Apparent rivalry.
In the better equipped houses, where women are employed on work generally done by men, as in composing, only parts of a compositor's duty are performed by women, and the heavier or the more technical duties, such as carrying about the formes or imposing, are done as a rule by boys or men.[40] So that here the rivalry is but partial, and, moreover, the employment of women does not always pay. It appears that in some cases, particularly in bookbinding, the application of machinery[41] makes it possible for the less skilled and lower paid women to do work formerly done by men, so that men regard women plus the machine as their competitor. On the other hand machines have displaced women and have made new openings for men, as in the case of one of the most recently introduced folding machines which feeds itself. But the re-organisation of the workshop which follows the introduction of the machine cannot be regarded merely as a substitution of men's labour by women's or the opposite, for what really happens is an all-round shifting of the distribution of labour-power and skill, and a re-arrangement of the subdivision of labour.[42] Men are transferred from one kind of work to another, owing mainly to a change in the volume of production; women are introduced not so much to take men's places as to fill places created by the re-organisation of work; youths also find a footing more often at the expense of women than of men. At certain points the machine simplifies processes and abolishes the need of paying for skill in the worker; at others it makes skill (sometimes, perhaps, a new kind of skill) more necessary; at one point it abolishes the need of paying for strength, at another it makes a new opening for strength. Thus the displacement which occurs, and the competition set up are often more apparent than real.
[40] As a type of the reports from firms employing women compositors, the following from Edinburgh firms may be summarised: Seven girls are employed on each machine (monotype), five on the keyboards and two correcting proofs. A man is kept for every ten or twelve girls, his work being to "make up" the girls' work. Another firm employs a man to attend to every three monotype machines used, for the purpose of keeping things going. Another says it employs two men compositors and one labourer for thirty-eight girls.
[41] Machinery has also tended to increase the employment of women in stamping and embossing.
[42] An official of a Bookbinders' Union states: "In A works there was much gloom among the men when the rounding and backing machine came in; profitable work was taken away from the 'rounders' and 'backers,' but they had more 'lining-up' and other work to do in consequence, so nobody was turned off."