The Advance of Women.

Manawatu Herald, 19 September 1895, Page 2

The Advance of Women.

The striking exhibit made by recent United States census bulletins of the enormous increase in the number of women engaged in gainful occupations has furnished a fruitful topic for editorial speculation and moralising. In 1880 there were 4,477,157 females engaged in gain* ful occupations in the United States while in 1890 the number was 8,214,711, an increase of 47.88 per cent. The army and navy are the only professions which women have not " invaded." In every other occupation, from the lowest to the highest, they are competing with men on a footing of equality. They are found in the ranks oi agricultural labourers, day labourers, lumbermen, quarrymen, bar-tenders, coal miners, brick and tile makers* wood-choppers and tinplate workers. They are chemists, metallurgists, architects, inventors, veterinary surgeons, engi- 1 peers, lawyers, clergymen, and ' journalists. Their rate of increase/ in the various professions classed as j

liberal is likely to be oven mow startling in the next ten or twenty years. The effects of thete ehangM on the home and the " sphere of woman," it is pointed out, are certain to be far- reaching and re* volutionary.