Women wanted: The story written in blood red letters on the horizon of the Great World WarDaggett, Mabel Potter
History
Women wanted: The story written in blood red letters on the horizon of the Great World War
Daggett, Mabel Potter
Women -- Employment; World War, 1914-1918 -- Women
Specially significant is the legal situation in England, the land
where Chrystabel Pankhurst, denied the opportunity to practise law,
became instead a smashing suffragette. Now, see the vacant places in
the London law courts where day by day women clerks are appearing with
all of the duties, though not yet the recognition, as solicitors.
And the English Parliament at last is considering a bill which shall
permit women to be admitted to this branch of the legal profession in
England. This bill really should be known as Nancy Nettlefold’s bill.
The year that Nancy Nettlefold arrived at her twenty-first birthday
and was presented at court, Cambridge University announced in June,
1912, that she had taken the law tripos, her place being between the
first and second man in the first class honours list. And she at
the time determined to make the winning of the legal profession her
contribution to the woman’s cause. With four other English women,
who have also passed brilliant law examinations, she has financed
and worked indefatigably in the campaign to that end. To-day they
have that conservative organ of public opinion, the London _Times_,
urging in favour of their case: “Many prejudices against women have
been shattered in this war. And there is no stronger theoretical case
against the woman lawyer as such than against the woman doctor.”
The bill permitting women to enter the Law Society has passed a
second reading in the House of Lords, Lord Buckmaster, its sponsor,
declaring: “The true sphere of a woman’s work ought to be measured by
the world’s need for her services and by her capacity to perform that
work.”
And the world’s need presses steadily, inexorably day by day. France
had called 1500 men lawyers to the colours when the War Office sent
a brief notice to the bar association of Paris: “On account of the
absence of so many men at the front,” read the summons, “women lawyers
are wanted in the Ministry of War.” Women have been in the legal
profession in France since 1900. There are 52 women lawyers in Paris.
But their practice has been limited largely to women clients. Madame
Miropolsky has made a reputation as a divorce lawyer. Madame Maria
Verone is the prominent barrister of the Children’s Court. A year ago I
heard Avocat Suzanne Grinberg plead a case before a tribunal which up
to 1914 had never listened to a woman’s voice.
[Illustration:
DR. ROSALIE SLAUGHTER MORTON OF NEW YORK
Who is organizing the American women physicians for war service.
]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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