The Modern Woman's Rights Movement Part 2

In Boston trained nurses are employed to make visits to the homes of the school children. An agitation is on foot to have women inspectors of schools.

In all woman's suffrage states special attention is devoted to educational matters. Thus the State of Idaho appropriated $2500 for the establishment of a lectureship in domestic science. From 1872 to 1900 the number of women students has increased 148.7 per cent (while the number of men students increased 60.6 per cent). Among women there are also fewer illiterates, drunkards, and criminals; in other words, women are the more moral and better educated part of the American population; and it is these who are excluded from active partic.i.p.ation in political affairs.

The number of women lawyers is estimated at one thousand; in twenty-three states they may plead in the Supreme Court. Women lawyers have their own professional organizations.

In Ohio, women are employed in the police service; in Pennsylvania they are appointed as tax-collectors; in the city of Portland a woman was appointed as inspector of markets with police power. Women justices of the peace are as numerous as women mayors. In Oregon a woman is secretary to the governor, for whom she acts with full authority.

In all woman's suffrage states women act as jurors. Besides these states only Illinois permits women to serve as jurors--and then only in a juvenile court.

There are said to be about 2000 women journalists. Their writings are often sensational, but in the United States sensationalism is characteristic of the profession.

Of women preachers there are 3,500, belonging to 158 different denominations. Among these women preachers there are also negresses. The women study in theological seminaries, are ordained and devote themselves either to the real calling of the ministry, social rescue work, or to the woman's rights propaganda, as does the excellent speaker, the Reverend Anna Shaw. The women preachers who devote themselves to social rescue work usually study medicine also, so that they can first secure confidence as persons skilled in the cure of the body, and then later the cure of the soul is less difficult.

There are 7000 women in the medical profession,--more than in any other profession. The first women who studied medicine were American, Elizabeth Blackwell having done so as early as 1846. Only the University of Geneva (New York) would admit her; in 1848 she graduated there. Then she continued her studies in Paris and London, returning in 1851 to New York, in order to practice. Her first patients were Quakers. Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily (Blackwell) then founded in New York the "Hospital for Indigent Women," to which the medical schools in Boston and Philadelphia sent their graduates to obtain practical work.[20] A large number of women lawyers, preachers, and doctors are married. In 1900 the total number of women in the professions (exclusive of teaching) was 16,000. In 1900, 14.3 per cent of the female population were engaged in industries; since 1880 the number of women engaged in the professions and industries increased 128 per cent (while that of the men increased 76 per cent).[21]

Most of the technical schools admit women. There are fifty-three women architects. The Woman's Building of the World's Exposition in Chicago (1893) was designed by Sophia Haydn and erected under her supervision. It is not unusual for women who are owners of business enterprises to take technical courses. Thus Miss Jones, as her father's heir, became, after a careful education, manageress of her large steel works in Chicago. The Cincinnati pottery [Rookwood], founded by women, is also managed by them.

There are five women captains of ships, four women pilots, and twenty-four women engineers.

During twenty-five years, women have had 4000 inventions patented. The women of the South produced fewest inventions. But in these fields women still meet with prejudice and difficulties. In increasing numbers women are becoming bankers, merchants, contractors, owners or managers of factories, shareholders, stock-brokers, and commercial travelers. About 1000 women are now engaged in these occupations. As office clerks women have stood the test well in the United States. They are esteemed for their discretion and willingness to work. They are paid $12 to $20 a week.

According to the most recent statistics on the trades and professions (1900) there were 1271 women bank clerks, 27,712 women bookkeepers, and 86,118 women stenographers.

In the civil service we find fewer women (they are not voters): in 1890 there were 14,692, of whom 8474 were postal, telephone, and telegraph clerks, and 300 were police officials. In 1900, the total number of women engaged in commerce was 503,574.

The prejudice against the women of the lower cla.s.ses is still evident.

Here at the very outset there is a great difference between the wages of men and women, the wages of the latter being from one third to one half lower. This is caused partly by the fact that women are given the disagreeable, tiresome, and unimportant work, which they _must_ accept, not being given an opportunity to do the better cla.s.s of work,--frequently because they have not learned their trade thoroughly. A further cause for the lower wages of women is that they are working for "pocket-money" and "incidentals," and thus spoil the market for those who must pay their whole living expenses with what they earn. Among the women workers of the United States there are two cla.s.ses,--the industrial cla.s.s and the amateurs. The latter make the existence of the former almost impossible.

