Civic improvement; Urban women; Women in public life
Michigan is no worse than many other States in this respect and
Detroit shows courage in attempting to stamp out an evil which is
usually allowed to flourish without restraint. The case only
illustrates what confusion exists when practical measures of reform
are attempted. The study of social hygiene and eugenics inevitably
leads to the consideration of the ugly problems of life. Any attempt
at their solution is certainly better than the ignorant or
indifferent attitude which women have hitherto been encouraged to
take. Women are beginning to revolt against the atrocities of
commercialized vice. They do not believe that all this degradation
is inevitable. Every protest brings us nearer some right solution of
the whole problem of woman’s place in life.
CONGRESS OF MOTHERS
The Congress of Mothers likewise refuses to ignore a matter so vitally
related to motherhood. This organization has for one of its chief aims
the promotion of high ideals of marriage “and the maintenance of its
sacredness and permanence.” Its attitude toward life is primarily
religious, and the leaders believe that more religious education in the
home is the crying need which will prevent immorality. The Congress of
Mothers is active and successful in forming mothers’ circles, fathers’
circles, and parent-teacher associations for the purpose of discussing
the needs of childhood and increasing the sense of responsibility among
parents.
Such responsibility undoubtedly can be improved and needs to be
improved. The social evil is not solved thereby, however, for economic
conditions affect that responsibility in varying degrees. The mother who
must work out of the home long hours, or the father who toils on a
night-shift or for ten, twelve or fourteen hours a day has no time or
strength to devote to children, however great the inclination.
Parents who have themselves grown up in a congested area, who have been
overworked and underfed and surrounded from infancy with a vicious
environment cannot be reached always with a religious or moral appeal
and, even if they are, they cannot always persuade their children to
forsake the attractions of the street and the saloon and the resort for
a quiet evening of prayer at home with the father and mother. Many women
accept the judgment and observation of Dr. Abraham Flexner that the
social evil swallows up in greater proportion than any other “the
unskilled daughters of the unskilled classes,” and they would therefore
substitute for, or supplement, the instilling of moral precept, by
industrial training, housing reform, regulation of hours and conditions
of labor, control of recreational facilities, the minimum wage, mothers’
pensions and many other reforms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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