NEW DEAL FOR THE HOUSEWIFE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 444, 26 December 1947, Page 10

NEW DEAL FOR THE HOUSEWIFE

Planned Social Life Will Use All Her Talents

[4% "Listener" Interview

T is always interesting to meet a newcomer from overseas and to get a brief glimpse of an-. other world. It is exciting and refreshing to meet someone who has not only travelled widely, but can also observe shrewdly and correlate her experiences. Mrs. Williams-Ellis is a most refreshing person to meet. She has travelled in Europe and America, writtena great many books, thought deeply about social, political, and economic problems, brought up a family of three children, and she is out in New Zealand to meet her new twin grandchildren. 3 In the first years of her married life she was Literary Editor of the Spectator. Her first nével was published when her children were small and has been followed by many more. Other books by Mrs. Williams-Ellis (such as Men Who Found Out, Fairies and Enchanters, or the more practical What Shall I Be?) were written first for her own children. As a member of the Women’s Voluntary Service she helped in the evacuation of children ati the outbreak of the war. Ten of them were billeted in her house, and when they

went home she had as many soldiers. Towards the end of the war she was given special facilities for visiting factories so that she might write a pamphlet on Women in War Factories. House-bound Women I began by asking Mrs, Williams-Ellis how far the shortage of domestic help was forcing the English mother back into home life. "A good deal-and in many cases it’s a great pity," she said. "It’s not easy to combine home and work, but after all life demands an art. We just can’t afford to waste half the human race. We should not allow the community to lose either the offspring, or the trained skill, of our most talented women. Intelligence tests seem to show that girls’ brains are no worse than boys’. But women, if they are married and tied to a domestic routine, are apt not to use their talents. Work in a home demands a number of skills and continuous attention to details; it is apt to become all-absorbing and atrophies the mind. After all, in these days a civilised community educates its women. It is a pity that the community shouldn’t also arrange for this expenditure to be of value to itself. Some communities are beginning to

consider this very problem. There is today, in most countries, a tremendous manpower shortage. In Britain we need all the people we can get in every walk of life. Then looking at it from the personal, family point of view, there is to-day a much longer expectation of life -or at least usefulness. At 50 a woman of to-day is still vigorous, but if she has been exclusively a housewife she is often at a loose end. She has become an amateur at the work that she was doing before she was married. I believe that it is ultimately to the children’s benefit to have a mother with keen interests outside the home. Moreover, when the children leave her she will find herself an intellectual and emotional bankrupt. Take me, I’m 52, I consider that I still have some years of active life ahead of me and I have been able to remain skilled at my own work. I am sure that I have been a better advisor and companion to my children as they grow older for having kept my own interests, and I am sure an active wife who is used to’ working in the world and with people is a better helpmeet to her husband than the woman who has remained entirely absorbed in her domestic rgund. Please don’t think that all women must have jobs. There are some quite satisfied with homemaking and who make a great art of it. Good luck to them. It is their job and I don’t want to drag them away from it. But I don’t think we should allow the wastage of able women, frustrated by wanting to use their special powers which they may feel are atrophying in an enforced house-bound existence." House-cleaning Squads "What answer have you then to this special problem of how to use married women’s services?" I asked. "T’ve studied the problem and how it has been met in all sorts of countries. In Britain, personal domestic service has to a great extent gone. Perhaps we deserve this as the old-time maid was not treated enough as an individual and as part of the family. I myself have been lucky. The girl I had years ago stayed on after she was married, in married quarters which we fixed up for her, and now we are old buddies and both very grateful to each other. But apart from personal service there is a great dévelopment of public facilities. For instance, ex-servicemen have formed ‘HouseCleaning Squads. The ‘Busy Bees’ clean my town flat. The job is thoroughly done by these ex-service people using modern electrical methods-very time-saving for the housewife. "Secondly, there are school meals. These have been continued after the ‘war because dietitians claim that a school meal is far better for the child than the carried lunch. It is not that the family is neglected at all, quite the reverse, Children don’t have their fads indulged and they eat everything up when they are all eating together. "Then there are the British Restaurants. These. really are a boon to families and they save a considerable amount of cooking, coupons, and washing up. They were started during the war and largely staffed by voluntary workers. As they were just a war-time expedient they were closed after the war, but my brother, John Strachey, was responsible for introducing an enabling Act by

