Chapter VII: Sex in Work

Some women workers are curiously inconsistent. They have declared that sex shall not on any account enter into the business world. They cut off their hair and dress themselves as nearly as they dare in men’s attire; yet they deliberately put a _feminine label_ on their work.

Why the label? Is it lack of sex confidence, or is the work so weak that it must trust to that label and beg for mercy?

Take the title of “Women Journalists.” What does this suggest? Either an agency for supplying articles on dress or cookery, or a group of women banded together to demand their professional rights. As neither is meant, the term is misleading. And why should a journalist, whether man or woman, want to belong to any but a Society of Journalists?

It is the same with the Women Artists. Why the label? At the Leipzig Palace of Women’s Work in 1914, the work of one artist drew everyone’s attention, and presumably she was a woman, since the Society had taken her to its bosom. Her pictures of Berlin’s underworld were so powerful, that they gave birth to all kinds of important prison reforms. But what was she doing in that anæmic assembly? Kathie Kollwitz was her name.

Her idea in allowing her work to be labelled “woman” was to help other women. Alas, how often the Christian spirit achieves the precise opposite of its intention! Kathie Kollwitz’s work, rather than helping women, killed by its superiority any chance of appreciation others might have secured. The terms artist, writer, author, musician, actor, professor and doctor should be used for both sexes. Work must be judged regardless of sex, or it is not worth judging at all.

Yet however much we protest against the label, sex is there all the same. Lifeless work is sexless work. Sex is like fire, water, and the other vital things of life, a great power when properly dominated. At the same time its legitimate use in art, as in life, is too subtle a weapon to be flourished recklessly as we stumble over the rocks of progress.

In the world of workers, sex often makes difficulties in business relations. It is for men to judge exactly how a woman handles the men under her control. Towards other women she is often the hardest task-mistress, when not actually unkind and unjust. In her search after the tiny flaws in a piece of work, she loses the great spirit of the whole. Her values are wrong; for this reason it is dangerous to give average women the final word.

It has been said that men put up more readily with incompetence than women. But this is not quite the case. They are more patient and more indulgent, and they take the trouble to judge from all round. The most aggravating little imperfections may well be balanced by some sound practical efficiency which, in the business eye of an employer, cancels all other faults. He knows he cannot expect perfection, and is content.

Women are not so much exacting as unreasonable. With the exacting one can deal; but not with the unreasonable. In business the terms _unreasonable_ and _incompetent_ are synonymous. In time, no doubt, women will learn to take broader views of life and will acquire sense of proportion. The question of kindness to their own sex will thus adjust itself, but in the meantime only a very limited number of them are _big_ enough to employ others: which obviously means much unnecessary suffering for the workers.

On the other hand, relations between men and women in business are not always easy. A woman may be allowed to take positions of such importance in the office that she will shake the whole foundations of business; which is obviously unwise.

On the other hand, a man will often take advantage of a woman in business and find her an easy prey, just as he makes a good bargain for himself with a less wide-awake rival, without any offence to his business conscience; or if, under the influence of a smile and pearly teeth, he make a bargain that he regrets when thinking it over, he will soon find a means for catching up the pretty incompetent. Sometimes, again, a feeling of pity for a woman fighting life’s battles leads him to do things for her he would never dream of doing for a man. Alas! how many business careers have been wrecked on the rocks of sympathy.

The much criticised _impresario_ is not the only sinner. Wolves in sheep’s clothing are to be found in every walk of life, and the very harmless act of accepting a lunch from an employer may swing the business relations on to entirely the wrong footing. After that, it is too late.

A woman who has business dealings with men must train herself to be two personalities—official and private. The more she is accustomed outside the office to being her own sweet self, the more must she school herself to leave the charming female on the doormat, and convert herself into a shrewd business woman who wants all her wits about her to conclude a bargain.

The woman in business who allows a man to take any but a business footing with her, must lose, _the odds being against her always_. By not putting her foot down at once, she finds herself quickly out of things altogether, with no chance of return.

There are, of course, many trying feminine types in business. For example, there is the woman who wants to be treated with 18th century courtesy. When asked why he objected to women lecturers, a secretary of a big society replied: “We hate being discourteous, but we really have not time to meet women at the station, dine them, and look after them. A man looks after himself. You will say a woman ought to do the same. Well, she does not. You can’t let her. A woman’s a woman....”

A very distressing type of worker is the one who, having signed a contract, wants to get out of it directly a better offer is in sight. This happens too frequently. She knows very well a man would have to pay heavy damages for doing such a thing. So she plays the feminine note, and the employer is cornered. All he can do without scandal is to cut his loss and get rid of her as quickly as possible. But his whole attitude towards women becomes filled with distrust, and the innocent have to suffer in consequence.

Once women learn to work more as the associates of men, these uncomfortable questions of “sex” will necessarily to a large extent disappear. But at the present moment they must unfortunately fill a large space in any attempt to sum up the disadvantages under which women work.