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Show ilDorothy Dix Talks Jr j PUT THE WOMEN TO WORK If1 I By DOttOTHY DIX. The World Highest Paul Woman Writer j; . ffo" that Uncle Sam has reached ' out a strong hand, clutched the mas- : cohne loafers by the slack of their jnncnts and dragged them up to the -ork bench and is requiring every i man to show that ho is engagod in 7 . omc useful labor, lot us hope that he 3 vrlll deal In the samo manner with 3 1 parasitic women. I I What is sauce for the gander is I I fauco for the goose. The Idle, lazy, ! i worthless woman Is just as much a J nionace to the counlry as the lazy. Idle worthless man Is. There Is no nlbrc excuse ex-cuse for a woman eating liio bread she has not earned, that there Is for a man, and If this war can take the poor, jplneless. purposeless, ambitlonlcss, useless specimens of humanity of boib jspxes and turn them into energetic, efficient, competent men and women, ji will have done somoihing, at least, to atone for its horrors, go far as women are concorncd, no 1 on? will deny that their chief vice, as ' a sex, is laziness. They adore softness. They Hko bodily ease. It requires heroic he-roic effort in a woman to inspire her to make the slightest effort, even to ihfnk. She Is too supine to get up and fight That is why women havo been down -trodden through the ages. It ' was easier to bear political, social and ' domestic wrong than it was to rebel against them. All of woman's much heralded pa-1 pa-1 tlcnco and endurance is nothing but laziness, physical and moral. Out of this laziness grow the tradi- tion that It was a misfortune for a woman to have to do any kind of labor, and women cherished this tradition so assiduously, and propagated it so artfully, art-fully, that at last they convinced man : that it was a reflection on him if he : ; did not maintain his women kind in ! - idle worthlessness. ; And to this day this theory still pre- vails. The woman who has to do her ij own housework looks upon herself as H a poor, persecuted martyr, and her ! husband feels ashamed of himself that jm he can't provide her with a maid, though why any healthy, intelligent, , abie-Doaiea woman isn t just as mucn called upon to put her shoulder to the wheel of the family chariot and boost it along, as the husband is, nobody can say. Also, everybody pltios and "poor things" the woman who goes out into the world to work for hor own living, no matter how competent sho may be, nor how much money she can earn. If sho has a husband, ho fools diBgraced by it. If she is unmarried, her father and brothers adopt an apologetic attitude at-titude and explain it by attributing it to some vagary of tho girl's peculiar disposition that made her freakish and unlike a real, feminine woman. And when women aro forced by necessity ne-cessity to work, they nearly always do It under protest, and do as little of it as they can. That is why they so sel- j dom succeed in their undertakings, : and why woman's work Is so badly paid. They are too lazy to even learn ' how to perform their jobs properly, end to do the extra work that is the bridge over which one passes from mediocrity to the place of responsibility responsibil-ity and the big pay envelope. This is true In every department of women's work. Women cook for forty years and never learn how to make bread that isn't a menace to peace and happiness, or boil a potato that Isn't an incentive to murder. Women sew from the cradle to the grave without ever finding out how to put on a button but-ton or a hook so it won't come off. Offices Of-fices and stores have a continual pro-i pro-i cession of young women passing through who havo plonty of brains to make themselves heads of departments, depart-ments, private secrotories, or cracker jack bookkeepers, but who never get anywhero becauso they are too lazy to tako the trouble to learn their trade. And each and every one of those women's ambition and aim in life Is to reach some 3ort of nn elysium in which she will bo like the heroine of the nursery ryhme "who sat on a silk cushion and sewed up a seam and fed upon strawberries, sugar and cream," and didn't do a blessed thing else on earth. Not even think. Sorao of them bolievc that they can attain this ideal or the do-nothing-state by marriage, and when they find out that performing upon the kitchen rango is a hundred times more laborious labor-ious than performing on a typewriter, and that a mother walks many moro miles with tho colic than any girl walks behind a counter, they become ( the peevish, fretful, discontented domestic do-mestic women who are always growl-Ins growl-Ins about being worked to death at home, and how much trouble husbands nd children are. Now laziness is a well nigh Incurable Incur-able fault, because the victim of it never admits being nffllcted with the disease and never wants to be cured. . ; Especially Is this true of women, who camouflage their indolence by calling ' . - It nerves and ill-health. A woman never says that the reason sho makes her poor husband put up with tho Inconvenience In-convenience of a boarding house, instead in-stead of having a home of her own, is because she is too lazy to keep house. No, she sighs and says that her health Is so bad that she is not able to wield a broom, or make a bed, although she is able to play golf and tennis all day long nnd dance the night afterwards. No ordinary means can reach the lazy woman, safely barricaded behind her nerves and hor specialist, but tho government can stretch out its long arm and get hor, and that is why tho anil -loafing laws should apply to women wom-en as well as men, and the female slacker should be put to work just as I much as the male. If this is done, it will do much moro than help the present pres-ent labor stringency. It will regenerate society and the home. For laziness In women is the parent of disease, divorce, broken homes and wayward children, and half tho ills from which wo suffer. Any doctor will tell you that his trade would bo gone if it were not for the idle women who gorge themselves on rich food and who never do a lick of work, and who, having nothing to occupy mind or body, fall a prey to a hundred real and imaginary ills. We know that this is true, becauso all of us can cite a dozen cases of rich women wom-en who have been pampered invalids for years, and were suddenly cured by losing their property and having to go out and hustle for a living. It is tho lazy women who never mako even so much effort as to dress themselves, who become neurotic, and who bore us to death by the hysterica and harping forever on the stories of their own grievances. If you want to hear a crowd of morbid, self-centered egotists toll tho sad, sad stories of their lives, get among the wives of prosperous business men men who can afford to keep half a dozen servants ser-vants and limousines for their women folk. And if you want to find out how bright, breezy, cheerful and humorous women can be. forgather with a lot of business women who arc too busy to nourish grievances or vivisect their own emotions. It is the idle women whose brains are the devil's workshop. It Is the women whose only labor is killing time who discover that their husbands are not their soul mates, and who start out on a still hunt for affinities, which they invariably find. It Is the women who have no real interests in a legitimate legiti-mate occupation, who find it in tho illegitimate il-legitimate occupation afforded by flirtations flir-tations and affairs with men they pick up in questionable ways at questionable question-able places. The hard-working woman who is doing her best to take care of her family fam-ily and spread throe dollars over tho |