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of a very young executive when I called at his office on a necessary errand. Whenever I met this young man socially, his manners were impeccable. But in his office I could have stood till Doomsday before he gave the least sign that it would be acceptable to him to have me sit down. In the course of time I would carry a chair from a corner of the office if the session promised to be lengthy and place it conveniently near the one in which he was ensconced. I am perfectly able to carry a chair. All I wanted was an indication that I was not an intruder. One day I realized that the discrepancy between the young man's social and business manners was due to the model he had studied, a former chief, who, though never actually uncivil, had never taken pains to conceal his opinion of women invaders who had achieved the rank of business executives.

When another woman who sometimes had dealings with this young man mentioned to an older business man a certain flagrant discourtesy of which the younger had been guilty, the elder defended him, 'Well, you women want to be equals, so why should you expect any special consideration?'

'We don't,' she replied. 'All we want is such consideration as one business man gives another.'

This retort expresses, I believe, the view most business women take of the matter.

There was another early impression of business women that contributed its jot, very likely, to the attitude that we are subjecting to scrutiny. A few months ago, when traveling, I met a woman whom I had known as a girl, who has since become the leadingindeed probably the only-woman in the world in her own line. I did not immediately recognize her as an old acquaintance. Studying from across

the aisle her serene, lovely face, I thought: 'What a charming mother she must be!' She has, as a matter of fact, never married, and presides, not over a family, but over a staff of lawyers, expert accountants, and engineers. In the course of our subsequent talk she told me that at the beginning of her career, when she had had to interview men of large interests, as she was sent back and forth across the continent to study the problem of this one and that, they never failed, after they became acquainted with her, to comment on the fact that she was 'a lady.' One man said to her: 'It was a big shock when you walked into this office. No one had prepared us. You see, we business men always expect a woman in some new and unusual line to be more or less of an adventuress.'

The experiences of a woman who started in 1904 to travel out of Chicago for a collecting agency with a national clientele confirm this statement. She was young and personable, but very serious. In the beginning almost every business man whom she tried to interest in the service she had to sell attempted to take some liberty. One man insisted he could only sign the final contract she presented if she would kiss him. 'I wanted,' she said twenty years after, not to kiss, but to slap him. But my two babies came up before me. I was their sole support, as well as my own. So I said laughingly, "Oh, my kisses are hardly worth so much as all that!" I had to have the contracts, though to get them without conceding anything was a struggle that often sent me back to my hotel room a wreck for the day.'

As a whole, business women are inclined to make allowance for frivolous treatment of their own business aspirations and for masculine condescension in general. It ruffles less than it amuses them. To quote another: "The modern

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Harder to overlook are obstacles of another sort that the business man throws in the way of each step in the business woman's advance. There may never have been any conscious and concerted movement to 'hold the door shut against her,' as someone has expressed it; but it is pertinent to inquire how often business men have come forward and said, 'Here a woman has never held such a place as this before, but why not?' Usually she must fight to the utmost if she would achieve a new opportunity to demonstrate woman's latent business capacity. I recall the vigorous opposition to a woman's becoming paymaster, the first in a certain concern. I recall also a promising sign that when news of the struggle reached the president of the company he made it known in unmistakable fashion that thereafter, when a woman had proven her fitness for a position for which she was in line, there was to be no question, on the ground of sex, of her being promoted to it.

In this connection it may be mentioned that women tell me they meet with greater generosity from men who have attained the highest business places than from those of intermediate rank. The inference has been that the former, established in name and fortune, regard themselves, in a sense, as hors de concours, although the difference may be as reasonably attributed to a breadth of understanding more characteristic of the business leader than of the men he has outstripped.

The most unlovely charge the woman in business has to prefer against her business brother is his willingness

nay, often his eagerness to t credit for her achievements. Ther not a business woman who speaks mind who does not have an experie to add to the overwhelming eviden this point. A woman executive wh I know had most of the managem against her in a certain business cri and prominent among them her o chief. Little by little she won th over. It turned out that her positi had been well taken. Less than months later her chief solemnly lated to her how he had overcome t opposition in question! 'He forgot a moment,' she laughed, in recour ing the incident, 'that he was talki to me!'

