Motherhood and the Relationships of the SexesHartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine)
Philosophy
Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes
Hartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine)
Mothers; Sex; Women -- Social and moral questions
“_Often, far from offering a rest from the fatigue of the
day, the home conditions offer but fresh aggravation. A day
begun at 4 or even 3.30 a.m., for work at 6 a.m., followed by
fourteen[8] hours in the factory and another two or two and a
half hours on the journey back, may end at 10 or 10.30 p.m., in
a home or lodging where the prevailing degree of overcrowding
precludes all possibility of comfortable rest. Beds are never
empty and rooms are never aired, for in a badly crowded
district the beds, like the occupants, are organised in day and
night shifts. In such conditions of confusion, pressure and
overcrowding, home life can have no existence._”
The overstrain of the women is increased by their difficulty in obtaining
living accommodation near to the factories.
“_It is far from uncommon now to find some two or three hours
spent on the journey each way, generally under the fatiguing
conditions of an overcrowded tram or train, often with long
waits and a severe struggle before even standing room can
be obtained. The superintendent of a factory situated in a
congested district stated that the women constantly arrive with
their clothes torn in the struggle for a train, the satchel
in which they bring their tea being sometimes torn away. The
workers were of an exceptionally refined type, to whom such
rough handling should be altogether unfamiliar, but they bore
these conditions with cheerful resolution._”
What are the results going to be? Women have no right to bear such
conditions with cheerful resolution. And it is just this acceptance
of so many things that never ought to be accepted that fills me with
apprehension. You see, I believe there is a much deeper cause than the
urgencies of the war which is causing women to spend their strength in
industrial work. Did I not think this, there would be little need for me
to write.
I know that women’s labour at the present crisis is a matter of
necessity. How the work is to be done with the least possible injury to
the workers is the question of the present. For it is equally momentous
to the future that the standard of health and well-being of the country
should be maintained. The problem is, how much work and of what kind can
women do combined with perfect health. The health we must have, for it is
requisite for the life of the race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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