Civic improvement; Urban women; Women in public life
The activity of women in connection with the proposition of
municipal ownership of the waterworks system was a distinct feature
of the voting. Under the law, women are permitted the ballot on bond
questions. In several of the residence precincts women were in line
when the polls opened at seven o’clock.
In our survey of women’s varied municipal activities, we have had
occasion to mention many instances of their holding official positions
of one kind or another, and no one can be found who would deny the
special aptitudes of women for certain municipal posts. Doubtless there
are some offices for which women are specially fitted, just as there are
some offices for which men are specially fitted. But office-holding in
general is still under dispute. Nevertheless, there are plenty of
advocates who claim that the wider participation of women in government,
through the occupancy of technical positions, is for the public good.
Ten years ago in the San Francisco _Bulletin_ there appeared the
following editorial on “Why Women Should Be in Municipal Offices”:
The days of chivalry are no more, and though that means that young
women no longer occupy their days at something called a lattice,
embroidering sashes to tie about the middles of queer young men in
boiler plate, it is probable that even they do not regret the loss,
though He is now nothing more than a member in good standing of the
Retail Clerks’ Union.
Men have been willing, for a wonderfully long time, that women
should work—provided it was for small pay and did not imply any
reputation or a possible swelling up beyond the nice, faithful
limits of their sphere. And this not because men are mean—but
because they are slow. They have even permitted certain emoluments
and rewards of merit to accrue to certain professions—like those of
nursing sick or spoiled children of larger and smaller growth, and
school ma’aming—for which they had neither much taste nor aptitude.
It has also been cheerfully and generously conceded that in the
matter of minor housekeeping affairs women could be trusted to get
along, and the abominable lack of spirit shown by the weak
provisions of the civil service, that do not seem to take natural
laws into consideration, has proven that these fair creatures can so
far forget themselves in their heavenand-man-appointed task of
ministering angel as to actually take and pass common and vulgar
examinations, and to follow up their effrontery by accepting and
holding certain places of public trust and drawing their pay
regularly therefor. What wonder then that when the very old story of
the inch and the ell is being enacted men of tender municipal
conscience tremble and turn pale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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