Such a compet.i.tion is unknown to men in industrial work. Mrs. v. Vorst[22]

proposes a solution--to make the industrial amateurs become special artisans by means of a longer apprenticeship, thus relieving the industrial slaves from injurious compet.i.tion.

Office work and work in the factories enables the American women of the middle and lower cla.s.ses to satisfy their desire for independence; those who are not obliged to provide for themselves wish at least to have money at their disposal. That is a thoroughly sound aspiration. These girls become factory employees and not domestic servants, (1) because work in their own home is not paid for (the general disregard of housework drives the women striving for independence away from the house); (2) because of the absence of regularity in housework; (3) because the domestic servants are not free on Sundays; (4) because they must live with the employers.

These facts are established by answer to inquiries made by Miss Jackson, factory inspector of Wisconsin.

The women employed in the stores and factories are in general paid about the same wages, $4 to $6 a week. A saleswoman, upon whom greater demands are made as to dress and personal appearance, finds it more difficult to live on these wages than would the woman employed in the factory. As pocket-money, however, this sum is a very good remuneration, and this explains why the girls of these cla.s.ses, in imitation of the bad example set them by the members of the upper ranks of society, manifest such an extraordinary taste for costly clothes and expensive pleasures. In 1888, an official inquiry showed that 95 per cent of the women laborers lived at home; in 1891 another official inquiry showed that one third of the women laborers earned $5 a week; two thirds from $5 to $7, and only 1.8 per cent earned more than $12, while the men laborers earned on the average $12 to $15 a week. Women laborers are organized as yet only to a small extent (1 per cent, while 10 per cent of the men are organized). There are separate social-democratic organizations of women, formed through the Federation of Labor.

The workingwomen especially will be helped by the right to vote. In the "Political Equality Series" appears a pamphlet ent.i.tled _Why does the Working-woman need the Right to Vote?_ In the first place she needs the right to vote in order to secure higher wages. Just suppose that the members of the typographical union were to-morrow deprived of their right to vote. Only their full political emanc.i.p.ation could again restore them to their former position of prestige among the working cla.s.ses. This is exactly the case with the women, and they have not even reached the highly-developed organization of the typographers. A politically unfree laboring cla.s.s is also unable to maintain its vocation against a laboring cla.s.s possessing political rights; _if the vocation is remunerative the unfree cla.s.s will be deprived of it or be kept from it altogether_. The oppression of the workingwomen has its effect also on men through its tendency to lower wages. Therefore at the present time the trades-unions have recognized that to organize women is _in the interests of all workingmen_, and while the women were refused organization forty years ago, the Federation of Labor is to-day paying trades-union organizers to induce women to become members of trades-unions. The introduction of a low rate of wages in one branch of a trade (pursued by both men _and_ women) is always a menace to the branches that survive the reduction. The number of women engaged in the industries in 1900 was 1,315,890. The number of married women engaged in industrial pursuits is small; in 1895, an official investigation showed that in 1067 factories 7,000 workingwomen out of 71,000 were married. The chief industries in which women are employed are the textile industry (cotton), laundering, the manufacture of ready-made clothing, corsets, carpets, millinery, and fancy-goods. Women work alongside the men in wool-spinning, in bookbinding, and in the manufacture of shoes, mittens, tobacco, and confectionery.

The inability of workingwomen to exercise political rights makes minors of them when compared with workingmen, and this decreases their importance as human beings. Women cannot protect themselves against injustice, and these things put them at a great disadvantage.

The American women became involved in a lively conflict with President Roosevelt (otherwise favoring woman's rights) concerning his gift to a father and mother for bringing twenty children into the world. The women declared in the _Woman's Journal_ that it is wrong to encourage an immoderate procreation of children among a population 70 per cent of which possesses no property.[23] Above all, this encouragement is not only a menace to the overworked and oppressed workingwomen, but it is inhuman, and really lowers woman to the position of a machine for bearing children.

The inst.i.tution of factory inspection does not as yet exist in the whole Union. According to the report of Mrs. v. Vorst[24] the factories and the homes of laborers in the Southern States are extremely unsatisfactory.

