Mobilizing Woman-Power Part 10

One of the men conductors on the New York street railways somewhat reproachfully remarked to me, "No one ever came to look at the recreation room and restaurant at the car barns until women were taken on. Men don't seem to count." Is the reproach deserved? Have women been narrow in sympathy? Perhaps we have a.s.sumed that men can look out for themselves. They could, but in private life they never do. Women have to do the mothering. A trade-unionist is ready enough to regulate wages and hours, but he gives not a thought to surroundings in factory and workshop.

An act of protection generally starts with solicitude about a woman or child. Factory legislation took root in their needs. There was no mercy for the man worker. His only chance of getting better conditions was when women entered his occupation, and the regulation meant for her benefit indirectly served his interest.

"Men suffer more than women in certain dangerous trades, but I did not suppose you were generous enough to care anything about them," came in answer to an inquiry at a labor conference at the end of a most admirable paper on women in dangerous trades, given by one of the doctors in the New York City Department of Health. He was speaking to an audience of working women. I doubt if his hearers had given a thought to men workers.

Perhaps this is natural, since there has been going on at the same time with the development of factory legislation in America a strong propaganda directed especially at political freedom for women. We have been laying stress on the wrongs of woman and demanding very persistently and convincingly her rights. The industrial needs and rights of the man have been overlooked.

With increasing numbers of women entering the industrial world, with ever widening extension of the vote to women, and the consequent quickening of public responsibility, together with the recent experience of Europe demonstrating the importance of care for all workers, both men and women, there is ground for hope that even the United States, where protective legislation is so r.e.t.a.r.ded in development, will enter upon wide and fundamental plans for conservation of all our human resources.

Protection of the worker, housing conditions, the feeding of factory employees and school children, play grounds and recreation centers, will challenge the world for first consideration. These are the social processes which command most surely the hearts and minds of women. The churning which the war has given humanity has roused in women a realization that upon them rests at least half the burden of saving civilization from wreck. Here is the world, with such and such needs for food, clothing, shelter, with such and such needs for sanitation, hospitals, and above all, for education, for science, for the arts, if it is not to fall back into the conditions of the Middle Ages. How can women aid in making secure the national position? Certainly not by idleness, inefficiency, an easy policy of laissez faire. They must labor, economize, and pool their brains.

Women can save civilization only by the broadest cooperative action, by daring to think, by daring to be themselves. The world is entering an heroic age calling for heroic women.

APPENDIX

DOc.u.mENTS USED IN WOMEN'S WAR-WORK IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE

WAAC

WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS

CONFIDENTIAL. Reference No: J.W. 21 [o.]

Joint Woman's V.A.D. Department.

DEVONSHIRE HOUSE. PICCADILLY, LONDON. W.I.

_Return to Secretary, V.A.D Department.

Devonshire House, Piccadilly, S.W.I._

Territorial Force a.s.sociations, British Red Cross Society.

Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

Telegrams [unreadable]

Telephone Mayfair 4707

_B.R.C.S. or Order of St. John ..._

Sir,

Will you kindly fill up the following form of Medical Certificate, returning it to the address given above.

Your communication will be received as strictly confidential.

It is urgently requested that Members'

names and detachment numbers should be filled in legibly.

Yours faithfully,

MARGARET HEMPHILL

MEDICAL CERTIFICATE

1. Name

2. County No. of Detachment

3. How long have you been acquainted with her?

4. Have you attended her professionally?

5. For what complaint?

6. Is she intelligent and of active habits?

7. General health?

8. Has she flat feet, hammer-toe, or any other defect?

9. Is her vision good in each eye?

10. Is her hearing perfect?

11. Has she sound teeth, and if not, have they been properly attended to by a Dentist lately?

12. Has she shown any tendency to Rheumatism, Anaemia, Tuberculosis, or other illness?

13. When?

14. What?

15. Has she ever had influenza?

16. Does she suffer from headaches?

17. Any form of fits?

18. Heart disease or varicose veins?