fecting the quantity of work turned out by women as compared
with men even in industries where the direct strain upon the muscles
is less severe.

(2) But even when we take those kinds of work where skill seems least
dependent upon physical force, men have generally some advantage in
productivity, though a smaller one. There are cases in which this does
not seem to be the case, as in the weaving industries of Lancashire
and part of Yorkshire, where women not merely receive the same piece
wages, but earn weekly wages which, after making allowance for
sickness and irregularity, indicate that in quantity and quality of
work they are upon a level with the men.[248] In certain branches of
low-skilled mental work the same holds true, as in the Savings Bank
Department of the Post Office. But generally, even where the "skill"
is of a purely technical order, the man has the advantage. Where the
elements of design, resource, judgment, enter in, the superiority of
male labour is unquestioned, and in occupations which demand these
qualities women are confined generally to the lower routine portions
of the work. This is the case in the Post Offices where women are
largely used as sorting clerks and telegraphists, and in numerous
offices of private business firms. How far these defects of manual and
intellectual skill, which generally prevent women from successfully
competing in the higher grades of labour, are natural, how far the
results of defective education and industrial training, we are not
called upon here to consider. The fact stands that women do not work
so well.

(3) The reluctance of male workers to allow women to qualify for and
to undertake certain kinds of work which men choose to regard as
"their own," though sometimes defensible when all the terms of
competition are taken into account,[249] must be held to confine and
lessen the average productivity of female labour in certain
departments of industry. Closely allied to this is the social feeling,
partly based upon the recognition of a real difference of physical and
mental vigour, partly upon prejudice, which bars women from the
highly-paid and responsible posts of superintendence and control in
industries where both sexes are employed. In a general comparison of
the male and female wage in a highly organised industry, the fact that
women are held disqualified for all posts of high emolument and
responsibility has a material effect upon the average of wages. Where