The future as foreshadowed in these papers seems to us bright with hope.  In spite of difficulties, opposition, rebuffs, and prejudice, professional women workers are slowly but surely advancing in status and in recognition.  They are gaining courage to train themselves to claim positions of responsibility and command, and to refuse, if occasion arises, to be subordinated, on the ground of their womanhood, to men less able than themselves.  They are learning by experience,—­many have already learned,—­the need for co-operation and loyalty to one another.  While they are thus gaining new and valuable qualities, they have never lost, in spite of many hardships, the peculiar joy and lofty idealism in work which are, in part, a reaction from ages of economic and personal dependence.

[Footnote 1:  For an analysis of the whole scheme of work of the Fabian Women’s Group, see Appendix I.]

[Footnote 2:  In Western Australia the following Amendment, 340A., to the Criminal Code has passed the third reading in the Legislative Assembly, and is expected to pass the Legislative Council before this book appears:—­

(1) Any person, who, either as principal or agent—­(a) Makes or enters into or enforces or seeks to enforce any rule, order, regulation, contract, agreement or arrangement in restraint of or with intent to restrain, prevent or hinder the marriage of any person (N.B. A woman is a “person” in Western Australia) who is in his employment or in the employment of his principal, and is of the age of twenty-one years or upwards; or

(b) Dismisses or threatens to dismiss any person from his employment or the employment of his principal, or alters or threatens to alter, any such person’s position to the prejudice of such person by reason of the fact that such person has married or intends to marry, or with a view to restrain, prevent, or hinder such person from getting married;

is guilty of an offence, and is liable to imprisonment for three months, or to a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds.

(2) The provisions of this section shall apply to corporations so far as they are capable of being applied.]

WOMEN WORKERS IN SEVEN PROFESSIONS

SECTION I

THE TEACHING PROFESSION

  “All stood thus far
  Upon equal ground:  that we were brothers all
  In honour, as in one community.”

I

INTRODUCTION