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Show S Dorothy Dix Talks i WOMEN'S WORK. i By DOROTHY DlX, ThP WorM's Hjghggt Taid Woman Writer I This war Which has callod so many nien to the battle line, has thrust millions mil-lions of wompn into occupations thai ibpy have never followed before, and Joar Is expressed that when the war j-, over and the men return to their peaceful vocations, these women will refuse to surrender thnr jobs to their li.rmer incumbents. Probably this will be true in many teases, and many occupations that have been heretofore monopolized by men -will have passed forever into feminine 1 hands Doubtless there will also be few women who, on account of pecu- liar fitness, will continue to follow masculine professions, and lliere will be sporadic cases of lady longshoremen, longshore-men, lady steeplejacks and lady trench digpers. For the most part, however, i at b sex in the final readjustment of con-dltlohs con-dltlohs will ?o back to its own field of labor for the simple reason thati i h will find it more profitable to do the kind of labor for which it Is I designed And this is particularly true of worn en, for when a woman tries to do, a I man's work she develops along the! line of greatest resistance, and has to flghl all kbe obstacles that nature and sex as well as circumstances have put 'in her pathway, while when she docs her own work she brings to it all the skill and ability of thousands of years of inherited aptitude. A woman trying to do a man's work in a man's way is always more or less of a failure. Her achievement is that of the dancing dog not that she does 11 -;o well, but thai she does it at all. But when she puts her sex behind her work and does a woman's work in a woman's way, she gives it untold value. (in their own ground men can always al-ways excel women, and women are foolish to compete with them instead' of sticking to their own particular I lines. It takes a course in physical instruction in-struction and a knowledge of higher; mathematics to enable a woman to! Ik. . . . . . .... I tJ throw a rock as straigm as a little ireckle-faced, double -1 ist ed boy does by intuition Bu when it comes to pinning on a collar in such a 'way that it will hold together and the pin will not pierce the jugular vein, any girl child could beat Mr. Edison a city block. In laying out the work of the world 1be great master architect intended ibat certain portions of it should be done by men and other portions by women, and each sex labors best and most prosperously when it sticks to its own job '1 vV' ver, refuse to recognize recog-nize Zhit paipable truth, and so they expend their energy and intelligence in doing a thine badly that they were never intend to do at all and leains: undone the things which the could do gloriously. There are few things sadder than this wasteful feminine force, for in trying to do a man's work a woman gives qualities out of all proportion to ihe result. It takes, for instance, a woman of remarkable physique, unusual un-usual personal bravery, rare executive ability, and intrepid determination to be the foreman of a railroad track construction crew, whereas any ordinary ordi-nary Irish man with a fist like a sledge hammer and an unabridged vocabulary can do it without turning a hair. Of course women say that the reason rea-son that they wish to work at men's occupations, instead of their own, is because there is more money in doing mi n a work than women B work. Never jwas there a greater error. Practically every woman who accumulates a foV-tune foV-tune does it by following some one of 1 the hereditary occupations of her sex. j And I command this view of the subject to women who, when the war Ms over, will have to choose between doing man's work and women's v.ork. (The crying need of the day (a women's work well done, and when it is well done it commands exorbitant prices. You doubt that? Let us be;;in with the most elementary of all femlnite I occupations and consider cookery, i Women don't like to cook Most of Ithem don't know how to cook If ou advertise for a stenographer, a sales-Worn. sales-Worn. in. and cook ou will get a hundred hun-dred applications for positions before your typewriter; or behind your counter, coun-ter, where you will get one. application applica-tion for the position beside vour kitchen range. Yet what are the relative opportunities oppor-tunities for making monev? The Inexperienced In-experienced cook, the inexperienced stenographer and saleswoman start out at the same salary, but if the cook put as much intelligent studv and "uih. inio learning her occupation as the saleswoman does into hers before i she gets to be forewoman in a department, de-partment, or the stenographer does in hers before she gets to the place where she is a private secretary, she would be naming her own price as chaf to a millionaire. The same thing may be said of dressmaking atirl miin cwivj luiiuiirii, iwu tuner Occupations scorned by the feminine Bex, yet what man s work is half so well paid as that of the milliner andi dressmaker who bring skill and brains to their work. Look in any fashionable shop window win-dow and you can see hats marked $50, $75 and $100, the raw material of which do not cost $5, but they were put together by a woman who knew her business, and other women were willing nay, glad to pay these prices for good workmanship. Ac f rT rlrac.mnl.A .1 I b iur aressraaKers, an woman who j ean put a gown together so it will pass I muster in a crowd can get all the j work she can do. If she can construct la dress that will not hike 'up in the back and down in the front, or isn't too .short or too long in the sleeves and that doesn't have to go back three ! times for alterations before it is wear-I wear-I able at all, she will be overrun with customers. Any dressmaker who will study her business as a profession as she would ' study law or medicine and will put ! into .ier work craftsmanship, subtlety and thought, may be as extortionate as she pleases, and women will cheerfully cheer-fully lay down their pocket books before be-fore her and let her take what she I will. Another flagrant instance of woman's wom-an's negletced golden opportunities is to be found in boarding houses Most women who try keeping boarders come to bankruptcy. This is because thej do not study it as a profession. They practice it as a sideline, while they lie I on sofas, read novels or play bridge. The world is full of hungry, home - less, tired people, who are looking for! : something good to eat, a clean room.' and a substitute for a hearth of their own. and any woman who can suppl these can coin money. It is a shame to women that hotel keeping, which Is Just home making on a big scale, should not be exclu-1 sively in the hands of women, and it will be when women wake up to thus fact that their greatest advancement and thnir greatest profits are to be found in doing women's work. Therefore, ihe slogan for women aft el ihe war is: Back to your own job, and leave men's work to men, |