Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework: Business principles applied to housework — John Shaqi
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
If this new law be considered a just and humane measure for women who
are business employees, and if business houses be compelled to observe
it, one naturally wonders why it should not prove to be an equally
just and humane law for women who work in private families, and why
should not the home be compelled to observe it too? Instead of being a
barrier to progress, the home ought to coöperate with the state in the
enforcement of laws for the amelioration of the condition of working
women. The home, being presided over by a woman, presumably of some
education and intelligence, should be a most fitting place in which to
apply a law designed to protect women against excessive hours of labor.
Why should housework in private homes be an exception to all other work?
Is it because some housewives say, in self justification and frequently
without an accurate knowledge of what it is to do housework week after
week without one day's release, that housework is easier than other
work? Is it easier? Is it not sometimes harder? However, it is not a
question of housework being harder or easier than other work, but of the
desirability of having it limited to eight hours a day and six days a
week. Why should the housewife be allowed to remain in such a state of
apathy in regard to the physical welfare of her household employees?
"Six days shalt thou labor" has all the sanction of scripture, of
morals, and of common experience. It is only fair that women who work in
private families should have one day out of seven as a day of rest, even
as their more fortunate sisters in the business world. If by adopting
such a law in the home the housewife found that her work was performed
far more efficiently and willingly than at present, would it not be as
much to her advantage as to the advantage of those she employs to limit
the hours of household labor to six days a week? Many housewives may
object to this proposition inasmuch as the work in a home can not be
suspended even for a day. But when two or more employees work in a
private home, it is very easy to plan the housework so that each
employee may have a different day of the week as a "day of rest,"
without the comfort of the family being disturbed by the temporary
absence of one of the employees. It is only in families where one
employee is kept that it may make a very serious difference to the
housewife when her "maid-of-all-work" is away for one entire day each
week. Nevertheless the comfort of an employer ought not to outweigh
justice to an employee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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