WOMAN'S WORLD

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 132, 21 February 1918, Page 3

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Continued from page 2.)

WOMEN AND INDUSTRY

LECTURE BY MISS COLLISSON, M.A.

A very interesting lecture dealing with women and work was given by Miss Collisson, M.A. (lecturer at the Sydney University and assistant to

Air. Meredith Atkinson, Director of tho

Workers' Educational Association in Australia), in tho Emerson Hall. Sir liobert Stout presided. In introducing Mj/iS Collisson to her

audience, Sir Robert Stout expressed the pleasure they felt in welcoming Miss Collisson among them, and he felt sure that they would gain much intellectual help, encouragement, and stimulus. [n dealing with her subject of women and industry, Miss Collisson said that many people were of the opinion that the desire of women today for professional and industrial life was an excrescence on modem life, caused by tho changed and changing circumstances of the modern world. Wo were told on the one hand that the desire of women for careers wider than home life was the outcome of all this education and talk about the vote, as they vaguely put it, and, on the other, that it is possessed by women who cannot get anyone to marry them. They do not realise that our ancestresses of some centuries ago were no less free in their choice of a career than we are to-day, and that they were in some ways a little better provided for than we are to-day. Long before such a thing as the women's movement came into existence women were finding satisfaction in. activities other than those connected only with the needs of their husbands and children, and even when they were confined to that sphere their work was real and vital—they were not dependent economically upon the , men of the

household. It was at a later age than

tho Middle Ages that the period of 'complete differentiation took place and women were assigned a part both servile and parasitic. As feudalism decayed greater freedom was accorded to both sexes, and the women profited accordingly. The position of women in relation to legal status, social life, and industrial life were sketched by Miss Collisspn, all of which proved her contention _ that women in those days had many interests and responsibilities outsido tbe home.

The real excrescence to be found in |. modern life was not the desire of woman to take up work outside her own home or to share in the duties and interests of the man with whom she has chosen to pass her life. _ The real excrescence, the blot which disfigured our social system, was the man-made law which permitted conditions not proper for the pursuit of work, the 6ocial condition which gave to_ us a cortain amount of legislation in the better favoured ' countries for the rev gulation of work, but none for the prevention of a steady flow with the ranks of industry by the uplifting ot tno married state. The real blunder was the social state in which r:e lived, which deliberately encouraged the differentiation of the sexes in'every possible .way, making the man no longer n, real father, a real sharer in family life, and the woman a real partner in the toil, but of the one a mere provider, absent for most of the day from the home and of the other a creature bom to endure and to go round in a vicious circle from the first appearance of the child in the home. The real blunder was the, social opinion which made it the man's right alone to offer matrimony and . the woman's shamefaced silence or. condemnation as an outcast for her boldness should she make the offer. It was the blunder which treated woman as non-passional beings, as creatures without the human desires allowed to men. It was tho blunder which made the woman when married dependent for her food, her Boeiety, her very circle of acquaintances upon the Jikes and dislikes of her husband. ... In tracing out tho connection of these blunders with women snd industry Miss Collisson showed where they had landed England. It had given her a population mon than two millions of ivhom earned less than 255. a week m wages, about one million earned under £1 a" week, and on an average in normal times three or four millions (men, women, and children) arc, if not actually destitute, at least suffering mentally and physically from tho lack of some of the necessaries of life. "We must," said Miss Collisson, "set ourselves the task of organising to get a share in municipal activity. We must study, learn, and organise. We must see to it that each year brought some improvement in the married "conditions for the poor man and the poor woman who want to mate but 'dare not. We, have to begin by gettin"' a new conception of the btate, a 'conception in which wo play a part as working citizens. It is for us to set tho demand for what we want, to push the politician, and, if wo cannot, then to train him to a point where he will feel the force and urgency of the public conscience more than ho does now. Miss Collisson was of the opinion that what was wanted was moro unity of purpose, more donnitcness, ami, nbove all, more attention to study. In this country there was still _timo to retrieve our mistakes, still time to create a true public fninion, on matters of morality and of sex. still time to pause and see whether the solution of our problem was not rather in the making of somo kinds of work more exclusively women's own., and swing to it that in those linos of work.tho woman worker was paid at a just rate. A vote of thhnlcs to Miss Collisson

for her most nblo lecture was pronopprl by Mr. Rrardon, who spoko very highly of the work already achieved hv the Workers' Educational Association and of those who had lectured for

Professor Hunter seconded the resolution, which was passed with acclamation.

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

INQUIRY AS TO TREATMENT DESIRED.

At a meeting of the Women's International League, held on Tuesday, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:—"That in view of the serious allegations being made regarding the treatment of religious and conscientious objectors, this meeting of women calls upon the Prime Minister to set up a civil, public, and impartial tribunal to investigate the charges of ill-treatment of conscientious objectors in New Zealand, and on board transports and at Sling Camp and in France."

At a social gathering held in St. Mary's Schoolroom, Levin, on Friday evening, the vicar, the Rev. G. B. Stcphenson, who leaves shortly for his new charge at Dnnnevirkc, and Mrs. Stephenson were entertained. Mr. N. Holdaway, on behalf of the parishioners, presented tho guests of the evening with a rose bowl as a parting gift, in token of the esteem in which they wero held.