Women in the Workplace

Women in the Workplace - and at Home By G.K. Chesterton

The recent controversy about the professional position of married women was part of a much larger controversy, which is not limited to professional women or even to women. It involves a distinction that controversialists on both sides commonly forget. As it is conducted, it turns largely on the query about whether family life is what is called a “whole-time job” or a “half-time job.” But there is also another distinction between a whole job and a half job, or a hundredth part of a job. It has nothing to do with the time that is occupied, but only with the ground that is covered. An industrial expert once actually boasted that it took twenty men to make a pin; and I hope he sat down on the pin. But the man making the twentieth part of the pin did not only work for the twentieth part of an hour. He might perfectly well be working for twelve hours - indeed, he might have been working for twenty-four hours for all the happy industrial expert generally cared. He might work for the whole of a lifetime, but he never made the whole of a pin.

Now, there are lingering still in the world a number of lunatics, among whom I have the honour to count myself, who think it a good thing to preserve as many whole jobs as possible. We congratulate ourselves, in our crazy fashion, whenever we find anybody personally and completely doing anything. We rejoice when we find remaining in the world any cases in which the individual can see the beginning and the end of his own work. We are well aware that this is often incompatible with modern scientific civilization, and the fact has sometimes moved us to say what we think about modern scientific civilization. But anyhow, whether we are right or wrong, that is an important distinction not always remembered; and that is the important distinction that ought to be most remembered, and is least remembered, in this modern debate about the occupation of women.

Probably there must be a certain number of people doing work which they do not complete. Perhaps there must be some people doing work which they do not comprehend. But we do not want to multiply those people indefinitely, and then cover it all by shouting about emancipation and equality. It may be emancipation to allow a woman to make part of a pin, if she really wants to make part of a pin. It may be equality if she is really filled with a furious jealousy of her husband, who has the privilege of making part of a pin. But we question whether it is really a more human achievement to make part of a pin than to make the whole of a pinafore. And we even go further, and question whether it is more human to make the whole of a pinafore than to look after the whole of a child. The point about the “half-time job” of motherhood is that it is at least one of the jobs that can be regarded as a whole, and almost as an end in itself. A human being is in some sense an end in himself. Anything that makes him happy or high-minded is, under God, a thing directed to an ultimate end. It is not, like nearly all the trades and professions, merely a machinery and a means to an end. And it is a thing which can, by the constitution of human nature, be pursued with positive and unpurchased enthusiasm. Whether or no it is a half-time job, it need not be a half-hearted job.

Now, as a matter of fact, there are not so many jobs which normal and ordinary people can pursue with enthusiasm for their own sakes. The position is generally falsified by quoting the exceptional cases of specialists who achieve success. There may be a woman who is so very fond of swimming the Channel that she can go on doing it until she breaks a record. There may be, for that matter, a woman who is so fond of discovering the North Pole that she goes on doing it long after it has been discovered. Such sensational successes naturally bulk big in the newspapers, because they are sensational cases. But they are not the question of whether women are more free in professional or domestic life. To answer that question, we must assume all the sailors on the Channel boats to be women, all the fishermen in the herring fleet to be women, all the whalers in the North Sea to be women, and then consider whether the worst paid and hardest worked of all those workers were really having a happier or a harder life. It will be at once apparent that the vast majority of them must be under orders; and that perhaps a considerable minority of them would be under orders which they did not entirely understand. There could not be a community in which the average woman was in command of a ship. But there can be a community in which the average woman is in command of a house.

To take a hundred women out of a hundred houses and give them a hundred ships would be obviously impossible, unless all the ships were canoes. And that would be carrying to rather fanatical lengths the individualist ideal of people paddling their own canoe. To take the hundred women out of the hundred houses and put them on ten ships, or more probably on two ships, is obviously to increase vastly the number of servants and diminish the number of mistresses. The only ship I remember that was so manned (or perhaps we should say womanned) was the ship in the Bab Ballad commanded by Lieutenant Bellaye: [Note: The lieutenant is the hero of Gilbert’s “The Bumboat Woman’s Story”. He is so loved that numbers of young women disguised as sailors stow away on his ship.] even there it might be said that the young ladies who sailed with him had ultimately rather a domestic than a professional ideal. But that naval commander was not very professional himself, and it will be remembered, excused his sailors from most of their duties and amused himself by firing off his one big gun.

