WOMEN AND WORK

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 45, 21 February 1918, Page 9

WOMEN AND WORK

WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL

ASSOCIATION

A most interesting lecture entitled "Women and Work," was delivered by Miss M. Clara Collisson, 8.A., Lecturer in History to the Department o£ Tutorial Classes, University of Sydney,, last night, under the auspices of the Women's Educational Association, in tho Emerson Hall, Vivian-street. Sir Robert Stout (Chancellor o£ the New Zealand University) presided, arid there was a- good attendance, composed mostly of women. Miss Collisson said that her chief aim in this lecture was to prove, by reference to the Middle Ages ; that women's desire for expansion of interests was by no means of recent growth, but that, on the contrary, women had once shared to a very large extent, in all phases of social and industrial life, and that it was not until comparatively recent times that they had become economically unimportant and mere parasites. To prove her contention, the lecturer discussed woman's position and opportunities during tho Middle Ages under three beadings—Legal status, social life, and industrial life. English women came of age at 18, were property owners, and economically better off than to-day, owing to the habit of providing daughters with dowries, which unmarried women could dispose of as they wished. Women could and did act as burgesses, even ai members of some merchant guilds, and had the right to act as trustees. The duties of the wives of the greater barons were many and various, the entire management of lands and family being left to them should their lords be absent upon war or Staio business. They also shared in all the social life; hunted, went on pilgrimage, even waged war on occasion.

The proof was clear that the desire and capacity of women for work went further back than opponents of modern training would like us to believe, said Miss Collisson. The struggle was now becoming very intense. We must pause and consider whither we were tending. Were we going to allow things to get as bad in our new country as in the older world? The real blunder was our social system, which in a country like England produced a population of whom two millions lived on less than 25s a week —a system which made marriage to a poor man a penal.blunder. How could' working men who had enough intelligence (as so many had to-day) to wish for 'their children better surroundings and greater opportunities than they had themselves incur the burden involved by a family ? Why should we expect women to be eager to take upon themselves all the load of personal suffering and anxious worry concerning ways and means that married life on small means demanded? Besides, we were bound to remember that to-day, unless we were prepared to .return to savagery and sanction polygamy, a. large number of women could not marry. Others, having lost their men through tho war, would choose to remain bachelor-women. What were they to do? 'They were still potential mothers. Had they not a right to expend that maternal care upon the community to which they belonged ? Social evils of all kinds awaited solution. If they were ever to bo solved the women must take them in hand, and the new point of view needed if society was to be regenerated must come from the women. They possessed three great qualities—wide sympathy, deep tolerance, eternal love. Such qualities existed in women, who lacked intellectual training, and in them were often of very little use owing to their inarticulateness. Before they could be of real use as the saviours of society they must prepare themselves by patient, careful study. How was this to be done ? The Workers' Educational Association provided the necessary organisation for the training needed. It existed in order to provide higher education to men and women alike. In its classes university graduate and industrial worker met on equal terms, and together studied the economic and social problems confronting society to-day, and learned by the free exchange of thought and opinion to honour and respect each other and to work hand in hand for the well-being of the communiyt so dear to both alike.

This association had already taken firm hold in Australia, and, its value being recognised by the Government, had not been crippled by lack of funds. In New Zealand it had existed for three years and done good work in the different centres.

At tho conclusion of the lecture Mr. Reardon moved a hearty.vote of thanks, and Miss Collisson, in acknowledging it, said she was the bearer of fraternal greetings from the Australian W.E.A. Executive, of which she was a member, to the New Zealand centre.