As the business woman laughs at t attempt to lord it over her of ea raw recruit among college men comi into business, so she laughs at di hard manifestations on the part of masculine elders. But is it strange sometimes the laughter is tinged wi bitterness? Her whole business futu may depend upon recognition of bus ness service which she herself ha rendered. Yet here are matters, sh feels, however mistakenly, too delica to protest. Proudly hidden, this bitt ness has been increasing since Armisti Day, a date that marks the busines woman's emergence into the fourth an present stage of her growing-up.

I well remember the executive wh came out of conference late on the after noon of November 11, 1918, his fac wreathed with smiles, to announce "The psychology of this place change from this day!' It was not necessar to explain to women who had bee taken on to train for important place what this meant.

In spite of the fact that a 'psycho! ogy' newly acquired by the busines man to meet the exigency of the wa embraced its opportunity to 'change overnight, women held on wherever

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'Equal pay for equal work' is a slogan that recorded the business woman's protest against what she considered gross unfairness. Like most slogans, it is not quite so good as it seems. In factory work equitable adjustment can be made, and to some extent has been made, through piecework, where the output alone regulates the wage. For office or store jobs of a simple routine character there seems insufficient ground for discrimination in pay on the score of sex. But take, for But take, for example, a young man and a young woman, college graduates, entering business. Neither is worth, relatively speaking, what both at the start commonly receive. Their pay has been fixed on the basis of the higher return they are expected to make in time, as the result of their superior advantages. If potentiality, then, properly enters into pay as a determinant, it is debatable whether the young woman, starting at the same rate as the young man, is not getting more in proportion than she should. Of the two she is the poorer risk. It may be argued that the young man's greater liability to secure a job with another concern offsets marriage as a factor of impermanence. But will anyone acquainted with business dispute that marriage takes a heavier toll of the average business house through its promising young women than do rival concerns in picking off its promising young men?

Whether women committed to business careers care to face the fact or not, they must drag the dead weight of a

VOL. 140- NO. 1

B

multitude of other women who use business as a stop-gap. There are those who see a more cheerful prospect for business women in the decay of matrimony. But so long as young girls continue to file cards in wrong places because in their daydreams they are filling 'hope chests,' too much confidence cannot be placed in the overthrow of this venerable institution. Business women will do better, in all probability, to look forward to the dawn of an era in which, with the limitation of families and with scientific management of the home, women can combine domesticity and business without too great sacrifice of either. So long, however, as liability to marriage means loss to business, women's pay will inevitably be more or less affected. And it is difficult to see how on such a basis anyone can make out a sound case of injustice

to women.

But all this is not to blink another aspect of the matter. The truth is, there is seething dissatisfaction among the abler women from one end of the business world to the other. What distinguishes the exceptionally able woman from her sisters is her resentment. In addition to what she considers far from handsome treatment in other respects, there remains the fact that women who have served business organizations capably, and have given every reasonable assurance of continuing to do so, are receiving from a half to a third or even a smaller proportion of what is paid men in positions that call for the exercise of similar powers. The sole reason why this resentment does not come to the surface in the form of open rebellion is that business women do not feel themselves strong enough yet, as a class, to force the issue.

The complaints cannot be lightly dismissed on the ground that they represent the opinion of what is numerically an insignificant proportion of all

business women. The calibre of the complainants must be taken into consideration. It is the very flower of business women who bring the indictment against the business man. These are the women or the type of women - who will some day give him, in sporting language, a run for his money. And their ranks are yearly augmented by young college women- a rapidly growing body of sympathetic and ardent adherents.

Are business men going to let these smouldering fires break some day into high flame, or are they going to put them out by substituting the spirit of coöperation for that of competition?

So far as the business man is concerned, speaking personally, I should be pleased to see him pursue the latter course. When it comes to the business woman, why should she balk at more hurdles, when she has already taken so many that have not been lowered an inch for her own vault?

