at of
women. In others women have made rapid strides. The accompanying
diagram shows that in professional service, in domestic and personal
service, and in clerical occupations women are found in largest
numbers. In domestic and personal service the women outnumber the men
more than two to one. In professional service there are four women to
five men, a large proportion of the women being teachers. In the
clerical occupations we have one woman to each two men, in
manufacturing one woman to six men, in agriculture one woman to seven
men, and in trade one to eight. The occupations for women have been
changed somewhat by the new industrial conditions forced upon us by
the war, but it is very probable that in a few years the industrial
world will return to its normal status before the war for both men and
women.

[Illustration: Proportions of men and women in the United States
engaged in special occupations]

[Illustration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
Farmerettes. During the World War women at home and abroad rendered
especially valuable services in agricultural work]

If it is true that women are claiming and will continue to claim "all
labor" for their province, the claim must rest upon one of two
assumptions: Either women are physically, mentally, and morally
identical in their capabilities with men, or differences in physical,
mental, and moral make-up must be considered as not affecting work.
Most of us are not yet ready to agree to either of these premises. We
must therefore believe that some occupations are more suitable for one
sex than for the other. The fact is, however, that only a small group
of radical thinkers have made the opposite claim. Women are found, it
is true, in a large number of the occupations in which men are found.
But they are there for some other reason than that they claim all
labor as their sphere. Some are driven by the stern necessity of doing
whatever work is at hand; some by ignorance of their unfitness, or of
the unfitness of the work for them; some by the spirit of the age
which says, "Come, be free. Try these things that men do. See if they
suit you. Find your sphere."

Probably, however, this last reason for entering unsuitable
occupations is the one least often underlying the choice. Girls select
vocations in the main as boys do. Until very lately chance has been
the ruling element far oftener than anything else.

Studies in industry are now for the first time giving us