Page:The Woman Socialist - Snowden - 1907.djvu/94

 Lancashire husbands. Baking is done by gaslight. The steam from the wash-tub is about in the evening. When the tired wife ought to be resting in bed she is mending little frocks and sewing on tapes and buttons.

The solitary compensation to an intelligent Lancashire weaver woman is the knowledge that she is paid as well as her man if she does as much work and does it as well as he. This much has a strong Trade Unionism done for her. But with this advantage, the double life is too much for one person. The strongest woman ought not to have all these duties to perform. What chance has she for self-improvement, for reading and recreation? As a matter of fact, the disposition to improve is gradually destroyed as strength ebbs away in a multiplicity of duties.

One of the reasons for the employment of women in such large numbers in the industrial world is their cheapness and their amenable character, the latter quality making them easy victims of exploitation. Except where a strong Trade Unionism has beneficently interfered, women are not paid anything like so much as men for the same