which these restaurants could be reopened on a permanent basis, and sponsored by municipal authorities. The standard meal is a simple but wellcooked two-course dinner costing about 1/6." "Do these extend to the suburbs?" "There are not enough in the suburbs. Generally they serve the more congested areas. My husband’s plans for the community settlements include all sorts of facilities. (She made a rapid sketch on a piece of paper.) The tendency with towns is to plan them on the grid-iron pattern-rows of houses in straight lines, but why? We would like to see towns on the Reilly Green plan-blocks of houses, not flats, built on a petal-like plan with all the community facilities in the centre of the flower so to speak. Each block of houses could be built to enclose a large oval green where children could play without fear of their running away and without ‘any need to cross roads. For each block of houses there should be a communal kitchen and a permanent cook who could be helped out by the group of mothers. There should also be a nursery school and infant welfare centre and meeting hall-in fact all the facilities which would make living easier for the community. Day Nurseries and Part-time Work "Day nurseries of course were very important to women during the war. Some of these closed after the war but there are many still functioning.. They are a great relief to mothers of small children, and child psychologists generally agree that a day nursery is actually good for a pre-school child for some hours of the day through a full-time day nursery is usually too much for the young child.’ "Hasn't it been too much for the average mother of a family to take on outside work?" "Tt was found during the war that a good method of utilising the services of married women was to give them parttime employment. It proved very satisfactory. For example, one factory I vis-ited-it made the tail assemblies for the Lancaster bombers-was with the exception of six full-time workers, entirely staffed by women working part-time. The manager was even surprised to find that two women working four-hour shifts produced more than one woman on for eight hours! "In the U.S.S.R. it is, as we know, een policy to provide every acility to enable women to work. Every woman has three months’ leave

with pay when she has a baby and the right of reinstatement in her job afterwards. There is also full provision for day-nurseries and part-time employment, and women do every sort of job. "In Sweden there are the same sorts of inducement to encourage women to go back into job$-especially industrial jobs. For the better-off there are, for instance, the community houses. These are big blocks of flats with very full facilities for hiring cheaply every sort of electrical, labour-saving device for cleaning, polishing, washing, or ironing. There is in each block a single-room flat kept for a woman cleaner, and downstairs there is a communal dining room where you can eat or order food to be sent to your flat. There are also, as a matter of course, nurséries with trained staff, and a garden. This sounds rather in the luxury class but strong attempts are be- : ing made to. get these community houses with rents pegged down to working class | wages." The Future Outlook _ "And the future outlook for women?" Mrs. Williams-Ellis is . hopeful: "Things are going our way," she said. "We may wonder why the women of last century, who were pioneers in universities and the professions, did not make a better showing, but you must remember that many of our modern sciences (and our 20th Century outlook) just didn’t exist. Take for instance social science and ~psychology: these are’ primarily concerned with people. The 19th Century considered things more important than Auman beings. Production was more important than producers. Coal mattered more than miners. Education was based on subjects. I’ve seen an almost complete reversal of this. Take Mary Somerville’s slogan: ‘It isn’t what you can teach but what they can learn.’ In the 20th Century it is the human factor that is seen as the limiting factor. This change of attitude is very important for women because it is these things that demand qualities such as are associated with women. Women are interested in their fellow workers; they are sensitive to social atmosphere. The organic sciences, where ‘in recent years there has been immense progress, are those where women particularly shine. But the important thing is that they be given the . chance to shine.". Mrs. Williams-Ellis atided where she began: "The world to-day can’t afford to lose the talents and special abilities of half the human race," she said. _

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