CHAPTER XI
THE INDUSTRIAL WOMAN
Though we have travelled far since the days of our great–grand–parents, when practically everything that was used in the house was made in the house; when the beer was brewed and the soap made and the yarn spun and the cloth woven at home, and mainly by the women of the household; when the little bedroom of the country cottage was a miniature weaving–shed, and the back kitchen a cobbler’s shop, the lives of the working–women, as the foregoing chapter will have shown, are still very hard and very full lives; full, not of experiences of different kinds, each more thrilling than the last, but filled with repetitions of the same few experiences, the dull monotony of the daily task; and with scant leisure for repose.
In addition to the numerous tasks dwelt upon in the last chapter, the bearing and rearing of children and the care of a husband and the house, many a poor worker's wife has to turn out to earn a little in order to supplement the scanty wages of the husband, the natural breadwinner of the family. Competition, the competition of women and girls, the competition of unemployed work-mates, the competition of better workmen has lowered his own wage, and it is not sufficient for his increasing and rapidly growing family. The wife has to go out. She cooks, cleans, or washes—anything to earn a few shillings. Or she goes to the factory and spins or weaves alongside her husband.
Picture a life very common in Lancashire—in the greatest of all our manufacturing centres—where the husband and wife, and sometimes three or four children, turn into the same mill to work for wages.
They rise at five in the morning. The children's breakfast must be got ready, for they will have gone to school when the mother returns. They rush round the house, eyes half-closed with sleepiness, putting everything in readiness for the little sleepers when they awake. The youngest, a tiny baby, cannot be left. The others are too young to take care of it properly. So the mother takes it up out of bed, wraps it in a shawl, and leaves it at the house of a neighbour woman on the way to the mill. The early morning air is raw or frosty—but the baby has not to mind that. The mother must be at the mill at six o'clock. At eight there is a break of half-an-hour for breakfast. There is not time to come home, so she eats her meal near the shed, wondering all the time how the children are getting along, and if the baby is well. Punctually at half-past eight they start work, and work until half-past twelve. Then home for dinner, which has to be prepared by the tired worker from the mill for herself and the children. Back she goes at half-past one, to work again until half-past five, the clanging and grinding of the machinery in her ears, the perspiration streaming from her face, her nerves on a continuous stretch lest something should go wrong and the cruel fine be imposed.
After having made the tea and enjoyed it, there are the household duties to do. With these the husband often helps. He cleans the windows, swills the street, polishes the boots, if he be as good as some Lancashire husbands. Baking is done by gaslight. The steam from the wash-tub is about in the evening. When the tired wife ought to be resting in bed she is mending little frocks and sewing on tapes and buttons.
The solitary compensation to an intelligent Lancashire weaver woman is the knowledge that she is paid as well as her man if she does as much work and does it as well as he. This much has a strong Trade Unionism done for her. But with this advantage, the double life is too much for one person. The strongest woman ought not to have all these duties to perform. What chance has she for self-improvement, for reading and recreation? As a matter of fact, the disposition to improve is gradually destroyed as strength ebbs away in a multiplicity of duties.
One of the reasons for the employment of women in such large numbers in the industrial world is their cheapness and their amenable character, the latter quality making them easy victims of exploitation. Except where a strong Trade Unionism has beneficently interfered, women are not paid anything like so much as men for the same work. And frequently the wage paid is far less than they require to supply themselves with the barest necessaries of life.
It is assumed that women and girls are merely working for pocket-money, that the girls live at home with relations who are only too pleased to help them out. It is asserted that, owing to physical weakness, girls are not able to do as much work as men in a given time; nor of the same quality. Neither of these assumptions is sound. Most working-girls have to keep themselves, and sometimes another. Nor is the latter statement that the work of women is weaker than that of men established in fact. On the whole their work is better done, for they are much more conscientious.
At any rate they have a right to a living wage, and are beginning to demand it, and that it shall be the same as that paid to their male companions in the same work.
Socialism will not differentiate between its men and women in the matter of pay. It is to the final and complete abolition of the entire wage-system that the Socialist looks; but in the intermediate stages of Collectivist development equal pay for equal work will be granted to the sexes indiscriminately.
The result of this will be that women will be employed to any large extent only in those occupations for which they are specially fitted and for which they have shown a special aptitude. The same with men. Thus, whilst no occupation will be closed to either one sex or the other, common-sense will dictate which shall be a particular individual's choice of work; and since one sex will not be exploited at the cost of the other sex, as at present, men and women will find their natural sphere and congenial employment.
The conditions of factory employment under the new system will be much better than they are now. The hours will not be so long. The work will not be at such a high tension. Production will be for the needs of the community and not for the profit of a few private individuals. Women factory inspectors will be more mumerous. Factories will be large, light, and airy. Workrooms will be beautiful. The economic value of healthy and pleasant conditions of work will be generally appreciated. The workers will have time to smile. They will feel like smiling. Their work will be a joy. They will be taught to understand and skilfully handle the machinery they mind. Their comfort in everything will be considered. Meals will be served in lofty dining-halls, nor will they need to hurry away from the meal to the work.
Married women with children will not work in the factory; at least until the children are out of their hands. They will not wish to do so, for they will be free, and their children will claim them. But childless married women and unmarried women will be at liberty to please themselves as to the way in which they shall exercise the labour which will be demanded of all.
No children will be permitted to work for wages, or for anything but their own instruction. They will probably leave the secondary school for a special or technical school, where the first principles of their future craft shall be taught them by sympathetic teachers of either or both sexes.
Although machinery as used in factory and workshop will be more highly valued, much more used, and far better understood under Socialism and in Socialist workshops than at present, there will be a tremendous development of the home industries; not the sweated, underpaid "Outwork,” which is ruining the lives of thousands of women and children in these modern times, but the beautiful arts and crafts, the work in wood and metal and upon other substances, which will be executed by hand, and will exhibit individual genius and intelligence. Either as a hobby or as a means of livelihood this work will have the protection of the State, for through these channels its homes, its halls, and its great public buildings will be beautified and adorned.