Child labor is exploited there, a matter which is now being dealt with by the National Child Labor Committee. According to this same work (the inquiry of Mrs. v. Vorst) the living conditions in the North and Central States are better, and the moral menaces to the young girl are inconsiderable. The women of the property-holding cla.s.ses are attempting to do their duty toward the women of the factories and stores by founding clubs, vacation colonies, and homes for them. Within recent years the great department stores have appointed "social secretaries," who look after the weal and woe of the employees. It would be well to have such secretaries in the factories and mills also. Since 1874 the working week of sixty hours for women in industry and commerce has spread from Ma.s.sachusetts to almost the entire Union. Since 1890, night labor has been prohibited by law. The working girls have been provided with seats while at work, partly as a result of legislation and partly by the voluntary act of the employers.

In agriculture women find a profitable field of activity. Of course they are never field hands, but are employers and laborers in the dairy business, in poultry farming, and in the raising of vegetables and fruit.

Women have introduced the growing of cress, cranberries, and cuc.u.mbers in various regions, and have cultivated the famous asparagus of Oyster Bay and the "Improved New York Strawberries." In 1900, there were 980,025 women engaged in agriculture (as compared with 9,458,194 men). The number of women domestic servants in the United States amounts to 2,099,165; fifty per cent of the families dispense with servants, since they cannot afford to pay $15 to $20 a month for a servant, or $30 for a cook.

Educated women, called visiting housekeepers, undertake the supervision of some of the households of the better cla.s.s, aided, of course, by help in the house.

The legal status of the American women is regulated by 52 sets of laws, corresponding to the number of states and territories. The civil code is unfavorable to woman in most of the states. In the National Trade Union League (New York) the Reverend Anna Shaw declared recently that in 38 states the property laws made "joint property holding" legal, as a result of which the wife has no independent control of her personal earnings or her personal effects, _e.g._ her clothes. In 38 states the wife also has no legal authority over her children. For full particulars the reader is referred to Volume IV of the _History of Woman's Suffrage_. To an increasing extent the women are using their right to administer their property independently, and the men are usually proud of the business ability and success of their wives.

A _legal_ regulation of prost.i.tution (such as prevailed formerly in England and as prevails now in Germany) does not exist in the United States. Cincinnati is the only city which in the European sense has police control of prost.i.tution. Public opinion has successfully resisted all similar attempts. (_Woman's Journal_, July, 1904.) The American Commission, which went to Europe to study the regulation of prost.i.tution, declared that the American woman cannot be expected to sanction such an arrangement, and that, moreover, the system had not stood the test. In the police stations, police matrons are employed. The law protects the woman in the street against the man and not, as in Europe, the man against the woman.

In order to combat the double standard of morals the "Social Purity League" was formed. The membership is composed of those men and women who are thoroughly convinced that there is only one standard of morality for both s.e.xes, since they have the same obligations to their offspring.

Founded in 1886, this organization has spread since 1889 throughout the entire Union.

The "World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union," the second largest international woman's organization, originated in America. It was founded in 1883 by Frances E. Willard (her father was Hilgard, from the Palatinate). The Union has 300,000 members in the United States at the present time, and 450,000 members in the whole world. In 1906 it met in Boston. It is the determined enemy of alcohol, and gives proof of its convictions through the work of its soldier's and sailor's department, its committees on railroads, tramways, police stations, cab drivers, etc. This Union, as well as the "Social Purity League," is a firm advocate of woman's suffrage.

The emanc.i.p.ation of the American women is promoted through sports. If on the one hand they appreciate an elaborate toilette, on the other hand they recognize the advantages of bloomers, the walking skirt, and the divided skirt. In these costumes they play basketball, polo, tennis, and take gymnastic exercise, fence, and row. The woman's colleges are centers of athletic life. There the girls now play football in male costume, the public being excluded. In all large cities there are athletic clubs for women, some extremely sumptuous (with a hundred-dollar fee) as well as very simple clubs for workingwomen of sedentary life.

We have seen that the legal status of women in many states is still in need of reform. All the more instructive is the survey of laws concerning women and children in the _woman's suffrage states_, published by Mrs. C.