I fear that the experience of most subordinate women in shops and factories is a little more strenuous. I have taken an extremely elementary and crude example, but I am not the first rhetorician who has found it convenient to discuss the State under the bright and original similitude of a ship. But the principle does apply quite as much to a shop as to a ship. It applies with especial exactitude to the modern shop, which is almost larger than the modern ship. A shop or a factory must consist of a very large majority of servants; and one of the few human institutions in which there need be no such enormous majority of servants is the human household. I still think, therefore, that for the lady interested in ships the most supreme and symbolical moment is the moment when her ships come home. And I think there are some sort of symbolical ships that had much better come home and stay there.

I know all about the necessary modifications and compromises produced by the accidental conditions of to-day. I am not unreasonable about them. But what we are discussing is not the suggestion that the ideal should be modified. It is the suggestion that the ideal should be abolished. It is the suggestion that a new test or method of judgment should be applied to the affair, which is not the test of whether the thing is a whole job, in the sense of a self-sufficing and satisfactory job, but of whether it is what is called a half-time job - that is, a thing to be measured by the mechanical calculation of modern employment.

There have been household gods and household saints and household fairies. I am not sure that there have yet been any factory gods or factory saints or factory fairies. I may be wrong, as I am no commercial expert, but I have not heard of them as yet. And we think that the reason lies in the distinction which I made at the beginning of these remarks. The imagination and the religious instinct and the human sense of humour have free play when people are dealing with something which, however small, is rounded and complete like a cosmos.

The place where babies are born, where men die, where the drama of mortal life is acted, is not an office or a shop or a bureau. It is something much smaller in size and much larger in scope. And while nobody would be such a fool as to pretend that it is the only place where people should work, or even the only place where women should work, it has a character of unity and universality that is not found in any of the fragmentary experiences of the division of labour.

(Illustrated London News, December 18, 1926)

Women in the Workplace

Women in the Workplace - and at Home By G.K. Chesterton

The recent controversy about the professional position of married women was part of a much larger controversy, which is not limited to professional women or even to women. It involves a distinction that controversialists on both sides commonly forget. As it is conducted, it turns largely on the query about whether family life is what is called a “whole-time job” or a “half-time job.” But there is also another distinction between a whole job and a half job, or a hundredth part of a job. It has nothing to do with the time that is occupied, but only with the ground that is covered. An industrial expert once actually boasted that it took twenty men to make a pin; and I hope he sat down on the pin. But the man making the twentieth part of the pin did not only work for the twentieth part of an hour. He might perfectly well be working for twelve hours - indeed, he might have been working for twenty-four hours for all the happy industrial expert generally cared. He might work for the whole of a lifetime, but he never made the whole of a pin.

Now, there are lingering still in the world a number of lunatics, among whom I have the honour to count myself, who think it a good thing to preserve as many whole jobs as possible. We congratulate ourselves, in our crazy fashion, whenever we find anybody personally and completely doing anything. We rejoice when we find remaining in the world any cases in which the individual can see the beginning and the end of his own work. We are well aware that this is often incompatible with modern scientific civilization, and the fact has sometimes moved us to say what we think about modern scientific civilization. But anyhow, whether we are right or wrong, that is an important distinction not always remembered; and that is the important distinction that ought to be most remembered, and is least remembered, in this modern debate about the occupation of women.

Probably there must be a certain number of people doing work which they do not complete. Perhaps there must be some people doing work which they do not comprehend. But we do not want to multiply those people indefinitely, and then cover it all by shouting about emancipation and equality. It may be emancipation to allow a woman to make part of a pin, if she really wants to make part of a pin. It may be equality if she is really filled with a furious jealousy of her husband, who has the privilege of making part of a pin. But we question whether it is really a more human achievement to make part of a pin than to make the whole of a pinafore. And we even go further, and question whether it is more human to make the whole of a pinafore than to look after the whole of a child. The point about the “half-time job” of motherhood is that it is at least one of the jobs that can be regarded as a whole, and almost as an end in itself. A human being is in some sense an end in himself. Anything that makes him happy or high-minded is, under God, a thing directed to an ultimate end. It is not, like nearly all the trades and professions, merely a machinery and a means to an end. And it is a thing which can, by the constitution of human nature, be pursued with positive and unpurchased enthusiasm. Whether or no it is a half-time job, it need not be a half-hearted job.

