Woman on Her Own, False Gods and The Red Robe Part 29

DELEGATE. The movement of the compet.i.tion of women, the invasion of the labor market by female labor.

THeReSE. Not a very dangerous invasion.

DELEGATE. You think not. Listen. I've just come down from Paris. Who gave me my railway ticket? A woman. Who did I find behind the counter at the Post Office? A woman. Who was at the end of the telephone wire? A woman. I had to get some money; it was a woman who gave it to me at the bank. I don't even speak of the women doctors and lawyers. And in industry, like everywhere else, women want to supplant us. There are women now even in the metal-working shops. Everyone has the right to defend himself against compet.i.tion. The workmen are going to defend themselves.

THeReSE. Without troubling about the consequences. To take away a woman's right to work is to condemn her to starvation or prost.i.tution.

You're not compet.i.tors, you're enemies.

DELEGATE. You're mistaken. We're so little the enemies of the women that in asking you to do away with your Union we're speaking in your own interest.

THeReSE. Bah!

DELEGATE. We don't want women to take lower wages than ours.

THeReSE. I know the phrase. "Equal wages for equal work."

DELEGATE. That's absolutely just.

THeReSE. The masters won't give those equal wages.

DELEGATE. The women have a means of forcing them to; they can strike.

THeReSE. We don't wish to employ those means.

DELEGATE. I beg your pardon, the women would consent at once. It's you that prevent them, through the Union that you've started. Isn't that so?

THeReSE. That is so. But you know why.

DELEGATE. No, I do not know why.

THeReSE. Then I will tell you why. It is because the phrase only seems to be just and generous. You know very well that here, at any rate, the owner would not employ any more women if he had to pay them the same wages he pays the men. And if they struck, he'd replace them by men.

Your apparent solicitude is only hypocrisy. In reality you want to get rid of the women.

DELEGATE. Well, I admit that. The women are not compet.i.tors; they're enemies. In every dispute they'll take the side of the masters.

THeReSE. How d'you know that?

DELEGATE. They've always done it, because women take orders by instinct.

They're humble, and docile, and easily frightened.

THeReSE. Why don't you say inferiors, at once?

DELEGATE. Well, yes; inferiors, the majority of them.

THeReSE. If they're inferiors, it's only right that they should take lower wages.

DELEGATE. Oh, I didn't mean to say--

THeReSE [_interrupting him_] But it's not true--they are _not_ your inferiors. If they believe they are, it's because of the wrongs and humiliations you've imposed on them for centuries. You men stick together. Why are we not to do the same? If you start trade unions, why may not we? As a matter of fact, as regards work, we're your equals. We need our wages; and to get hold of the jobs that we're able to do we offer our work at a cheaper rate than you do. That is compet.i.tion; you must protect yourselves from it. If you want no more compet.i.tion, keep your women at home and support them.

DELEGATE. But that's precisely what we want: "The man in the workshop, the woman in the home."

THeReSE. If the mother is not at home nowadays, it's because the man is in the saloon.

DELEGATE. The men go to the saloons because they're tired of finding the place badly kept and the supper not ready when they go home, and instead of a wife a tired-out factory hand.

THeReSE. D'you think it's to amuse themselves the women go to work?

Don't you suppose they prefer a quiet life in their own homes?

DELEGATE. They've only got to stay there.

THeReSE. And who's to support them?

DELEGATE. Their husbands!

THeReSE. First they've got to have husbands. What about the ones who have no husbands--the girls, the widows, the abandoned? Isn't it better to give them a trade than to force them to take a lover? Some of them want to leave off being obliged to beg for the help of a man. Can't you see that for a lot of women work means freedom? Can you blame them for demanding the right to work? That's the victory they're fighting for.

DELEGATE. I'm not at all sure that that victory is a desirable one.

Indeed, I'm sure it is not. When you've succeeded in giving the woman complete independence through hard work; when you have taken her children from her and handed them over to a creche; when you've severed her from her domestic duties and also from all domestic happiness and joy, how d'you know she won't turn round and demand to have her old slavery back again? The quietness and peace of her own home? The right to care for her own husband and nurse her own child?

THeReSE. But can't you see that it's just that that the immense majority of women are demanding now? We want the women to stay at home just as much as you do. But how are you going to make that possible? At present the money spent on drink equals the total of the salaries paid to women.

So the problem is to get rid of drunkenness. But the middle cla.s.ses refuse to meet this evil straightforwardly because the votes which keep them in power are in the pockets of the publicans; and you socialist leaders refuse just as much as the middle cla.s.ses really to tackle the drink question because you're as keen for votes as they are. You've got to look the situation in the face. We're on the threshold of a new era.

In every civilized country, in the towns and in the rural districts, from the dest.i.tute and from the poor, from every home that a man has deserted for drink or left empty because men have no longer the courage to marry, a woman will appear, who comes out from that home and will sit down by your side in the workshop, in the factory, at the office, in the counting house. You don't want her as housewife; and as she refuses to be a prost.i.tute, she will become a woman-worker, a compet.i.tor; and finally, because she has more energy than you have, and because _she_ is not a drunkard, she will take your places.

DELEGATE [_brutally_] Well, before another hour's gone over our heads you'll find that she won't start that game here.

_Monsieur Feliat comes in._

FeLIAT [_to the delegate_] My dear sir, a thousand pardons for interrupting you, but as I've just turned your friend out of my house because he took advantage of being in it to start a propaganda against me, what's the use of your going on talking to this lady about a course of action she will no more consent to than I shall?

DELEGATE. Very well, Monsieur. I shall telephone to Paris for instructions. Probably you will refuse to let me use your instrument.

FeLIAT. I most certainly shall.

DELEGATE. So I shall go to the Post Office, and in ten minutes--

FeLIAT. Go, my dear sir, go. But let me tell you in a friendly way that it'll take you more than ten minutes to get on to Paris.

DELEGATE. It takes you more, perhaps, but not me. Good-morning. [_The delegate goes out_]

FeLIAT [_to Therese_] The low brute! Things are not going well. What happened at Duriot's has made a very unfortunate impression here. The news that you were going to open a new workshop for the women has been twisted and distorted by gossip and chatter, and my men have been worked up by the other brute to come and threaten me.

THeReSE. What d'you mean?

FeLIAT. They threaten me with a strike and with blacklisting me if I don't give up the idea.

THeReSE. You can't give up absolutely certain profits.