Growing Small Fruit as a Business for Women. 1 85 



able to work has a right to be idle ; but when woman keeps the home, and 

 attends faithfully to the demands of those vocations which are suited to her, 

 she does her fair share of the world's work. We all know, however, that 

 even in this favored land very many women are dependent upon their own 

 exertions for a living ; and not only this, but many, besides caring for them- 

 selves, have others looking to them for support. How to provide for these is 

 a serious question. 



There are many remunerative occupations w'hich are closed to wom.an by 

 reason of her want of physical strength. She can not well engage in agri- 

 culture. There is so much heavy work connected with it which she can not 

 do herself, and if she attempts to hire it done the proceeds will often fail to 

 pay the help. Market gardening is open to the same objection, and both 

 have the added drawback of requiring too much capital. 



She can not find employment as a common laborer. Aside from the bar- 

 rier of lack of strength, she could not engage in such an occupation without 

 losing much that makes her womanly, and being reduced to the level of a 

 beast of burden. This can not be. done in the United States without a radi- 

 cal revolution in public sentiment. 



She can not learn the mechanical trades, nor engage in mining, or lum- 

 bering, or railroading. 



When she turns her attention to the lighter avocations the case is but lit- 

 tle better ; for though she may get a situation as clerk in a store, or operator 

 in a telegraph office, or other similar position, she must be content with half 

 pay. She may have all needed ability, perfect integrity, and a determination 

 to render good service, but she must do for five dollars a week that for which a 

 young man — too effeminate and genteel to work, too ignorant to enter a pro- 

 fession, and too poor to engage in business on his own account— will receive 

 ten or more. We have an opinion of these ambitious young men who aspire 

 to measuring tape, dressmaking, or any other light work that a woman 

 could easily do. 



When the professions are considered as a means of livelihood, woman is 

 virtually shut out. A very few of her sex hav6 studied law, and been admit- 

 ted to the bar, and a few have entered the ministry. Some have studied med- 

 icine, and are doing noble work in their chosen profession. Still, the num- 

 ber who can engage in the law, the ministry, or the practice of medicine, is 

 so very small that the professions seem hardly worth counting as avocations 

 upon which women can depend. 



It is conceded on all hands that women are naturally adapted to the work 

 of teaching, and the number of those who take it up is rapidly increasing; 

 but here again they are subject to the galling injustice of seeing men 

 receive much higher pay for the same work. Even the principal of the high 

 school in so large and enlightened a city as Cleveland, Ohio, asserts that men 

 should receive better salaries than women for teaching, because they will not 

 work for the same. They demand more, therefore they should receive 

 more! 

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