Having noted the rapid increase in the number of newspaper women who in other parts of the country are doing faithful and worthy work in this their chosen profession, it remains to say that New York City has not fallen behind in this respect. The evidence of their capacity and fitness for the work is before the public in almost every daily, weekly, and monthly publication issued in the metropolis. Besides these are many whose work goes, through the syndicate system, all over the country. Their work, usually signed, serves even more widely to attract ambitious and intelligent young women to the same profession than does the exceptional reputation of such editors as Miss Booth, Mrs. M. M. Dodge, Mrs. Martha J. Lamb, and Miss Jeanette Gilder. There are two Amateur Press Associations of these youthful intending journalists in New England. There may be others in other parts of the country. And the number of those who are being inducted into the practical work of journalism, on rural and county papers, owned by their relatives or friends, grows greater every year.
From the very first there have been for women in journalism an open door and a fair field. The earliest comers went into it because their services were sought for. Themselves and those whom their success led to embrace the same profession met with a warm welcome from the public; in not a few instances even an enthusiastic one.
In each and every department of journalism—whether in office work, i.e. as editors, editorial assistants, or reporters; or in outside work, as correspondents, special contributors, or syndicate writers—the wages paid to women are the same as those paid to men of similar capacity, doing the same work. The prices paid vary according to the financial status of the papers themselves. In the larger cities writers “on space” receive on some journals payment at the rate of five dollars per column; some other papers pay as much as ten dollars per column. With all these writers, except where special articles have been ordered by the chief, and the length thereof specified, it is a matter of uncertainty how much space will be given them. The exigencies of the case often cut down what, under other circumstances, would be a welcome column article to two or three paragraphs, sometimes to as many lines. Office salaries in large cities vary from ten or even only eight dollars per week to as much as fifty or sixty dollars per week. A fair average for syndicate correspondence is probably about ten dollars per column. On country and county papers wages are of course much lower, often running down to a figure which makes outside labor needful for even plain country living. But whether in city or country women who can do the needful work as well as men may be sure of as good pay as men, and of fair and just treatment at the hands of their journalistic brethren.
VII.
WOMAN IN MEDICINE.
BY
MARY PUTNAM JACOBI, M.D.
“Fifty years hence, it will be difficult to gain credit for the assertion that American women acquiesced throughout the former half of the 19th century, in the complete monopoly of the medical profession by men, even including midwifery, and the diseases peculiar to women. The current usage in this respect is monstrous.”—New York Tribune, Editorial, 1853.
The history of the movement for introducing women into the full practice of the medical profession is one of the most interesting of modern times. This movement has already achieved much, and far more than is often supposed. Yet the interest lies even less in what has been so far achieved, than in the opposition which has been encountered: in the nature of this opposition; in the pretexts on which it has been sustained, and in the reasonings, more or less disingenuous, by which it has claimed its justification. The history, therefore, is a record not more of fact, than of opinion. And the opinions expressed have often been so grave and solid in appearance, yet proved so frivolous and empty in view of the subsequent event, that their history is not unworthy careful consideration among that of other solemn follies of mankind.
In Europe, the admission of women to the profession of medicine has been widely opposed because of disbelief in their intellectual capacity.[[32]] In America it is less often permitted to doubt—out loud—the intellectual capacity of women. The controversy has therefore been shifted to the entirely different ground of decorum.
At the very outset, however, two rival decorums confronted each other. The same centuries of tradition which had, officially, reserved the practice of medicine for men, had assigned to women the exclusive control of the practice of midwifery. It was assumed that midwifery did not require the assistance of medical art,—that the woman in labor traversed a purely physiological crisis, and required only the attendance of kindness, patience, and native sagacity,—all obtainable without scientific knowledge, from her own sex. This being taken for granted, the propriety of limiting such attendance to women appeared so self-evident, that, from the beginning of the world till the eighteenth century A.D., the custom was not seriously questioned. There is an exact parallelism between the relations of men to midwifery and of women to medicine. The limitation of sex in each case was decided by a tradition so immense, as to be mistaken for a divinely implanted instinct, intended by Providence as one of the fundamental safeguards of society and of morals. In each case the invasion by one sex of a “sphere” hitherto monopolized by the other, aroused the coarsest antagonism of offended delicacy. In each case finally, a real basis existed for the traditional etiquette: there was some reason for protesting against the introduction of the male accoucheur into the lying-in room, or of the ardent young girl into the medical school. But in each case, whatever reasons for protest existed, were outnumbered and outweighed by others, to whose greater importance they were finally compelled to give way. Other things being equal, it was unpleasant for a woman to be attended in the crisis of her confinement by a man. But when the necessity for knowledge was recognized, when men became skilled while midwives remained ignorant,—the choice was no longer possible; the greater decorum of female midwifery was obliged to yield to the greater safety of enlightened masculine practice. Similarly, it was occasionally unpleasant for young women students to find themselves engaged in certain subjects of medical study together with classes of young men. But in proportion as midwifery became enlarged by the new province of gynæcology, did occasions multiply on which it was extremely unpleasant for non-medical women to be medically treated by men. The difficulties of educating a relatively few women in medicine were compelled to be accepted, in order to avert the far greater difficulties of medical treatment for a very large number of women.