WOMEN’S RIGHT TO EARN.

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 159, 15 July 1935, Page 4

WOMEN’S RIGHT TO EARN.

“A programme for the relief of unemployment has been offered by a labour compliance officer for the National Recovery Act in Massachusetts, which would bar women from entering industry and displace the 6,000,000 women now employed in the United States with as many unemployed men at a family wage,” observes the “Christian Science Monitor.” 4 “Wage-earning women are held responsible not only for unemployment among men, but for such menaces to the life of the nation as divorce, race suicide, and prevention of the normal development of family life. There is too much vim in American women and too much fair play in American men to make it probable that any such suggestions will be carried out. Nevertheless, these definite proposals represent a type of thought that has gained headway to an astonishing degree and must be analysed. The carrying out of such a policy would violate the inherent right of every individual to work and to choose his or her work. This right, of course, is not the prerogative of one sex. If low wages and unemployment among men have been caused by the exploitation of women workers, the first thing for men to do is to take women into their unions and demand that they receive equal pay with men for the same work. The first step in the reform suggested is the removal of married women workers whose husbands are earning enough to support them. The fact is overlooked that many men who have independent incomes sufficient to support them in comfort and even in luxury are holding positions and drawing salaries which, it might be argued, should go to unemployed men. If jobs are to be given to those who need them most, then our present system must be entirely overhauled. It is imperative that the public view suggestions for the solution of our economic problems in their true light and not try to climb out of the slough of unemployment on the shoulders of women.”