Women and economic evolution: or, The effects of industrial changes upon the status of women

by Theresa Schmid McMahon

Social prestige is closely connected with economic prosperity and only in so far as the social goal has attained an importance greater than the economic, is the authority of women conspicuous. The economic idea is fundamental until a degree of security is attained eliminating the possibility of want. This changed relation so apparent in the United States causes no little amusement to the foreigners who have not yet accepted feminine rule.

Although the leisure-class women are not conspicuous in demanding political equality, it is no new phenomenon to see them play a significant part in the political affairs of the day. Their influence and support has been sought and is still sought by political aspirants. But upon the whole their ambitions are purely social. They do not challenge the admiration of the saner element of the population but they represent an extreme social type just as many of their fortunes represent an abnormal and unhealthy financial condition. Their principal function is that of conspicuous consumption and dissipation.

With no serious purpose in life degeneracy is bound to be the ultimate result. If it were not for the dormant abilities and capacities for good which exist among the women of the leisure class, and which generate in high society an undercurrent toward better things, their self elimination would be only a question of time. Patten says: “At the present time, excessive consumption of wealth, dissipation, and the vices are destroying successive aristocracies by self-induced exhaustion, and the suicidal group quickly disappears without establishing a line of descent. They continually reform on the old basis and bequeath to society, not sons, but a body of traditions. The present leisure class of America, for instance, is governed by concepts handed down by the continental nobility of an era that recognized no industrial or business man’s ideas.”[58]

Earnest social workers are making a strong effort to utilize this excessive leisure on the part of women, and are attempting to direct it to channels useful to the city, the commonwealth, and society in general.

Any one who has associated intimately with women whose entire time is their own to employ as they see fit, or with women who have a few hours of leisure daily and who represent a large proportion of our prosperous middle class, must be impressed with the fact that there is a great waste of talent, ability, and culture.

“The wives of tens of thousands of business men and well-paid employees enjoy unquestioningly, and as a matter of course, a degree of leisure such as formed the exclusive privilege of a small aristocracy in earlier centuries. The beneficent social and philanthropic activities of public spirited women and the baneful epidemic of gambling at cards which has run riot for several years and shows no tendency to diminish, are twin offspring of this unearned leisure.”[59]

Although less practical than men because of the almost complete divorce of their mental activities from the duties of life, these women often represent a plane of culture superior to that of the men of their class, and possible only when advantage can be taken of intellectual opportunists, associated with leisure. The women are the ones who are able to attend public lectures and places of amusement during the day; and often they alone have sufficient energy to profit by the intellectual benefits which are offered for the public’s enlightenment. In every college community where free lecture courses are given for the benefit of the public, the audience is characteristically feminine.

A safe measure of the increase of leisure of women of all ages and of the more prosperous classes is our institutions of higher learning. The proportion of young women graduating from the high schools in the United States is greater than that of young men; and if this tendency continues the same will eventually apply to our institutions of higher learning. This has been anticipated by a few of the universities limiting the number of girls who might attend. What might seem to be sex prejudice may be in reality a resistance to an effeminacy, arising out of leisure class standards, which is fondly designated as culture, in contrast to the practical application of knowledge.

The general tendency of young women to seek education for self improvement rather than for practical usefulness indicates that they benefit by the financial surplus of the family. On the other hand, their brothers are expected to prepare themselves at an early age for the industrial field or the world of business. This is giving to the women of the family greater cultural opportunities than to the men. This is most evident where girls consider their brother’s associates their inferiors in the point of social prestige.

The women whose husbands are successfully employed in the business world have a large range of social influence, and are so well established in their pecuniary standing that they have no fear of losing caste. By virtue of this pecuniary standing they are allowed a greater degree of freedom than the women of the professional classes. They can afford to make their own barriers and to some extent can, with impunity, break down those imposed upon them by tradition. They can afford to be, and often are cosmopolitan in their habits of life. This is in a measure due to the constant shifting of the business interests of the men of the family, and the often close relation of these interests to all classes of society. While the women may be exclusive from inclination, they cannot help but be affected by the democracy of the business world to which their husbands belong.