Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/47

 Competition for employment caused work to be given to the people who could do it for the least payment. Those women and girls without means were compelled to follow their work into the factory. By offering themselves for less money they secured work. To this extent they were in a better position than the woman of means, for whilst they worked they justified their existence, and were able to hold fast to their self-respect. The awful conditions under which they laboured, and frequently died, are another matter, to be treated later. For the present, let it be noted that their labour saved them from the deadly perils of idleness and parasitism.

In the loss of their work by women lie the roots of the modern feminist movement. Those best acquainted with the history of the movement know that the founders were women of the educated middle class, together with one or two women of aristocratic connections. At the present moment, after more than sixty years of strenuous agitation, the women's movement includes women of every class and condition, working women as well as rich, independent women. But the numbers of working women feminists form a very small proportion of the total number of working women as compared with the number of educated middle-class women actively engaged in the work of feminism. This may be due,