V

There are, in point of fact, several ways of escape open to the business woman. The most obvious is to go into business for herself. For her inspiration, city and country alike furnish examples of women's personal and successful business ventures. It should be said at once, however, that only a small proportion of women can rely on this solution. The vast majority lack the necessary capital. And only a handful possess the combination of qualities that can weather conditions inseparable from business started on a shoestring. Every business organization in the land contains men who relinquished dreams of going into business for themselves when they recognized their own lack of the specific qualities which such an enterprise demands. There is no reason to suppose that women are endowed in

these particulars more richly than men. Most women, as most men, who go into business must join, and remain in, established organizations. It is for this reason that I have confined myself almost entirely in the present discussion to what has been, and will be, the principal theatre of woman's business activities. The lines she must follow there, if she continues to advance, are, it seems to me, clearly laid out.

Many able women contend that the greatest weakness in woman's position to-day, when she reaches executive stature, is her association so largely with nonproductive lines. They believe that proper recognition of the business woman awaits her identification with positions that bring in business. There is force in the argument. But for women to make further productive contributions to business will not of itself, in my opinion, materially alter their present business status. It was a woman who devised a dress accessory to meet a modish need of the day, and a man with whom she was associated in business who reaped, according to all reports, the fortune that resulted. If women wish to receive anything like the benefits they are entitled to from their own productive business ideas they must insure themselves against theft both on the petty and on the grand scale.

Though it goes against the grain, business women must refuse to let their business accomplishments be chalked up to the credit of business men, even if the men in question are senior in rank. A perilous course—yes. But, granted it calls for a different order of courage, are our women pioneers in business going to let themselves be written down less brave than their pioneer great-grandmothers who wielded the axe, stood off Indians, broke sod in the West, killed rattlesnakes?

Women make an egregious mistake,

however, when they assume that they alone in the business world must struggle for proper recognition. It would be a nice point to decide whether they are being submitted to a much more severe ordeal than men have long accustomed themselves to expect. Certainly men have been by no means strangers to the experience of having their business ideas appropriated by business associates. In reference to pay, why do business women, even experienced business women, overlook the fact that business notoriously pays men, as well as women, as little as it can? The same course is open to a business woman, when she feels that she is receiving unfair treatment, that is open to a business man. She should, of course, be well fortified, if she takes the stand that her services are worth more than the mark that has been placed upon them. I have known cases where women, men also, in the presence of their familiars, have indulged in threats that unless their compensation was increased they would seek other positions, when there was nothing their business seniors so much desired. The situation is inevitably fraught with risk. But it is a risk business men have again and again been forced to take. If standing up for their rights means, as it easily may, that women must sometimes go out and look for other jobs, they can console themselves with the reflection that innumerable men have elected to follow the same spirited but difficult course.

When employers tell the business woman that they realize her value, her obligations, but that she is a woman, sex has been used as a subterfuge to which the watchdogs of the treasury will continue to resort so long as women remain submissive. Despite the fact that women executives are everywhere receiving much smaller salaries than men of comparable business value, the charge commonly made by business

women that this discrimination is based solely on sex does not rest, in my opinion, on any too firm a foundation. It involves a misapprehension of the nature of business. Indeed, here we approach, as I see it, the crux of the

matter.

It is this misapprehension that is responsible for no small part of the business woman's bitterness. It explains why the highest type of woman to be found in business is, broadly speaking, also the one who is most keenly dissatisfied with existing conditions. It is the sensitive and educated woman who expects the business world to approximate her ideal. Hundreds of women of this type have served business long, laboriously, passionately, capably, resting their claims to business recognition on business merit. But while it is true that without a worthy business performance to her credit the business woman can hardly expect outstanding reward, it is equally true that something more is required. Business is operated only to a limited extent along idealistic lines. Those who are in a position to confer business rewards do not come forward, except in rare instances, with open hands. Rewards are won through struggle more often than bestowed; authority is seized more often than delegated; voices must insist on making themselves heard in business councils, for they will seldom be invited, far less urged, to participate. After all, women are late-comers business world is still a man's realm, and it is of the very essence of the business career that it is a vigorous affair. There are women, as men, for whom its give and take, frequently of hard blows, provides exactly the fillip that gives zest to existence. But it is a question whether women who shrink from the necessary steps to preferment in this rough-and-tumble world are preëminently fitted for it.

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