"IN SERVICE"—AND WHY NOT?

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1938, Page 8

"IN SERVICE"—AND WHY NOT?

"Nothing is, but thinking makes it 5.0." Thinking can remove prejudices where there is some ground for them, but thinking can also create prejudices the real foundation for which docs not exist. In this category may be placed the idea that a stigma attaches to domestic service. To Sir Josiah Stamp, "the prejudice against

domestic service in Australia is difficult to understand, for there is no stigma attaching to such service." His atlenlion is attracted to the faulty social thinking that fans this prejudice, by the visible fact that its economic effects are extensive. As a psychologist he sees no reason why a woman should hate to work for another woman in the latter's home, but as an economist he sees that the development of Australia lends to be lopsided because women seek work anywhere than in other women's houses. If farmers' wives are slaves because of lack ol domestic help, the anxiously desired rural development of Australia will be handicapped, while the urban development will be promoted out of proportion by the rush of girls and women to office and factory. Much of this could be avoided if the thinking processes that create popular prejudices could be modified. Thinking about it can make domestic service honourable qr contemptible. "It should not be considered less honourable, indus? trially or socially," says Sir Josiah Stamp, "than any other kind of service."