Page:Lily Gair Wilkinson - Revolutionary Socialism and the Woman's Movement.djvu/17

 14 20 men were employed, women having replaced the rest. When the men were dismissed they were told that they could go home and send their wives instead of them. And why? The wages paid to the men had been from 30/ to 40/ per week; the highest wages given to the women for exactly the same work on the same machines was 18/ per week. The home is not "sacred" to capitalists when it is the home of wage-slaves from whom larger profits can be squeezed.

The reasons for the difference between the wages of men and women are somewhat complex. The fact that many women are only part-earners of a family wage, their wages being supplementary to the wages of their male relations, is a great factor in preventing any equalisation of the earnings of male and female workers. And although the growth of "she-towns" (in which the men cannot get work, but have to stay at home while the women go out to earn their wretched wages) shows that it is false to claim that women work merely to gain supplementary wages, still it is true that innummerable widows and single women, who have to support themselves and others without the help of male relatives, suffer from the competition of many less helpless wives and daughters whose necessities only force them to aim at supplementary earnings. But while this and other factors complicate the question, deep down at the root of the whole problem of women's wages is the age-long tradition arising from woman's position of social inferiority. Woman as the inferior being is not credited with the needs of man. Her labour-power has a cheaper price because her cost of living is cheaper.

How much this is the case appears from the very low estimate of woman's needs betrayed by the advocates of a "minimum wage" and other reformers. At a recent meeting in Glasgow the wage proposed as the women worker's minimum for a working week of 51 hours, was only 10/10d. per week. Again, the organisers of women's trade unions are never tired of exulting over the position of the female textile workers as a proof of the worth of their efforts. But what are the conditions which they find so gratifying? In spite of the arduous nature of the work and the skill required, the average wage of women textile workers is calculated by G. H. Wood to be ''no more than 12/4d. per week.'' Women are indeed reckoned as cheap goods on the market!

Turning to the "sweated" industries (but where are the workers who are not sweated by capitalism to-day?) we find that the greatest suffering is endured by the women, It is a ghastly record