THE DOMESTIC WORKER

Southland Times, Issue 22999, 19 September 1936, Page 16

THE DOMESTIC WORKER

Raising Of Status Urged

After travelling extensively through Europe and the United States and possessing already a fairly wide knowledge of Great Britain, Mrs Christopher Bennett, of London, arrived at Auckland a few days ago by the Niagara states The Dominion. Mrs Bennett, who is keenly interested in women’s social work of all descriptions, said that in the course of her travels she had found a great deal to interest her -in the lives of the women of different countries and had come to the conclusion that in every country domestic service constituted a real problem. She had not looked specially for evidence of this problem, but could not but notice that it existed everywhere in a variety of forms. The English, said Mrs Bennett, had a permanent domestic problem, but on the whole, they treated their maids with more consideration than other people. In England there was a rather definite understanding that while mistresses were of a totally different world from their maids, the latter were entitled to the ordinary freedom of the individual. The domestic servant in the United States had a rooted objection to working for an American and many of the women undertaking this work sought positions overseas.

A Dignified Career.

In Mrs Bennett’s opinion, however, domestic service needed to be placed on a new and different standing. She considered that the United States, through an endeavour to teach women and girls the scientific methods of domestic work and by instilling into them the fact that housework was at the same time a dignified and womanly career, would give it that new standing.

Consider the position of household employees in Bulgaria. They are forbidden to go out without the permission of the employer and they are not allowed out unaccompanied after 7 p.m.

in winter and 9 p.m. in summer, Mrs Bennett said. These girls worked very long hours at a variety of duties and under a strict supervision. They were treated not as individuals with private ideas and lives, but as part of the furniture of the house. Exalted Profession. Under the new regime domestic service had become more or less an exalted profession in Germany, she said. Comparatively few servants were now employed and they found a natural dignity in their work that was not evident in other countries. They were their employers’ equals and were content in their knowledge of this fact. Here and there, however, one still saw signs of the older days when the correct conventionality of the German mistress made an insurmountable barrier be-, tween her servant and herself. Much of the domestic service in Spain, before the outbreak of the civil war, was done by men, Mrs Bennett continued. Although girls and women were employed in private homes men were chosen for work in hotels and restaurants. The Spanish, like the French, treated and paid their domestic employees well, being desirous of retaining their services once they had been secured.

On every hand the complaint seemed to be based on the scarcity of domestic employees, added Mrs Bennett, who considered that actually there should be no excuse for such a complaint. There were a great many women who wished to undertake domestic work and who were trained and fitted only for that work. It was only to be expected, however, that these women would wish their hours and salary to be comparable with the hours and salaries of any other branch of work and that their personal freedom should be left undisturbed outside working hours.