ERVANT QUESTION

ANOTHER SERIOUS CONTRIBUTION TO THE SOCIAL QUESTION

THE SERVANT GIRL AND THE EMPLOYMENT AGENCY

SUFFRAGETTES IN LONDON ADVERTISING A MEETING

MRS. HARRIOT STANTON BLATCH

MEETING A RELEASED SUFFRAGETTE PRISONER

THE WOMEN'S TRADES PROCESSION TO THE ALBERT HALL MEETING, APRIL 27,
1909

HELEN HOY GREELEY

SUFFRAGETTES IN MADISON SQUARE

THE "QUIET WALK" OF THE NEW YORK SUFFRAGISTS, WHOM THE POLICE WOULD
NOT PERMIT TO PARADE

SUFFRAGE DEMONSTRATION IN UNION SQUARE, NEW YORK

WHAT EIGHT MILLION WOMEN WANT

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

For the audacity of the title of this book I offer no apology. I have
had it pointed out, not altogether facetiously, that it is impossible to
determine with accuracy what one woman, much less what any number of
women, wants. I sympathize with the first half of the tradition. The
desires, that is to say, the ideals, of an individual, man or woman, are
not always easy to determine. The individual is complex and exceedingly
prone to variation. The mass alone is consistent. The ideals of the mass
of women are wrapped in mystery simply because no one has cared enough
about them to inquire what they are.

Men, ardently, eternally, interested in Woman--one woman at a time--are
almost never even faintly interested in women. Strangely, deliberately
ignorant of women, they argue that their ignorance is justified by an
innate unknowableness of the sex.

I am persuaded that the time is at hand when this sentimental, half
contemptuous attitude of half the population towards the other half will
have to be abandoned. I believe that the time has arrived when
self-interest, if other motive be lacking, will compel society to
examine the ideals of women. In support of this opinion I ask you to
consider three facts, each one of which is so patent that it requires no
argument.

The Census of 1900 reported nearly six million women in the United
States engaged in wage earning outside their homes. Between 1890 and
1900 the number of women in industry increased faster than the number of
men in industry. _It increased faster than the birth rate._ The number
of women wage earners at the present date can only be estimated. Nine
million would be a conservative guess. Nine million women who have
forsaken the traditions of the hearth and are competing with men in the
world of paid labor, means that women are rapid