The Scheme of Things

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 100, 30 April 1938, Page 19

The Scheme of Things

By M.H.C,

A meeting held in Birmingham recently of the Open Door Council, an organisation which watches over the interests of women of all classes, was addresssd by the chairman of the council, Mrs. Florence E. Key, who has. made a study of work conditions of .women generally. She particularly emphasised the fact that dangerous legislation, which was likely to restrict women's .work in the industrial field on ! a sex basis, was of primary importance to women. The O.D.C. works lor a special object, viz., to secure that a woman shall be free to work and be protected as a worker on the same terms as a man; that legislation and regulations dealing with conditions and hours, payment, entry, and training, shall be based on the nature of the work and not on the sex of the worker; and to secure for a woman, irrespective of marriage or childbirth, the right at all times to decide whether or not she shall engage in paid work, and ' ensure . that no legislation or regulation shall deprive her of that work.

Possibly millions of women in Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand imagined that when the franchise was granted to1 women freedom for women would be a natural following, and some people, who do not follow the trend of events, imagine that this is so—but they must be very superficial observers. In New Zealand, of course, there is no question of real equality, women-are a long way down the ladder of progress, and from .many countries advice has been received of laws and regulations being passed to deprive women of the right to earn their own living. The International Federation of University Women has reported that in 17 countries there haye been attacks on. the right to employment ot women engaged in intellectual work; and from Canada, Ireland, Holland, Germany, Portugal, Rumania, ' Yugoslavia, Estonia,. Bolivia, Cuba, and Danzig comes the news that women's right'to work in gainful occupations -has been, put into tlje arbitrary power of some Ministers of State or other officials. Mrs. Key said: "In our own country, while it is true that the learned professions have admitted women into their ranks ■where tradition and prejudice make it difficult and sometimes impossible for them to rise to the highest positions, it is also true that in the industrial world workers "are not only similarly handicapped by tradition and prejudice, not only paid lower wages than their, fellow-men workers,, but by trades union agreements and by the very laws of the land are prevented from undertaking certain work and processes, and so are hindered, in their efforts to earn a living and to exercise their capacities to the full."

Mrs. Key looked round for the ■ reasons of these facts, taking only those for which women could them? selves be in' any way responsible. She' i thought that, while the suffrage move- "• ment- was going on,« all ..classes, -of women joined together and worked for the one cause, but when the war eventuated they todk up every class of work they could do to help-their country and dismissed the slogan of "Equal pay for equal work" as unworthy of notice in such times of stress/. Professional women later on went ahead a good deal, and lost sight ©f the fact that all; women were not

as free as they to follow their bent. Others taking on new and interesting jobs did not think it important that they were doing them for. less wages thon those given to men, and followed out ■ the practical details of their daily lives without considering where their cheapness was leading them. So, in one way and another, when the reaction against women set in, they did not recognise that their problems were still one, and they allowed themselves to be divided into categories such as married and unmarried k professional and industrial, skilled and unskilled, and so on. This

lack of unity, this unpreparedness for attack,, resulted, in serious, loss to women in freedom, dignity, and economic power. The National Insurance Acts have given women less benefits for their contributions than men. The Anomalies Act robbed married women workers of unemployment benefits for which they have paid.years of contributions. Various local authorities passed bylaws by which they were enabled to dismiss married women'from their employ-

ment, .merely because they were married. Last April, by a tricky manipulation of Parliamentary procedure, the Government reversed the decision of the House of Commons to give men and women civil servants equal pay for equal work.

Mrii. Key divided her points very ably thus:—Equal Pay: It is not in the interests of men workers that their women colleagues should undercut I them. Such a system operates only in the interest of the exploiter. Marriage bar: To deprive a woman worker of the right to marry is to take from her a human right and to deny to the whole of womanhood the dignity of adult status. Protective legislation: To class women with young persons in a Factories Bill ensures that either the protection afforded to the adolescent worker is inadequate or else that offered to the adult women is unnecessary. Adult women and men should be equally protected. Dangerous trades should be made less, dangerous and hours of work adapted for both, sexes. To differentiate is to drive the women out of employment, and to leave the bad conditions just as they were for men. ' /

The speaker then made the plea which has been advanced by women so often, lor co-operation between men and women in order to have the advantage of both kinds of workers and both kinds of minds, and not to continue to run the world on a onesided basis. This has been urged time and again in this country, and specially in regard to the teaching world, where women who are married are either dismissed coldly, or are subjected to humiliating inquiries about their private business and home affairs, in a way that would not be endured by any other section of the educated community, and which presses very hardly, on others who are less well able to voice their ideas and feelings about their disabilities. It seems little less than ridiculous that one section of humanity' should be out for special and unpleasant local or Governmental legislation and be obliged to endure it in "the country of the free" —surely a misnomer in these days. . ,