Women's Work — Key Ideas to Explore

LITERARY, PROFESSIONAL, AND ARTISTIC 1

WOMEN’S WORK: CLERICAL AND COMMERCIAL 39

WOMEN AND TRADE UNIONS 66

THE TEXTILE TRADES 93

MISCELLANEOUS TRADES 109

INFLUENCE OF OCCUPATION ON HEALTH 119

_WOMEN’S WORK: LITERARY, PROFESSIONAL, AND ARTISTIC._

General characteristics--Classification--LITERATURE: Fiction--Journalism--TEACHING: Recent changes--Day _v._ Resident Posts--High Schools--Advantages and Disadvantages--Hours and Salaries--Report of Committee of Enquiry--Fees--Elementary Schools--Table of Salaries--London School Board--Voluntary _v._ Secondary Schools--Domestic Economy--Demand for teachers--New openings--Higher teaching posts--RELIGION and PHILANTHROPY: Increased employment of women--Women preachers--LAW: Present position of affairs--Conveyancing--MEDICINE: Progress made--Prospects--Recent appointments--India--Pharmacy--Dentistry--Midwifery--NURSING: Inadequate arrangements--Remuneration--ART: Music, Painting, Sculpture--Obstacles to progress--Remuneration--THE STAGE: Prospects--The Ballet and its remuneration--HANDICRAFTS: Artistic crafts--Pottery--Jewellery--Lithography--Engraving--GENERAL CONCLUSIONS: Social hindrances.

In dealing with the more cultured branches of women’s work we have to do with a department which, except in one or two directions, is as yet incomplete, being still in process of growth and development. Women are but slowly working their way into the arts and the learned professions, and their place cannot yet be definitely estimated. Progress has been so rapid of late that what is true one year has ceased to hold good in the next. A writer who attempts to deal with matter that is thus in a state of flux can only hope to give a tolerably faithful picture of the moment, acknowledging frankly that present conditions may soon give place to something very different. A counterbalancing advantage, however, lies in the fact that in literary and professional work women are independent units, and their labour is not, as in manufacture and manual occupations, so mixed up with that of men that it is almost impossible to treat of it apart. In the occupations with which this chapter is concerned each woman as a rule is economically independent of other workers, and is free to make her individual talent and idiosyncrasy fully felt. There is a satisfaction in noting what women are able to do when their hands are free, though a careful examination of the conditions under which their work is carried on may lead to the conclusion that circumstances are not yet as favourable to the production of good work as they will eventually become. It should be premised that work of any kind, literary or other, is here regarded from a purely industrial point of view, and that the aim of the writer is not to criticise, but simply to record.

For practical purposes the occupations here treated of may be classified thus:

(1) Literary work, including journalism.

(3) Other professional work, including medicine and nursing.

(4) Art, including such handicrafts as are practised by women; music, and the drama.

Various occupations not coming precisely under any of these heads are followed by a few scattered individuals, but these will receive merely a passing notice. They are interesting in themselves, but are so largely experimental that it would be useless to consider them at any length, since they may disappear at any moment.

=Literature.=--It is only recently that women have entered the field of literature in any numbers. Until the last thirty years or so it may almost be said that only a few exceptional women, able to make their mark as poets or novelists, were occupied to any serious extent in literary work. Nor when we remember that the pursuit of literature was considered to “unsex” a woman, and that Mrs. Somerville had to keep a supply of plain sewing ready to cover her books and papers if a visitor should call, is the deficiency very difficult to account for. Only natures in which genius is a compelling force can burst such iron bonds. Fanny Burney, Jane Austen, Miss Mitford, Mrs. Somerville, Charlotte Bronté, and Mrs. Browning--to name a few of the pioneers--first broke down the barriers. Then other quiet workers crept in, magazines became more numerous, and offered a ready outlet for literary work; biography, history, and science began to be handled by women. Harriet Martineau perhaps more than any other woman typified the modern phase of literary activity, fulfilling in her single person functions any one of which would content most literary women, being novelist, essay writer, historian, and journalist in one. She was the first of her sex to enter upon the routine every-day work of literature, which has been freely trodden since, and her writings embody much of the tone of thought and feeling which is characteristic of the “women’s movement” of to-day.