WOMEN AFTER THE WAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 191, 14 July 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

WOMEN AFTER THE WAR.

A NEW OUTLOOK. Whatever other changes the war will bring in its tram, one thing is certain —it will have entirely revolutionised the life and outlook of woman. For long centuries she was alternately the pet and drudge of man; his plaything, the mother of his children and the keeper of his home; and outside this narrow sphere she was seldom allowed to step. And it is only within recent years that she has begun to assert and prove her right to a wider scope, the right to share man's work while not neglecting her own. How well 6he has acquitted herself, against all opposition and under a heavy handicap, we ail know. In a gradually-widening, hard-won field of labour she has proved that she can do man's work almost, if not quite, as well as himself; but her opportunities have hitherto fallen far short of her ambition.

With the coming of war, however, a war which is taking the bulk of our manhood from their posts, the gates have at last been flung wide open for the entrance of woman into the field of labour; and she has risen magnificently to the opportunity. She has come forward literally in millions to fill the vacant places left by our fighters; she is doing their work in a hundred forms, mostly, entirely strange to her; and she is doing it so well as to command and deserve almost universal praise.

IN EVERY SPHERE

Thus through the accident of war all the opportunities so long denied to women have come at last. We s>ee them driving motor-lorries and twirling milk-cans into guards' vans, tramping their rounds with letters and newspapers and tradesmen's parcels; doing the work of chimney-sweep and lampI'srliter, window-cleaner, and carman. They collect our tickets on raliiway platforms: they are courteous conductors on 'bus and tram; and they work long hours in banks and offices. Hundreds of thousand? of them are enthusiastically making shells and other munitions of war; many thousands more are working on the land, sowing and ploughing and harrowing.

There is, in fact, scarcely a corner of the whole field of man's labour where women arc not to be found to-day doing invaluab'e work for the country. Very many of them have turned their backs on lives of ease and pleasure at the call of the nation; they have neither training nor need for work of any kind; but they have proved as capablo as they are willing. And while doing such excellent service for their country, women are incidentally doing good service to themselves and their families, which have probably lost their masculine breadwinners. There are scores of thousands of women and gir's who are earning today many times the utmost wages they could earn in tune of peace. In the munition factories there are girls making from £2 to £3 a week at work of which they were wholly ignorant a few months ago. In one such establishment, it is said, women, who, not many weeks ago, had never seen a projectile, are now earning nearly £4 weekly: in many cases girls picked up the work so quickly that within a month of entering the factory they were earning ten shillings a day.

A WONDER OF THE WAR. Such is the amazing revolution which war has wrought in the life of woman. It has, in fact, already done mora for her ambition in eighteen months than a century of peace could have effected. It has proved that, with very few exceptions, whatever man can do, woman can do. She has tasted the fruit of emancipation; she lias proved her capacity; and of one thing we may be sure, after the war is over she will never be content to resume her o'd shackles. Sho has come into her kingdom, and means to hold it. But it may be said, this is all very fine in theory. The present time is altogether .exceptional; and wfith the coining of peace and the return of our male workers, women will have to retire from the field to thou- old, restricted life. But is this by any means certain y It is certain that much of tho work on which women are now engaged in largo numbers will cease with the war. We shall no longer need the mountains of munitions which are so necessary ; now : nor al! the other things which aro , required by an enormous army in wartime. Hut in their places we shall have—f->r we mean to have them —a great number of new or largely inereas. cd industries. We shall no longer be content, as in the foolish, easy-going past, to depend on foreign and largely enemy sources for the supplies of luxuries and even necessaries. We must make these ourselves, as we well could do; and thus there wi'l be new openings fur hundreds of thousands of workers. The bulk of these will b.< women, for we shall not have the men to fill them. BKPLACIXG THK KAI.LEN. It must be remembered, too, that of our lighters wlio have relinquished their posts, very many will never come back to them—how many, who shall say? But probably the number will run into hundreds of thousands of dead and disabled. Tin e sadly vacant posts will n-) doubt be largely filled by women, who have proved tli"ir capacity to IiII ihem. A very large number, too. of our fighters who return safely from tho war will probably be unwilling to resun.e their old civilian work. The e'erks and other men of sedentary occupations who have for the first tunc

known the benefits and attractions of the free, open-air, athletic Ufa will be very reluctant to take their places again on an office-stool or behind a counter. Thousands will probably seek a wider, healthier scope across the seas in our Colonies, where they are wanted, and where no doubt many of them do well. Thousands more will, it is conjectured, settle on the land at home, where they are a'so wanted. And their places will l>e taken by women. However we look at it, the fact is abundantly clear that, whatever else may conic from the war, it will make a complete revolution in the life and position of woman. It will establish her firmly and finally as man's formidab'e rival in fields which he h:is hitherto monopolised and considered his own. It will give her emancipation, which ■she will never again forfeit; it will give her power which she will cling to as tenaciously as a limpet. She will have come into her own at Lint; and she will stay there THIS LEvSSON OF LABOUR. And this is by no means all that the w;ir will do for woman. She will not only have secured an equal footing with man in almost every part of the field of work, she will emerge from the war a different being in many other desirable ways.

Few things have been more remarkable than the way in which women have L'ft lives of idleness and pleasure-seek-ing to work —and work very hard —to relieve the suffering and distress caused by the war; thus learning lessons in self-sacrifice and usefulness wheih they will never forget, and which they will carry i»to times of peaco. Others have learnt equally valuable le»sons in the dignity of labour and the joys jof independence. They need no longer look to marriage as the only escape from a life of dependence or poverty. They can "fend for themselves," and they wi'l do it rather than take refuge-- in a loveless marriage of necessity. If they marry, it will be the man of their choosing; and they will bring to the union a capability, a strength of character, and habits of thrift which were not theirs before the war.

Thus to women the war will bring much, that is good. It will open to them a new world in which they will be able to lead fuller, more independent lives—lives for which they have so long and vainly struggled and to which they have every right.