Many girls of this kind, unmarried and pregnant, do not realize motherhood. It is a misery remote from their consciousness, not a part of their being. With this girl it is. She is 100 per cent feminine, it seems to me, yet with a spirit which is brave and fine. If her maternal instinct dominates, the child will be born. If consciousness to outside influence gets the better, she will have an abortion. I should say it was an even chance, but no one will decide it for her. She is glad of advice, humble in the asking, and sincere, but weighs it all, and another’s mind but shows her her own opinion more clearly. Married the man; perfectly happy.[[83]]
77. Prostitute, twenty-four years old, of English parentage. Lived in this country since she was ten years old. Typical English type, high cheek bones, clear skin, bold grey eyes; womanly in bearing, with a contradictory dignity and boldness of speech and manner. Went to school through grammar grade, began to work at fifteen. Had nothing in common with her family, had no sex training, did not talk to her mother about things she felt deeply. She said, “I was fond of my mother, but we were not intimate; one does not talk to one’s mother.” Worked at housework, then restaurant work, left home and boarded alone. Was wild and irresponsible, did not understand life, wanted fun and novelty. When eighteen met a business man with plenty of money who was kind to her. There was no talk of marriage. Went with him for three months before sex relation was established. Finally became pregnant. Her family found her and issued a complaint against her as a stubborn child. Her baby was born in a hospital and afterwards she continued to live an irresponsible life but without immorality. “There was only one man in the world for me,” she said, “no one seemed to understand that.” She was misunderstood and was ultimately sentenced to prison, her child cared for by the State.
She is reticent about the father of her child. She swore upon the witness stand she did not know the father of her child, to protect him. He never knew that she was pregnant. In prison she learned much evil. Her life with this one man had been almost innocent, a first realization of sex. She knew nothing about prostitutes, of perverts, of “French immorality”, all of which she learned from other girls and women in prison. She was told a girl was a fool to work hard for nothing when she could have everything for the price of a spirit of adventure. Her love of her child was real and earnest. When she came from prison she went to work in a family with her child. She became of age while here. All the furies of her nature were aroused by her dealings with social workers who judged her wrongly. Her antagonism was interpreted as hardness. “They thought I was a jailbird or something like that. They took the baby away and put it in a place where I could not see it; even the family where I had worked did not know where it was.”
About this time she met some of her prison acquaintances. They made fun of her attempt at virtue. “Why wouldn’t I listen to them? They were all the companions I had had for ten months. The State drove me on the street because I wouldn’t be meek and was saucy to them. I meant to support my baby and they took it away. I’m not a proper person to bring up a child. I’m not, but they (‘they’ is most of the world) made me what I am.”
She is now a regular prostitute. She lives in a tiny apartment of one room, bath, and kitchenette, a cheerless place with a telephone which looks business-like. She helps in the office of the place and cares for some other apartments, and earns enough to pay her rent and a little more. The rest she earns immorally.
“I was innocent,” she said, “until I was 18. I went on the streets for excitement and fun. People said and thought all sorts of things about me which were not true,—my family, the court people, and all. My mother would never have known about the baby if the State hadn’t blabbed. Why do they have to tell a person’s private affairs and sins? My mother had enough trouble without having mine thrust on her. I ought to bear my own troubles without breaking her heart. Social workers think they’re such saints.
“Nowadays girls go wrong younger. Today there are girls on the Common at night, thirteen and fourteen, who know everything bad there is to know. I am not a café girl. You would be disgusted with the café girls. If the city really wants to stop this sort of thing why don’t they shut up the cafés? Some of those girls are awful; some of them are desperate. On the street few girls speak to men. It is the other way round. If a girl is alone on the streets at night the men know what she is there for. There is more money in New York than Boston. I’m not a real sporting girl. They have to be bad, that is willing to do anything a man wants. They get $25, whatever they want, if they are attractive enough, but a girl has to be bad all through to satisfy such men. I usually get $10, sometimes $5 if the man is nice but poor. No girl need go with men that make it worse. It’s bad enough. I never go with a man who has been drinking much and only with a certain kind of men.” As far as could be learned this type bears a resemblance to the kind of man who is the father of her child. She says she still loves him. She has seen him sometimes on the street. It is a temptation but she keeps away. “It makes me tremble and feel sick; besides I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing they took the child away. Oh, how I hate them all. It’s a fierce life. There are two kinds of prostitutes, the ones who would get out of the life any minute if they could earn a decent living any other way, and the ones who were born to the life. Silly fools! they wouldn’t be satisfied with anything else. (The feeble-minded?) Why do I live so if I hate it? What else can I do? I have no education; any work I can get is hard work and I am not strong. I worked for a family all summer as a second girl. My back ached all the time. A maid goes in the back door and out of the back door. In this life she can be comfortable, get plenty to eat, plenty of good clothes, and she is as good as the men with whom she goes.
“I generally get home by eleven or twelve o’clock, sometimes I stay all night. I never have visitors here; I never go with but one man in a night. No one here knows me. What people don’t know won’t hurt them. I generally go to a hotel. Most decent men would rather go to a hotel and pay the extra price for a room. Such hotels are not apt to be raided. I don’t long for the life at all. I cared for that one man. I mean to save money and I am a little ahead. We don’t hate the men half as much as we hate ourselves. They could stop before it was too late if any one would really sympathize with their love of freedom and understand them. Social workers say, “I want to help you”; they just preach. Many of them are women of education. They expect a girl to know all that they know with their years of experience when she is just ignorant. What can she know of herself and men and the world? Things are all wrong between men and women—I don’t know why. People with education ought to think about it. More than half the men we girls meet are married men. The women get tired of their husbands; the husbands get tired of them. Sometimes the wives are sick, sometimes they don’t understand a man’s nature; they are cold and unsympathetic and drive them to girls like us.
“I pretend as far as I can. One might as well do it in the same spirit as any other distasteful work. It may wear out one’s soul but it doesn’t wear out one’s body as much as house work or factory or store work. I haven’t been to church in seven years. I can’t believe much in God. It’s hard to see the justice in anything and the so-called good people think they are so perfect.”
This woman with all her hardness and bitterness cries when she speaks of her child. When I came away she acted the hostess very prettily, picked up my books for me, and showed a gentle side of her nature. “No, I haven’t minded talking of myself,” she said. “Please come again. I have no real friends—you will always find me here alone, and sad.”[[84]]