Waugh McCullock, a woman lawyer, of Chicago. The wife disposes of her wages and her dowry (in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho). Men and women receive equal pay for the same work. All professions and public offices are open to women. Women act as jurors. They have the same right of inheritance as men. Divorce is granted to either party under the same circ.u.mstances. The claims of the wife and the children under age are given a decided preference over those of creditors. Education from the kindergarten to the university is free and is open to women. The labor of women in mines is prohibited. The maximum working-day for women is eight hours. All houses of correction and inst.i.tutions for the protection of women and children must have women physicians and overseers. The age of consent is 18 years. Gambling and prost.i.tution are prohibited. Both father and mother exercise parental authority. The surviving husband is guardian of the children. The sale of alcoholic liquors and tobacco to children is prohibited. No child under 14 years of age may work in the mines.

p.o.r.nographic literature and pictures are prohibited.

In conclusion I shall take several points from the lecture which Professor F. Laurie Poster held before the Political Equality League in Chicago, after the women of Chicago had waged a vigorous campaign for the right to vote in munic.i.p.al affairs.

Why is the value of woman placed so low? Merely because she is more helpless than man. Children are valued even less than women because they surpa.s.s the women in helplessness. Only animals have less power of defense; therefore they have the lowest value placed on them. In the United States it has now been demonstrated that whoever possesses the right to vote is esteemed more highly than he who does not have that right. We see this in the woman's suffrage states; here the women have made provisions not only for themselves, but for the children as well, for it is one of the fundamental instincts of woman to protect her little ones. In most of the states of the Union, however, women can help directly neither themselves nor their children. That women should be forced to struggle for these ends against the opposition of man is one of the most unfortunate phases of the whole movement.

When woman became property, a possession, the overestimation of her s.e.xual value began. Her s.e.x was her weapon, and her capabilities became stunted.

This over emphasis of the s.e.xual causes a great part of the most flagrant evils among civilized peoples. To-day we have reached a stage where we despise him who sells his vote. Unfortunately it is still permitted to sell one's s.e.x. In this roundabout way woman attains most of the good things in life. Her economic successes depend almost entirely on the resources of the man to whom she belongs. Both s.e.xes suffer as a result of this att.i.tude of society. Woman's uncertain feeling, that she must concentrate her interests and responsibilities in the one who provides for the family, has created exceedingly peculiar customs and a wholly absurd code of honor for both man and woman. Thereby woman is directed to a _roundabout way_ for everything she wishes to obtain. Whatever she wishes for herself must appear as a domestic virtue, if possible as a sacrifice for the family. Man thinks it very natural that he should do what he desires, that he should pursue his pleasures and gratify his pa.s.sions, for he is indeed the one who possesses authority and does not need first to stamp his wishes as virtues. But it seems just as natural to him that the women of the family should be endowed with a double portion of piety, economy and willingness to make sacrifices,--virtues in which he is so lacking. Women are created especially for that. By nature they are better, and indeed they make great efforts to cover the faults of the offending one and forgivingly accept him again. In fact they do it gladly; it gives them pleasure, and man certainly does not wish to deprive them of the opportunity for such great joys. Therefore man is instantly at hand to warn woman when she shows any inclination toward adopting "masculine"

habits. But he certainly would be more conscientious and more moral if woman no longer a.s.sumed these virtues vicariously for him. Woman must make her demands of man. For that she must be _free_.[25]

AUSTRALIA[26]

Total population: 4,555,662.

Women: 2,166,318.

Men: 2,389,344.

An a.s.sociation of women's clubs in each of five colonies.

The Australian Women's Political a.s.sociation, embracing six colonies.

It is a rare thing for Europeans to have a definite conception of the Australian Commonwealth. This is the more to be regretted since this federation of republics is among the countries that have made the greatest progress in the woman's rights movement. In no other part of the world has such a radical change in the status of woman been effected in so short a time and with such comparatively insignificant struggles.

Till 1840, Australia had been a penal colony. Since then,--after the discovery of the first gold fields,--a mult.i.tude of fortune-seekers, gold-miners, and adventurers joined the population of deported convicts.

The good middle-cla.s.s element for a long time remained in the minority.

