elope rather than by any special
fitness for the work they are to do]

The whole industrial situation as it concerns women would indicate
that women even more than men show lack of discrimination in seeking
to place themselves, and that the sources of information for them have
been few if not entirely lacking. Happily these conditions are
changing. We have now to teach girls to avail themselves of the
information and the guidance at hand and to learn to discriminate in
their choice of work.

Girls must realize that unskillful, mechanical work, done always with
a mental reservation that it is merely a temporary expedient, keeps
women's wages low, destroys confidence in female capacity, and has
definite bearing not only on the individual woman's earning capacity,
but on her character as well. Girls must learn to choose in such a way
that their work may be an opening into a life career or may be an
enlightening prelude to marriage and the making of a home.

Some of the women who uphold the doctrine of equality between the
sexes make the mistake of thinking and of teaching that there can be
no equality without identical work. They take the attitude that unless
women do all the sorts of work that men do, they are unjustly deprived
of their rights. Our contention is rather that women have higher
rights than that of identical work with men. They, above all other
workers, should have the right of intelligent choice of work which
they can do to the advantage of themselves, their offspring, and the
community. Such a choice will ignore the question of sex as a
drawback, accepting it, on the other hand, merely as a condition
which, like other conditions, complicates but does not necessarily
hamper choice. No girl need feel hampered by her sex because she
chooses not to do work which fails either to utilize her peculiar
gifts or to lead in what seems to her a profitable direction. No girl
should feel that her industrial experience, however short, has nothing
to contribute to the home life of which she dreams. No girl need waste
the knowledge and skill gained in industrial life when she abandons
gainful occupation for the home. Homemaking education, with industrial
experience, ought to make the ideal preparation for life work.

This, however, can be true only when the girl's industrial experience
is of the right sort. Girls must therefore be led to choose the
developing occupation. It is a part of the world's economy to lead
the