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
These and other innovations have been made in accordance with a
definite plan. You should hear it just the way a government says it:
“In considering the physical capacity of a woman factory worker,”
the Home Office directs, “it should be remembered that her body is
physiologically different from and less strongly built than that of a
man. It is desirable that the lifting and carrying of heavy weights and
all sudden violent or physically unsuitable movements in the operation
of machines should so far as practicable be avoided. Often a simple
appliance or the alteration of a movement modifies an objectionable
feature when it does not altogether remove it. When standing is
absolutely unavoidable, the hours and spells of employment should be
proportionately short, and seats should be available for use during the
brief pauses that occasionally occur while waiting for material or the
adjustment of a tool.”
There is one further instruction: “The introduction of women into
factories where men only have hitherto been employed will necessitate
some rearrangement in the way of special attention to the fencing of
belts, pulleys and machine tools.”
Well, there are now some ninety-six trades and some 1,701 processes in
which the workshop has been gotten ready like this, and woman labour
has been introduced. You see how easily it has all been brought about
now, when every one, instead of putting their heads together on How can
we keep the women out, is planning eagerly, How can we get the women in.
And do you know that Mrs. Black cannot so much as have a headache
to-morrow morning, without the English Government being sorry about it?
Every industry in the land has received its envelope, black-lettered,
“On His Majesty’s Business” and inside this note: “Care on the part
of employers to secure the welfare of women brought in to take the
place of men in the present emergency will greatly increase the
probability of their employment proving successful.” A nation, you see,
is interested in Mrs. Black’s success. “Who works fights,” announced
the Government when it invited Mrs. Black into industry. The badge, a
triangle of brass, that she wears on the front of her khaki tunic, is
inscribed “On War Service.” The French women in the munitions factories
wear on their left sleeve an armlet with an embroidered insignia, a
bursting bomb, which says the same thing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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