Visit one of the Women's Employment Exchanges, if you would wish to get
to know these girls. The Exchange is usually a hall or large room where
busy clerks are at work at long tables. At some Exchanges as many as
2000 to 2500 women and girls will be on the books. Once a week they
receive their out-of-work pay; every alternate day they have to visit
the Exchange to see what jobs are vacant. You may watch them pass in
long queues from one table to another. A few of the women will probably
carry babies, but the great majority will be young girls, showily
dressed. You will hear the discordant murmur of their voices broken
often by sharp giggles. The moving lines seem to go on and on
unendingly. At one table the girls sign the register, at another they
learn of vacancies. Some of the girls fail to go to the second table. An
attendant, if you ask the cause, will tell you this is a frequent
occurrence. The girls are punctilious in signing the register, which
they must do to obtain the unemployment dole, but they are less
particular about finding the work which will bring it to an end. At
present they are content with the enjoyments of the streets and picture
palaces. I have, on many different occasions, spoken to these workers:
one case I may quote as typical of many. She was young, about twenty, I
should think, and incredibly self-confident. Before the war she had been
a tailor's needle hand earning 16s. a week; for the last two years she
was inspecting fuses at a wage of 45s. a week. What was she now going to
do? Neither she nor any of the other women to whom I have spoken seemed
to have any clear realization of the fact that the change-over from war
to peace industries by munition factories, with the return of many
thousands of men, was bound to result in a serious excess supply of
woman labor. I remember it was then, while I talked to this girl, that
the first great suspicion stole into my heart. We have heard so much of
the splendid conduct of the women and the wonderful way in which they
have done the work of men, but the facts stand up stark. _Women have had
a good time._ Now, they are going to struggle to keep it. These girls
are vastly more rebellious than any women were five years ago.[38:1]

Look at the girl-workers you may see everywhere in such numbers to-day;
they are of all ages and they belong to all classes of society. Watch
them as they fight for an entrance into motor omnibuses and trams, as
they crowd the st