Now, as a matter of fact, there are not so many jobs which normal and ordinary people can pursue with enthusiasm for their own sakes. The position is generally falsified by quoting the exceptional cases of specialists who achieve success. There may be a woman who is so very fond of swimming the Channel that she can go on doing it until she breaks a record. There may be, for that matter, a woman who is so fond of discovering the North Pole that she goes on doing it long after it has been discovered. Such sensational successes naturally bulk big in the newspapers, because they are sensational cases. But they are not the question of whether women are more free in professional or domestic life. To answer that question, we must assume all the sailors on the Channel boats to be women, all the fishermen in the herring fleet to be women, all the whalers in the North Sea to be women, and then consider whether the worst paid and hardest worked of all those workers were really having a happier or a harder life. It will be at once apparent that the vast majority of them must be under orders; and that perhaps a considerable minority of them would be under orders which they did not entirely understand. There could not be a community in which the average woman was in command of a ship. But there can be a community in which the average woman is in command of a house.

Le donne sul posto di lavoro

Le donne sul posto di lavoro - e in Casa Di G.K. Chesterton

La recente controversia sulla posizione professionale delle donne sposate era parte di una controversia assai più ampia, che non si limita alle donne che esercitano una professione né tantomeno alle donne. Essa comporta una distinzione che i polemisti di entrambe le parti solitamente dimenticano. Per come viene condotta, ruota in gran parte sul quesito se la vita familiare sia ciò che si chiama un «lavoro a tempo pieno» o un «lavoro a mezzo tempo». Ma vi è anche un’altra distinzione tra un lavoro intero e mezzo lavoro, o la centesima parte di un lavoro. Essa non ha nulla a che fare con il tempo che viene occupato, ma soltanto con il terreno che viene coperto. Un esperto d’industria una volta si vantò addirittura che ci volevano venti uomini per fare uno spillo; e spero che si sia seduto sullo spillo. Ma l’uomo che faceva la ventesima parte dello spillo non lavorava soltanto per la ventesima parte di un’ora. Poteva perfettamente bene lavorare per dodici ore… anzi, avrebbe potuto lavorare per ventiquattro ore, per quanto in genere se ne curasse il felice esperto d’industria. Poteva lavorare per l’intera durata di una vita, ma non fece mai uno spillo intero.

Ora, indugiano ancora nel mondo un certo numero di lunatici, tra i quali ho l’onore di annoverare me stesso, i quali ritengono cosa buona preservare quanti più lavori interi è possibile. Ci felicitiamo, alla nostra folle maniera, ogni volta che troviamo qualcuno che faccia qualcosa personalmente e per intero. Ci rallegriamo quando troviamo ancora nel mondo casi in cui l’individuo può vedere l’inizio e la fine del proprio lavoro. Siamo bene consapevoli che ciò è spesso incompatibile con la moderna civiltà scientifica, e questo fatto ci ha talvolta spinti a dire ciò che pensiamo della moderna civiltà scientifica. Ma in ogni caso, che abbiamo ragione o torto, quella è una distinzione importante non sempre ricordata; ed è la distinzione importante che dovrebbe essere ricordata di più, e che meno si ricorda, in questo moderno dibattito sull’occupazione delle donne.

Probabilmente ci deve essere un certo numero di persone che svolgono un lavoro che non portano a termine. Forse ci devono essere alcune persone che svolgono un lavoro che non comprendono. Ma non vogliamo moltiplicare quelle persone all’infinito, per poi coprire il tutto gridando all’emancipazione e all’uguaglianza. Può essere emancipazione permettere a una donna di fare parte di uno spillo, se davvero desidera fare parte di uno spillo. Può essere uguaglianza se è davvero colma di una furiosa gelosia verso suo marito, che ha il privilegio di fare parte di uno spillo. Ma dubitiamo che sia davvero una conquista più umana fare parte di uno spillo piuttosto che fare per intero un grembiule. E ci spingiamo persino oltre, dubitando che sia più umano fare per intero un grembiule piuttosto che prendersi cura per intero di un bambino. Il punto riguardo al «lavoro a mezzo tempo» della maternità è che esso è almeno uno dei lavori che possono essere considerati come un tutto, e quasi come un fine in sé. Un essere umano è, in un certo senso, un fine in se stesso. Qualunque cosa lo renda felice o nobile d’animo è, sotto Dio, una cosa diretta a un fine ultimo. Non è, come quasi tutti i mestieri e le professioni, un mero meccanismo e un mezzo per un fine. Ed è una cosa che può, per la costituzione della natura umana, essere perseguita con un entusiasmo genuino e non comprato. Che sia o no un lavoro a mezzo tempo, non è detto che debba essere un lavoro fatto a metà cuore.

