Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for GirlsClarke, Edward H. (Edward Hammond)
Science
Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for Girls
Clarke, Edward H. (Edward Hammond)
Women -- Education; Women -- Health and hygiene
This case scarcely requires analysis in order to see how it bears on
the question of a girl's education and woman's work. A gifted and
healthy girl, obliged to get her education and earn her bread at the
same time, labored upon the two tasks zealously, perhaps over-much,
and did this at the epoch when the female organization is busy with
the development of its reproductive apparatus. Nor is this all. She
labored continuously, yielding nothing to Nature's periodical demand
for force. She worked her engine up to highest pressure, just as much
at flood-tide as at other times. Naturally there was not nervous power
enough developed in the uterine and associated ganglia to restrain
the laboring orifices of the circulation, to close the gates; and the
flood of blood gushed through. With the frequent repetition of the
flooding, came inevitably the evils she suffered from,--Nature's
penalties. She now reports herself better; but whether convalescence
will continue will depend upon her method of work for the future.
Let us take the next illustration from a walk in life different from
either of the foregoing. Miss C---- was a bookkeeper in a mercantile
house. The length of time she remained in the employ of the house, and
its character, are a sufficient guaranty that she did her work well.
Like the other clerks, she was at her post, _standing_, during
business hours, from Monday morning till Saturday night. The female
pelvis being wider than that of the male, the weight of the body, in
the upright posture, tends to press the upper extremities of the
thighs out laterally in females more than in males. Hence the former
can stand less long with comfort than the latter. Miss C----, however,
believed in doing her work in a man's way, infected by the not
uncommon notion that womanliness means manliness. Moreover, she would
not, or could not, make any more allowance for the periodicity of her
organization than for the shape of her skeleton. When about twenty
years of age, perhaps a year or so older, she applied to me for advice
in consequence of neuralgia, back-ache, menorrhagia, leucorrhoea, and
general debility. She was anemic, and looked pale, care-worn, and
anxious. There was no evidence of any local organic affection of the
pelvic organs. "Get a woman's periodical remission from labor, if
intermission is impossible, and do your work in a woman's way, not
copying a man's fashion, and you will need very little apothecary's
stuff," was the advice she received. "I _must_ go on as I am doing,"
was her answer. She tried iron, sitz-baths, and the like: of course
they were of no avail. Latterly I have lost sight of her, and, from
her appearance at her last visit to me, presume she has gone to a
world where back-ache and male and female skeletons are unknown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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