Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework: Business principles applied to houseworkBarker, C. Hélène
General
Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework: Business principles applied to housework
Barker, C. Hélène
Home economics; Household employees
It is remarkable that this fact, showing so forcibly one of the
greatest disadvantages connected with housework, should attract so
little attention. No one seems to care about the fate of the "servant
girl," as she is so often disdainfully called. During six days of the
week she works on the average fourteen hours a day, but no one stops
to notice that she is tired. On the seventh day, instead of resting as
every other employee has the right to do, her work is merely reduced to
nine, eight, or perhaps seven hours; and yet she needs a day of rest
as much as every other woman who earns her bread. The rights of the
domestic employee are ignored on all sides apparently. In public
demonstrations of dissatisfaction between employers and employees the
most oppressed class of the working people--the women who do
housework--has never yet been represented.
This is probably due to two causes: the first is because women
dissatisfied with housework are rapidly finding positions in business
where they enjoy rights and privileges denied them in domestic labor;
and the second is because the great majority of women engaged in
housework are foreign-born. These women learn quickly to understand and
speak English, but they do not often read and write it, and as they are
kept in close confinement in their employer's house, they have rarely
the opportunity of hearing about the emancipation of the modern working
woman. Most of them are of a very humble origin, and being debarred from
business positions on account of their ignorance and inexperience, they
are thankful to earn money in any kind of employment regardless of the
length of working hours.
Their children, however, who are American born and enjoy better
educational advantages, do not follow in their footsteps when the
time comes for them to earn their living. They become stenographers,
typewriters, dressmakers, milliners, shirt waist makers, cash-girls,
saleswomen, etc.; in fact any occupation where work is limited to a
fixed number of hours a day and confined to six days a week, is
considered more desirable than housework. The result is that the
housewife is compelled to take for her employees only those who are
rejected by every other employer; the capable, independent, intelligent
American woman is hardly ever seen in domestic service.
In Washington, D.C., a law (the La Follette Eight Hour Law for Women in
the District of Columbia) was recently passed limiting to eight hours
a day and six days a week practically all work in which women are
industrially employed; "hotel servants" are included under the
provisions of this law, but "domestic servants in private homes" are
expressly excluded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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