CURLS SWEEP UPWARDS AND BACKWARDS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 40, 26 November 1938, Page 7

CURLS SWEEP UPWARDS AND BACKWARDS

or are bored at home—should step out of the industrial market in times of unemployment, because the need is so great among the unemployed that it ceases to be a sex question and becomes a community concern—a question of practical necessity. Neither men nor women individually are indispensable in the larger areas of production and distribution.

In the professions the case is somewhat different. A woman schoolteacher, for example, has to undergo as much training as is required from her male colleague. The woman doctor must serve a long apprenticeship. The woman engaged in financial, technica., or supervisory positions, up to a point, will have a greater marketable value on account of her experience. I would add to that, branches of the Civil Service in which

women are employed on practically equal terms of responsibility with men. It takes a long time to build up the experience to make u really valuable Inspector of Factories or of Trade Boards, and it is a pity that such knowledge and experience should be lost, provided always that the woman who undertakes a job of work is prepared to do as men are required to do, which is to recognise the fact that the job must take precedence over social or family obligations.

Another point to be remembered is that it is no good trying to fill responsible positions with a divided mind. The mother of a young child is often distracted by the illness of that child. She is torn between the necessity to fulfill her professional obligations and the desire to be with the child. That is bad

both for business and child,

But I full/ agree with those women who point out that, under modem conditions, the small family, the electrically equipped, labour-saving house, and the rapid development of transportation, leave the‘ woman of the home with many hours in whi,' she feels she could be doing something more useful than playing bridge or paying calls. She does not find the work of running a house sufficiently absorbing to occupy the many hours of leisure which e. good and methodical hou: can easily secure.

I feel very strongly that if women* merely take up some paid work partly to get some extra pocket money, partly ( through .sheer boredom, they do not, really make a good contribution either' to the profession they serve or to the,

home they leave, because they , haven’t made up their minds exactly what 4hey want to do. 1 would say that, in the present state of social development, assuming that the pressure cf economic conditions did not exist, it would be much better for a woman with time on her hands who wants to do something outside her home to devote herself to becoming a good citizen. - There is plenty of work waiting • for her in connection with the growth of social services, in trying to become a good neighbour, in trying to understand and sympathise with the- troubles of other people, and, above all, in so qualifying herself for goodcitizenship that she will use her vote in the right'direction when she has the opportunity. She can further advance by becoming so well info t .cl about the problems of