 WOMEN LAWYERS
TO REPORT SEX STATUS
GEORGIA ONE OF COMMON
WEALTHS IN WHICH DIS
ELIMINATION CHARGED.
"WANT MORE FREEDOM
National Party Claims That in Many
States Legal Chances Are Defeated
When Wives Accept Man-Made
Rule That They Belong in Home.

= AANs any 0SAOAA6 hA AAOAAASs
WASHINGTON, D. C.-Ten wo.
men lawyers, commissioned by the Ma
tional Women's party, are working in
the library of the United States SUI
preme court, making the first compre-
hensive report on the legal position oil
women in this country. Results Of their
study will be presented to the national
conference of the organization next
November as basis for a construc-
tive program to remove so-called legal
and economic handicaps from Ameri-
can women.
Miss Alice Paul, former national
chairman, who has just graduated
from law college, suggests that wo-
men have present day assumption on
the part OF men as to how women
should be safeguarded or restrained in
the industrial field. She takes the posi-
ton that instead of enacting laws, sucA
as those in Ohio which forbid wo-
men to shine shoes, operate taxicabs
and so forth, the community should
enact and enforce legislation making
all OF these trades safe and decent,
through police measures on the one
hand and industrial improvement on
the other 4
Sees Women Exploited.
Exclusion OF women from given
trades, she holds, puts a premium upon
industrial ineficiency just to the extent
that it reduces competition; moreover,
it operates to drive women into un-
willing compromises in the industrial
struggle. 1t is one more instance in
which women have been exploited, as
a class she says, for the economic
benefit OF men, as a class, but under
the manmade assumption that their
exploitation is for the good of the race.
Good of the race, Miss Paul de-
clares, rests primarily upon the free
dom OF its members to develop their
own lives unexpected by other mem
bers of the race Good of the race,
then, requires that women be not
crowded out of the industrial field in
order that they may the more sub
missively do the domestic drudgery
of the world, regardless of personal
preference or usefulness Homes should
be built on mutual idealism rather
than upon the defeat of women in the
breadwinning competition-a defeat
prepared by so-called discriminatory
laws.
Women in many of the states today,
the women's party inquiry finds. do
not even get a reasonable legal chance
when they accept the made rule
that they belong in the home. The
Maryland legislature, for example, at
its session just closed, refused to in
terfere with any of the numerous al
legged determinations against women
in the laws of inheritance, divorce, le-
gal domicile, control of children and
control of the services and earnings of
married women. 1t declined to permit
women to sit on juries in Maryland.
Fight in Many States.
What the National Wonan's party
attempted to do in Maryland it tried
during the past sessions to do also in
the legislatures OF Virginia, Massa-
chusetts, Louisiana and Mississippi
Small gains were made in each state.
In Georgia a battle to remove these
handicaps is under way. In Louisiana
twelve changes were secured out OF
some 50 asked for Six changes were
won in Virginia.
I'VE are not opposed to eighthour
laws and minimum wage laws, or to
the prohibition of night work where
industrial conditions are bad" Miss
Paul says, 1--WE simply demand that
these laws be applied to men and
women alike. in all fairness. We chal-
lenge the process which, under guise
of safeguarding women, does, in fact
rob them OF an equal chance with men
to be self-supporting and self-respect-
ing. If humanitarians are able to prove
that long hours are injurious to wo-
men they can prove by the same facts
that long hours are injurious to wo-
men and men. We ask that protective
legislation be made to apply to every
one alike. so that industrial conditions
may be definitely improved. To apply
to women alone is palpable evasion.