The woman of to-morrow

by Helen M. Winslow

XVII
ON THE OUTLOOK

What, then, of the woman of to-morrow? What part will she play in affairs of public interest? What will she do with the home? What will she do and be as an individual?

As I write, the robins and orioles and bobolinks are singing around the house, out in the orchard. Mingled with their notes comes the strain of a catbird, the “northern mocking-bird.” They are all beautiful, and combine to make a perfect harmony of music in the May sunshine; but it is the catbird’s song that the ear strains to follow, with its sweet and sudden changes, its low guttural notes and its pure, uplifted tones as it tries to catch and mimic the strain of the bluebird, the thrush, the oriole. And I willingly forget the others in trying to keep count of her bewitching changes. And I wonder if it does not typify the modern woman. The others, lovely, melodious little creatures, are woman as she has been for years, woman of whom we know what to expect. But the catbird! Here we have the woman of to-day outdoing all the others, catching their song, putting forth all their captivating graces, and making herself heard and felt wherever she goes. It is the unexpectedness of her song, the spontaneous uncertainty of it combined with the knowledge that it will be well worth listening to, that holds us captive, as with strained ear we watch for what she will do next. And if she puts forth guttural or harsh notes now and again we can forgive and forget them for the sake of the sweet, entrancing ones that we know are sure to follow.

It is so with the work woman is doing outside of the home. She is doing everything and doing it in her own way, imitative, perhaps, but still so different from men’s way or from her sisters of the day before yesterday as to render her and her methods always an object of interest. She is establishing libraries, improving streets and villages and municipalities, raising the standard of education, fighting against oppression in the form of sweatshops and child labor, and getting bills introduced to legislative bodies—and still she is the same captivating, lovable and loving woman as of yore. We flatter ourselves that women have done a great deal for the public good, but fifty years hence shall we not look back at our achievements of to-day as the merest beginnings—a thing of shreds and patches? For so long as the world stands its women are going to do their best to uplift humanity. They have found out that the mere stayer at home, content with the Laissez faire of other days, helps only those in her immediate circle (let us hope she always does that!). To-day the woman who helps reaches across the State with her libraries and her child-labor bills; even clear across the continent is modern associated womanhood stretching her influence. The women of Massachusetts send books and money to establish schools in Georgia; the women of Minnesota and Michigan scatter literature and manual training across the plains of Arizona. If the woman of to-day cannot go over into Mesopotamia in person, she can send the cheering word, the helpful dollar, the influence of thousands of good women across the intervening spaces. It is the sisterhood of women awakening to a sense of what humanity requires of them. And when this is fully awakened the way is made clear for the woman of to-morrow; a way she is sure to follow and will, and make to blossom as the rose while she is about it.

But while she extends her work out and beyond she will not forget the home. Let extremists advise as they will, they can never make the ordinary, home-loving woman, born with all the primal instincts of womanhood, believe that in fulfilling her natural duties as wife and mother and daughter and teacher she is wasting her life in drudgery. The woman of to-morrow will fall in love and marry and have children just as the woman of yesterday did; only let us hope she will be more careful about whom she falls in love with, at what age she marries and how she brings up her children. In this time of steam-driven spindles, cutting and sewing machines and the general lightening of labor, more leisure comes to the average woman which she will not be content to fill with mere selfish or social pleasures. She will wake to the knowledge of how to use her time most wisely. With greater leisure and greater wealth and comfort we may expect more and not less of the sharing with others of the best we have. Great economic changes are taking place in the home life. The family, at one time almost a self-sufficient economic unit, now satisfies fewer and fewer direct economic wants. It is not so many years since there were well-to-do New England families in rural districts which did not spend fifty dollars a year for the satisfaction of family wants. They produced everything themselves, raised and prepared for use all their food supply, even the materials for clothing, the tools for their work, the furniture for their homes, and they provided within themselves all the essential services for the social and educational life of the home. All is different now, even in the most primitive rural districts. The farmer buys all his clothing, no longer makes his shoes or clothes, buys a large part of his food supply, even many of the most common farm products, such as milk, butter and eggs. The farmer’s wife buys her dresses and children’s clothes ready-made, and too often does not bake her own bread or pastry. Laundry work is given out, and in many cases all the washing as well, and the good Hausfrau has no longer an excuse for irritability on two days of the week. Ladies’ tailoring promises fair to eliminate the necessity for periodical family disturbances caused by the visits of the dressmaker and seamstress. Is not the increase of family goods and services not long since provided within the family itself, and constituting the bulk of the time-consuming burden of the wife and mother and daughters in each individual home, but now provided for by organized effort outside the home, really remarkable? All these economic changes more directly affect the life of women than that of men. And we can but remark that in the resultant increase in leisure, women as a class have been relatively greater gainers than men, partly because in the shifting of their activities somewhat of their economic productive functions have been undertaken by men. It is a matter of congratulation, however, that all the economic changes in the position and work of women have been accompanied by the most remarkable expansion this country has ever witnessed, an expansion alongside of which our political expansion is a mere bagatelle, an expansion in woman’s educational interests and aspirations. The higher education and a more diversified education has brought woman inevitably into the arena of public duties and large social responsibilities, and must needs lead her to demand a specific training and equipment for social service.

The day has passed when Martin Luther could say: “No gown or garment worse becomes a woman than when she would be wise.” Women must educate themselves to-day, not merely for their own sakes, but for the sakes of others, for whether they will or not they must educate others. Let them keep high ideals and live up to them, for as wife and mother, sister and daughter, an influence indirect and perhaps unconscious is shaping some character and building for the weal or woe of our country. Benjamin Rush once said: “A philosopher decided, ‘Let me make the ballads of a country and I care not who makes its laws.’” He might with more propriety have said: “Let the ladies of a country be educated properly and they will not only make and administer its laws, but form its manners and character.”

We have not yet taken kindly to the earnest suggestion of the greatest philosopher of the ancient Greek world to farm out our children (more recently adapted by Mrs. Stetson-Gilman), nor is there any monopolistic combination for the propagation and perpetuation of the race. Barring the increasing activities of the home in its care for the welfare of its children, activities increasing in importance and in their demands proportionately with the advance of civilization, find women with more time for the larger life and more inclination to learn how to use it wisely and effectively. As to the character and kind of this outside work, it seems to me that it will be best directed along these lines:

The promotion of public health and sanitation.

The protection of the highest attainable standard or plane of living for the various classes in society.

The attainment of a progressively better type of education for all, guaranteeing a better adjustment to both our economic and social environment.