The habit of many young girls in the business world of wearing sleeves that do not come to the elbow and displaying an amount of chest that would be proper only at an evening party, is a serious mistake. Another mistake is the marked preference for wearing, even in winter time, white shirt-waists. If these waists are to be really fresh and fit for wear, a new one must be put on every day, and that is an expense that the wearers clearly can not afford. Dark dresses, with touches of white at neck and wrists, are a much wiser choice when one must economize.
OPPORTUNITIES IN BUSINESS
It is very commonly said that men have larger interests than women, and that one reason for this lies in the fact that, in their every-day work, they form, naturally and easily, relations with many people; whereas a woman’s relations with the world too often come through the more artificial channels of pleasure. A woman in business has the same opportunity for meeting people on real ground that a man has. She should take advantage of these openings to healthful communication with her kind. We have all come in contact with women who have been thus broadened and have realized in them a kind of attraction not to be found in women leading more secluded lives. It is well in summing up the pros and cons of the business woman’s life to lay stress on her advantages, and the one just named is one of which she should make the most.
Women, as a class, are sometimes accused of a lack of method in the performance of their tasks. This is owing to the fact that the duties of domestic life may often be performed at any hour the housekeeper chooses, and that attention to them is not rigidly fixed as to time. A business career is often an effectual remedy for desultory habits. And this is the reason that many women who have served a time as wage-earners come back to housekeeping with renewed energy and ability. The best housekeepers the writer has ever known were retired women of business. They put into the tasks of the home the method, the promptness they learned in a more exacting field.
AFTER WORKING HOURS
However, women who are engaged the greater part of the day in offices, libraries, in shops, should not be expected to engage to any large degree in household duties. It sometimes happens that the members of a family circle, in which one woman goes out to earn her bread and butter, have little consideration for her tired state of mind and body when she leaves her work and returns to her home. They expect of her a double duty, and this is manifestly unfair. It is most important that a business woman have rest or diversion in her spare time, so that she will not get into a rut, so that she may do justice to her work.
A WORD OF ADVICE
Her family should not forget that her money-making powers will be crippled by forced attention to other duties. Men are treated far more considerately in this regard than women. Nothing is allowed to interfere with the average business man’s arrangements. To facilitate these, everything possible is done by his family. This may be because men are more insistent, because they have a way of demanding their rights. It would be well for women in business, well also for their families, that they should “look sharp” and pursue the same policy.