Ora, di fatto, non sono poi molti i lavori che le persone normali e ordinarie possono perseguire con entusiasmo per se stessi. La questione viene generalmente falsata citando i casi eccezionali di specialisti che conseguono il successo. Può esserci una donna talmente appassionata di attraversare la Manica a nuoto da continuare a farlo finché non batte un record. Può esserci, se è per questo, una donna talmente appassionata di scoprire il Polo Nord da continuare a farlo molto dopo che è stato scoperto. Simili successi sensazionali occupano naturalmente grande spazio sui giornali, perché sono casi sensazionali. Ma non sono la questione se le donne siano più libere nella vita professionale o in quella domestica. Per rispondere a quella domanda, dobbiamo supporre che tutti i marinai delle navi della Manica siano donne, che tutti i pescatori della flotta di aringhe siano donne, che tutti i balenieri del Mare del Nord siano donne, e poi considerare se i peggio pagati e più affaticati tra tutti quei lavoratori avessero davvero una vita più felice o più dura. Sarà subito evidente che la grande maggioranza di loro dev’essere sottoposta ad ordini; e che forse una considerevole minoranza di loro sarebbe sottoposta a ordini che non comprende del tutto. Non potrebbe esistere una comunità in cui la donna media fosse al comando di una nave. Ma può esistere una comunità in cui la donna media è al comando di una casa.

To take a hundred women out of a hundred houses and give them a hundred ships would be obviously impossible, unless all the ships were canoes. And that would be carrying to rather fanatical lengths the individualist ideal of people paddling their own canoe. To take the hundred women out of the hundred houses and put them on ten ships, or more probably on two ships, is obviously to increase vastly the number of servants and diminish the number of mistresses. The only ship I remember that was so manned (or perhaps we should say womanned) was the ship in the Bab Ballad commanded by Lieutenant Bellaye: [Note: The lieutenant is the hero of Gilbert’s “The Bumboat Woman’s Story”. He is so loved that numbers of young women disguised as sailors stow away on his ship.] even there it might be said that the young ladies who sailed with him had ultimately rather a domestic than a professional ideal. But that naval commander was not very professional himself, and it will be remembered, excused his sailors from most of their duties and amused himself by firing off his one big gun.

I fear that the experience of most subordinate women in shops and factories is a little more strenuous. I have taken an extremely elementary and crude example, but I am not the first rhetorician who has found it convenient to discuss the State under the bright and original similitude of a ship. But the principle does apply quite as much to a shop as to a ship. It applies with especial exactitude to the modern shop, which is almost larger than the modern ship. A shop or a factory must consist of a very large majority of servants; and one of the few human institutions in which there need be no such enormous majority of servants is the human household. I still think, therefore, that for the lady interested in ships the most supreme and symbolical moment is the moment when her ships come home. And I think there are some sort of symbolical ships that had much better come home and stay there.

I know all about the necessary modifications and compromises produced by the accidental conditions of to-day. I am not unreasonable about them. But what we are discussing is not the suggestion that the ideal should be modified. It is the suggestion that the ideal should be abolished. It is the suggestion that a new test or method of judgment should be applied to the affair, which is not the test of whether the thing is a whole job, in the sense of a self-sufficing and satisfactory job, but of whether it is what is called a half-time job - that is, a thing to be measured by the mechanical calculation of modern employment.

There have been household gods and household saints and household fairies. I am not sure that there have yet been any factory gods or factory saints or factory fairies. I may be wrong, as I am no commercial expert, but I have not heard of them as yet. And we think that the reason lies in the distinction which I made at the beginning of these remarks. The imagination and the religious instinct and the human sense of humour have free play when people are dealing with something which, however small, is rounded and complete like a cosmos.

