Women Workers
A NEW TASTE IN MEN AND WOMEN
She: "What a fine-looking man Mr. O'Brien is!"
He: "H'm—hah—rather rough-hewn, I think. Can't say I admire that loud-laughing, strong-voiced, robust kind of man. Now that's a fine-looking woman he's talking to!"
She: "Well—er—somewhat effeminate, you know. Confess I don't admire effeminate women!"
On the subject of women workers Punch's utterances are apparently but not really irreconcilable. The "Wail of the Male; being a British workman's view of the cheap female labour question, respectfully submitted to the Trade Union Congress" in 1887, is a protest against women undercutting men in the labour market. But the voice is the voice of 'Arry, not of Punch—shrewd, glib and entirely selfish. The speaker has just got the "bullet"—having been sacked without notice—and speculates on further possibilities:—
Look here, Bill! If they shunt
You and me, and our like, as they're doing all round,
Because Women are cheap, and there's heaps to be found,