Here’s a collection of facts concerning some of the history of the battle for women’s rights. Some good ones, some bad ones, but all are certainly interesting.
- Epicurus (341-241 BC), to whom good and pleasure were synonymous, was the first important philosopher to accept women as students.
- In 17th and 18th century America, women were employed in all of the same occupations that men worked, and men and women earned equal pay. A female blacksmith charged the same as a man to shoe a horse. Women sextons and printers were paid at the same rate as men. Women were also silversmiths, gunsmiths, shipwrights, and undertakers.
- The first woman governor in U.S. history was Mrs. Nelly Taylor Ross. She was elected governor of Wyoming in 1925.
- $10,000 was offered by Marion Hovey, of Boston, to the Harvard Medical School, to be used to educate women on equal terms with men. A committee approved the proposal, but the Hovey offer was rejected by the board of overseers. The year was 1878.
- Though she was a Nobel Prize winner (and soon would become the first person to win two), Marie Curie (1867-1934) was denied membership in the august French Academy simply because she was a woman.
- A woman agreed in 1952 to play in organized baseball, with the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Senators of the Interstate League. However, minor league commissioner George Trautman, with the support of major league baseball commissioner Ford Frick, unilaterally voided Mrs. Eleanor Angles contract.
- During the American Revolution, many brides did not wear white wedding gowns; instead, they wore red as a symbol of the rebellion.
- She was 87 years old when she became the first woman U.S. Senator, and she served for only one day, November 21, 1922. Rebecca Lattimer Felton, a Democrat and the widow of a Georgia representative who had opposed reactionary machine politics, had long worked for women’s suffrage, which became national law in 1920. She was appointed for a day to the Senate in a token gesture by the governor of Georgia, who had opposed the suffrage movement. “The word ‘sex’ has been obliterated from the Constitution,” Mrs. Felton said on excepting her appointment. There are now no limitations upon the ambitions of women.
- There are 15 nations that had given women the right to vote before the U.S. did in 1920. The earliest were New Zealand, in 1893, Australia, in 1902, and Finland, in 1906.
- Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John, in 1776: “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
ONE IS NOT BORN A WOMAN, ONE BECOMES ONE
For as long as I can remember the “Battle of the Sexes” has raged on and on and on and on. After living through the bra burning years and ERA I thought it might finally ease up a little but once again I was wrong. With women’s salaries edging upward and their elevated management positions becoming the norm rather than the exception I’d hoped for the best. I was wrong again. Are you sensing a pattern here? No matter what I do in any association with any woman, I’m immediately wrong (whether I am or not) strictly because I’m a man.
My interactions with women both in the workplace and my personal life have resulted in my hearing the same old complaints and worn out clichés. “You men are all alike.” “It’s just like a man to do something like that.” “I can’t break through that glass ceiling because men discriminate against me.” “Men are unfair.” Are you seeing a particular pattern here too? Good, I hope you are.
The point I’m trying to make is that women have made a great deal of progress over the years but just can’t seem to acknowledge it. They want more! If they ruled the planet entirely they’d be upset that they aren’t ruling the entire universe and all those bad aliens out there are discriminating against them.
To further make my point I submit the following excerpt from the July 1943 issue of Transportation Magazine. This article was written for male supervisors of women in the workforce during World War II. Read on ladies and see what having a double standard is really all about.
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Eleven Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees
There’s no longer any question whether transit companies should hire women for jobs formerly held by men. The draft and manpower shortage has settled that point. The important things now are to select the most efficient women available and how to use them to the best advantage. Here are eleven helpful tips on the subject from Western Properties:
1. Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters, they’re less likely to be flirtatious, they need the work or they wouldn’t be doing it, they still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently.
2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy. It’s always well to impress upon older women the importance of friendliness and courtesy.
3. General experience indicates that "husky" girls – those who are just a little on the heavy side – are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.
4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination – one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibilities of lawsuit, but reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.
5. Stress at the outset the importance of time; the fact that a minute or two lost here and there makes serious inroads on schedules. Until this point is gotten across, service is likely to be slowed up.
6. Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they’ll keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes. Numerous properties say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.
7. Whenever possible, let the inside employee change from one job to another at some time during the day. Women are inclined to be less nervous and happier with change.
8. Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.
9. Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they can’t shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman – it breaks her spirit and cuts off her efficiency.
10. Be reasonably considerate about using strong language around women. Even though a girl’s husband or father may swear vociferously, she’ll grow to dislike a place of business where she hears too much of this.
11. Get enough size variety in operator’s uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point can’t be stressed too much in keeping women happy.
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No ambitious person should ever just settle. Working hard and getting the job done still works whether your male or female. I think it’s time to drop the blame game against all men and get back to work. Just saying.
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