The place where babies are born, where men die, where the drama of mortal life is acted, is not an office or a shop or a bureau. It is something much smaller in size and much larger in scope. And while nobody would be such a fool as to pretend that it is the only place where people should work, or even the only place where women should work, it has a character of unity and universality that is not found in any of the fragmentary experiences of the division of labour.

(Illustrated London News, December 18, 1926)

Togliere cento donne da cento case e dar loro cento navi sarebbe evidentemente impossibile, a meno che tutte le navi non fossero canoe. E ciò significherebbe portare a lunghezze piuttosto fanatiche l’ideale individualista della gente che pagaia la propria canoa. Togliere le cento donne dalle cento case e metterle su dieci navi, o più probabilmente su due navi, significa evidentemente accrescere enormemente il numero delle serve e diminuire il numero delle padrone. L’unica nave che io ricordi manovrata così (o forse dovremmo dire donnovrata) era la nave della Bab Ballad comandata dal Tenente Bellaye: [Nota: il tenente è l’eroe di “The Bumboat Woman’s Story” di Gilbert. È così amato che numerose giovani donne travestite da marinai si imbarcano clandestine sulla sua nave.] persino là si potrebbe dire che le giovani dame che navigavano con lui avessero in fondo un ideale più domestico che professionale. Ma quel comandante navale non era egli stesso molto professionale, e si ricorderà che dispensava i suoi marinai dalla maggior parte dei loro doveri e si divertiva a sparare col suo unico cannone grosso.

Temo che l’esperienza della maggior parte delle donne subordinate nelle botteghe e nelle fabbriche sia un po’ più faticosa. Ho preso un esempio estremamente elementare e rozzo, ma non sono il primo retore che abbia trovato conveniente discutere lo Stato sotto la brillante e originale similitudine di una nave. Ma il principio si applica altrettanto a una bottega quanto a una nave. Si applica con speciale esattezza alla bottega moderna, che è quasi più grande della nave moderna. Una bottega o una fabbrica deve constare di una vastissima maggioranza di serve; e una delle poche istituzioni umane in cui non vi è bisogno di una simile enorme maggioranza di serve è la casa domestica. Continuo dunque a pensare che, per la dama interessata alle navi, il momento più supremo e simbolico sia il momento in cui le sue navi tornano a casa. E penso che vi siano certe navi simboliche che farebbero assai meglio a tornare a casa e a restarci.

So tutto delle necessarie modifiche e dei compromessi prodotti dalle condizioni accidentali dell’oggi. Non sono irragionevole al riguardo. Ma ciò di cui discutiamo non è il suggerimento che l’ideale vada modificato. È il suggerimento che l’ideale vada abolito. È il suggerimento che un nuovo criterio o metodo di giudizio vada applicato alla faccenda, il quale non è il criterio del se la cosa sia un lavoro intero, nel senso di un lavoro auto-sufficiente e soddisfacente, ma del se sia quel che si chiama un lavoro a mezzo-tempo—cioè, una cosa da misurarsi col calcolo meccanico dell’impiego moderno.

Vi sono stati dèi domestici e santi domestici e folletti domestici. Non sono sicuro che vi siano stati finora dèi di fabbrica o santi di fabbrica o folletti di fabbrica. Potrei sbagliarmi, ché non sono un esperto commerciale, ma di essi non ho ancora sentito parlare. E pensiamo che la ragione stia nella distinzione che feci all’inizio di queste osservazioni. L’immaginazione e l’istinto religioso e il senso umano dell’umorismo hanno libero gioco quando la gente ha a che fare con qualcosa che, per quanto piccolo, è tondo e completo come un cosmo.

Il luogo dove nascono i bambini, dove muoiono gli uomini, dove il dramma della vita mortale è recitato, non è un ufficio o una bottega o un ministero. È qualcosa di assai più piccolo per dimensione e assai più grande per portata. E mentre nessuno sarebbe tanto sciocco da pretendere che sia l’unico luogo dove la gente dovrebbe lavorare, o persino l’unico luogo dove le donne dovrebbero lavorare, esso ha un carattere di unità e universalità che non si trova in nessuna delle esperienze frammentarie della divisione del lavoro.

(Illustrated London News, 18 dicembre 1926)