ARE WOMEN DOWNTRODDEN?

Shannon News, 22 May 1928, Page 4

ARE WOMEN DOWNTRODDEN?

At the National Teachers' Conference a certain prominent . member stated that, in her opinion women as a sex were downtrodden.

Her reasons were several, but I cannot say that they appeared extraordinarily convincing. One of them dealt with" the ever-vexed question of salaries for women versus men, writes Joan Sutherland in an • exchange.

Now experience counts for some[.thing, as Miss Dedman must admit, and young girls just starting in any job cannot, as a rule, work so "well as men because, until they are used to working, it is a drain on iljeftr strength such as a man seldom feels. But this is only by the way. To say in these post-war days that women are downtrodden as a sex seems to. me to be either absurd or to be | the fault of the sex itself; ! Nearly "all professionals and arts, and most other work except that re-: quiring sheer physical force such as;' the use of heavy tools or carrying: great weights, lie open to us; the tubes and buses are crowded to excess with girls and women who are workers, and who, as a majority, look capable and fairly content. Here and there naturally there ar-3 cases where a prejudiced or objectionable employer sweats the labor of his, female staff, but are there no sweat-j ed trades for the man? Do we see evrdencos on every side of oppression - or unfair treatment because women are women. I have travelled a "good deal ant) had a very varied and in some ways unusual experience of life, and since I have been among the ranks of the workers for some years I can claim some right to speak, and it; seems to me that such a statement as Miss Dedman has made is exaggerated, to say the h'ast.

In many trades women are preferred because they are quicker and more receptive to tuition, and if they tako enough trouble and get to the top of their respective jobs there is not much brow-beating or injustice. As for those other ranks of life where paid employment is not considered, unfair treatment does not seem very noticeable. We have full political power; the divorce laws, the laws of parontal rights, have been altered in our favor —not too soon.