WOMEN'S LEADER OPPOSES EQUAL RIGHTS.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 64, 2 April 1937, Page 4

WOMEN'S LEADER OPPOSES EQUAL RIGHTS.

Mrs Carrie Chapman Catt, suffrage and peace leader, issued a statement in New York recently opposing the proposed equal rights amendment, which wOUld place all legislation and legal rights for men aiid women on ah equal plane. Such an amendment, Mrs Catt said, would destroy a mass of protective legislation for women pasBed dUring the past 50 years in the 48 states. 5 # - Mrs Catt pointed out that there had been and is a vast diixerence between the struggle of men and of women to attain their economic wants. " adding, "men WOrkers exercise a vast power Over faw materials and manufactures in the industrial world. They go on stfike by threats to interrupt the daily procedure of business and thus seceure concessions. As a result of these strikes, settlements have been made between employers and workers whieh have given to the labouter shorter hours and more pay. Women, while sometimeS joining in men 'a strikes and sometimes venturing in those of their own, are not employed in such numbers as to compel similar concessions. They have received the benefit of the minimum wage. through legislation. Even the great unions of men favour this protection to women. "It is a diffetence in method. Men are getting their demands by means of force and women have attained what they have gained by means of legislation passed upon their appetals to rOason which have educated public opinion. The time may come when different couditions of society may exist aud when, eeonomically, men and women will be equal in all their rights and privileges, but tlnat time has Uot yet come. " •