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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
only of the best material. They care not so much which sex furnishes the timber, so it is of the best. If women supply material as good and suitable" as that furhished by men they stand the same chance of making a sale as men do, and will receive the same price for it. Journalism is at least the profession where the sexes receive the same remuneration for the same work equally well done. Surely the whole duty to our sex has been discharged when this is true. We cannot expect editors, out of chivalry, or because their mothers w'ere women, and we are women, to build their papers out of inferior timber simply because we furnish it. If we are so immature as to expect such indulgence, we are doomed to disappointment.
It is the common experience of women in journalism that there is less sentiment about a newspaper office than anywhere else of which they have personal knowledge. It is not putting it too strongly to say that though a contributor or reporter were upon the verge of starvation, such confession would hinder rather than help her to space or assignment. The editor would at once suspect money to be her inspiration and of her having nothing to say that would either entertain or benefit the reading public. Writing only for the money there is in it is one of the unpardonable sins in journalism.
I have heard women in journalism refer to the stern reprimands, often unjust, with much the same pride men sometimes refer to jacketings received during apprentice days, and, like the men, attribute their ultimate success to such stern discipline, on the assumption that sparing the metaphorical rod would have the same effect upon the woman as upon the child.
But once a woman always a woman, and it is a matter of doubt whether any of us ever overcome the natural weakness, if weakness it be, of love of the approving pat. I can even see how mistaken kindness and undue consideration might encourage the timid woman to do her best, when being "treated exactly like a man,” which would be license to swear at her, might frighten her out of the wits she would stand most in need of.
The story is told of one of our pioneer women in journalism that she was first refused a place on the staff because it would not do to swear at her. "What!” said the editor, “petticoats on this staff? Never wdiile I am in control. Why, you could not swear at a woman!” That, in his opinion, settled the matter. Anyone that could not be sworn at when they deserved it had no business around a newspaper office. This same editor subsequently found out there were other ways to admonish women and develop genius besides swearing at them, for he lived to have several women on his staff.
It may be that the sharp edge of the employer’s reproof does keep the apprentice up to the work, but there are reproofs and reproofs, and while an editor need not overpraise or give space to woman’s work simply because it is the work of a woman, neither need he condemn it with words that cause her to have a "good cry” over the brutality of men in general and her editor in particular. Tears are not a factor in journalism. While we may believe it possible to cry and cry and be a journalist still, yet let us rejoice that tears have so nearly gone out of fashion. It is noticeable that even heroines in novels do not cry as much as they used to, and perhaps the reason for this may be found in the fact that the heroine in present day fiction, like the heroine in real life, is so commonly a bread-winner.
The great rough work-a-day world is a place to dry up the tear glands, and that part of the world occupied by journalism may be as rough as any other. Especially will it be rough for the conventional woman. It is said among editors that the giant foe with which-women have to contend in journalistic work is their own conventionality, and we find this quite true.
Particularly is it true of that conventionality which causes us to rebel against disagreeable assignments for no better reason than because we are women, or, to make our case stronger, because we are ladies; that such and such a duty is not the thing to ask of a "lady”—sending her to the police court, or about late at night, for instance, or that she must not be told of it if she has done her work unsatisfactorily. It is not