Certainly n.o.body would have believed that there existed at that time in Australia all the conditions necessary for the growth of a flourishing and highly civilized commonwealth. Nevertheless, such was the case. There were formed seven democratic states, whose people were not bound by any traditionalism or excessive fondness for time-honored, inherited customs; these people wished to have elbowroom and were determined to establish themselves on their own soil in their own way. This all took place the more easily since England gave the growing commonwealth in general an exceedingly free hand, and because the inhabitants were by nature independent. Australia was colonized by those who, having come into conflict with the laws of the old world, found their sphere of life narrow and restricted.

Because Australia to-day has only about five million inhabitants, the country is confronted only in a limited way with the problem of dealing with congested ma.s.ses of people, a condition which is favorable to all social experimentation. Those in authority believe they can direct and eventually mold the development of the Commonwealth.

Sixty-five per cent of the population are Protestant; the Germanic element predominates. The women const.i.tute not quite 50 per cent of the population. Thus in many respects the Australian colonies possess conditions similar to those prevailing in the western states of the American Union, and the results of the woman's rights movement are in both regions approximately the same. Mrs. M. Donohue, one of the delegates from Australia, declared at the London Woman's Suffrage Congress that her country had brought about "the greatest happiness for the greatest number."

Naturally, the Australian governments had originally a series of material problems to solve, real problems of existence, as, for example, to find a satisfactory agricultural policy in a predominantly farming and cattle-raising country. When the economic basis of the country seemed sufficiently secure, the intellectual interests were given attention. A country which never had slavery or a feudal regime, a Salic Law, or a Code Napoleon; a country which has no divine right of kings, and is not oppressed with militarism; a country which judges a man by his personal ability and esteems him for what he is, such a country certainly could not tolerate the dogma of woman's inferiority. Between 1871 and 1880, the school systems of the various colonies were regulated by a series of laws.

Elementary instruction, which is free and obligatory, is given in public schools to children of both s.e.xes between the ages of five and fifteen, but in most cases the s.e.xes are segregated. In the public schools of the whole continent about 20,000 teachers are employed (9,000 men and 11,000 women). The men predominate in the leading well-paid positions. The secondary school system (as in England) is composed largely of private schools, and is to a great extent in the hands of the Protestant denominations and the Catholic orders. The governments subsidize these inst.i.tutions. Girls and boys enjoy the same educational opportunities in the schools, part of which are coeducational.

The four Australian universities--Sidney (New South Wales), Melbourne (Victoria), Adelaide (South Australia), and Aukland (New Zealand)--are to-day open to women, who can secure all academic degrees granted by the philosophical, law, and medical faculties.[27]

The number of students in the universities is as follows: in Sidney, 1054 (of whom 142 are women); in New Zealand University, 1332 (of whom 369 are women); in Melbourne, 853 (of whom 128 are women). The total number of students in Adelaide and Hobart is 626 and 62 respectively, but the number of women students is not given. The educational problem is thus solved for the Australian woman in a favorable manner: she has equal and full privileges in the universities.

What are the conditions in the occupations? "All occupations are open to women," is stated in a report which I have used.[28] But that is not entirely correct. Women are teachers, but they are not lecturers and professors in the universities. As preachers they are admitted only among the Nonconformists. There are women doctors and dentists, and in four colonies (New Zealand, Tasmania, West Australia, and Victoria) women are permitted to practice law, but they are confronted with a certain popular prejudice when they attempt to enter medicine, law, technical science, and a teaching career in the universities. The state employs women in the elementary schools; in the postal and telegraph service; as registrars (permitting them to perform marriage ceremonies); and as factory inspectors. But the salaries and wages in Australia are not always the same for both s.e.xes. Thus, for example, in South Australia the male head masters of the public schools draw salaries of 110 to 450 pounds sterling, while the women draw 80 to 156 pounds sterling. Since school affairs are not affairs under the control of the Commonwealth, the federal law (equal wages for equal work) cannot be applied in this particular. In Tasmania[29] (where the women have voted since 1903) women are teachers in the public schools, employees in the postal, telegraph, and telephone systems, supervisors of health in the public schools, and a.s.sistants to the quarantine and sanitary boards; they are registrars in the parishes, superintendents of hospitals, asylums, prisons, etc. Public offices in the army, the navy, and the church alone remain closed to them.

It is to be noted here that Mrs. Dobson, of Tasmania, was the official representative of the Australian government at the International Woman's Suffrage Congress held in Amsterdam in 1908.