Votes for Women: A Play in Three ActsRobins, Elizabeth
General
Votes for Women: A Play in Three Acts
Robins, Elizabeth
Feminists -- Drama; Suffragists -- Drama; Women -- Great Britain -- Drama; Women -- Suffrage -- Drama; Women's rights -- Drama
WORKING WOMAN. P'r'aps _your_ 'omes are all right. P'r'aps you aren't
livin', old and young, married and single, in one room. I come from a
plyce where many fam'lies 'ave to live like that if they're to go on
livin' _at all_. If you don't believe me, come and let me show you!
(_She spreads out her lean arms._) Come with me to Canning Town!--come
with me to Bromley--come to Poplar and to Bow! No. You won't even
_think_ about the overworked women and the underfed children and the
'ovels they live in. And you want that we shouldn't think neither----
A VAGRANT. We'll do the thinkin'. You go 'ome and nuss the byby.
WORKING WOMAN. I do nurse my byby! I've nursed seven. What 'ave you
done for yours? P'r'aps your children never goes 'ungry, and maybe
you're satisfied--though I must say I wouldn't a' thought it from the
_look_ o' you.
VOICE. Oh, I s'y!
WORKING WOMAN. But we women are not satisfied. We don't only want
better things for our own children. We want better things for all.
_Every_ child is our child. We know in our 'earts we oughtn't to rest
till we've mothered 'em every one.
VOICE. "Women"--"children"--wot about the _men_? Are _they_ all 'appy?
(_Derisive laughter and_ "No! no!" "Not precisely." "'Appy? Lord!")
WORKING WOMAN. No, there's lots o' you men I'm sorry for (_Shrill
Voice_: "Thanks awfully!"), an' we'll 'elp you if you let us.
VOICE. 'Elp us? You tyke the bread out of our mouths. You women are
black-leggin' the men!
WORKING WOMAN. _W'y_ does any woman tyke less wyges than a man for the
same work? Only because we can't get anything better. That's part the
reason w'y we're yere to-d'y. Do you reely think we tyke them there low
wyges because we got a _lykin'_ for low wyges? No. We're just like you.
We want as much as ever we can get. ("'Ear! 'Ear!" _and laughter_.)
We got a gryte deal to do with our wyges, we women has. We got the
children to think about. And w'en we get our rights, a woman's flesh
and blood won't be so much cheaper than a man's that employers can get
rich on keepin' you out o' work, and sweatin' us. If you men only could
see it, we got the _syme_ cause, and if you 'elped us you'd be 'elpin
yerselves.
VOICES. "Rot!" "Drivel."
OLD NEWSVENDOR. True as gospel!
(_She retires against the banner with the others. There is some
applause._)
A MAN (_patronisingly_). Well, now, that wusn't so bad--fur a woman.
ANOTHER. N-naw. _Not fur a woman._
CHAIRMAN (_speaking through this last_). Miss Ernestine Blunt will now
address you.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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