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TIRED OF SERVANT PROBLEM ? THEN DIGNIFY YOUR KITCHENI Mi Mr brl : tea La Me E.tenBy CYNTHIA GREY Advantages they cited were: Morelt;r\t to clothes. I believe the ser-j latitude in ways of doing their work. ;r h!lt;m the most discussed more artistic surroundings, goodopl a? bridge parties and teas where food, variety in one's work, and the ram-1 women congregate. .association with people of education.I pay my maid $18 a week, and The girls agreed that kitchen v. nr't do the laundry,** says one. clocks with closing whistles would Mine absolutely refuses to have; do a lot of popularize domestic serv-anvthing to do with the care of thechildren though they are perfect darlings,” wails another.“Just think, my mother paid our hired girl’ four dollars a week, and she did everything and never thought about afternoons off, or dreamed of not being on hand Sundays,” another recalls.And so it goes. It has become increasingly difficult to get capable' women to do housework. And. why! indeed, should a girl do housework,! wiien she is better paid in a factory1 or store, where she has her own hours and her ow i\ time?The problem is. not in getting;%women back into housework, but. in rearranging domestic work so that; girls will enter it in preference to the factory or shop.Tin girl in the office has regular duties. She knows what they are.Th*~rlt; is a definite standard understood by her and her employer*. She has a definite lunch hour. Usually she lias the companionship of other girls.How many serving maids are allowed a regular schedule? How many of them can lay out their work without being called upon for dozens of outside matters? How many of them are treated as trained workers?The Y. W. C. A. recently called together two groups of girls; bne from those who did housework: the other from those employed in factories. Reports showed a very strong sentiment in favor of factory work.Ainoi g the disadvantages of working In other people’s kitchens, the girls agreed, were the following:Lalt;k of definite hours, necessity of asking for every little favor, too great dependence on the w’hiras of the J ures. mistress of the household, too much | When Sunday work, and the indifference of t and the the employer to the social life of the should, domestic. i problemfee. At present servant girls find it difficult to have any recognized fitting time. They can rarely count on evening engagements.The whole thing resolves Itself to a. matter of values. There Is no doubt but men have determined the values to a large extent. They have magnified the Importance of the shop, the store, the factory, and all the complicated mechanisms they have created.They have minimized the home, the most important and most intricate of all institutions, because they have delegated the management of it so largely to women.And women have not putHhe high value on their part of the partnership of living. They have not realized the value, because they have accepted man’s valuation.Women are responsible for the shortage of domestic help, because they have degraded household service instead of elevating it.It was not until the factory and shop drew away most of the available women that women realized the importance of the servant question. Then it was too late. The damage was done.We will never get girls — good, capable, American girls—back into our kitchens and homes as drudges. We can’t lure them back to the old job of “housework.” But we can re-establish conditions and bring back into our homes girls who go into factories and shops If we make the conditions better.Domestic work Is Infinitely preferable to hard factory work. Women naturally take to home work more readily than to machinery and fig-women dignify housework, feminine pursuits as they there will be no servant
Newspaper Details
La Crosse Tribune and Leader Press
La Crosse, Wisconsin, US
Sun, Dec 06, 1925
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
La C.
WI, USA 17 Jun 2024
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