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SEX IN INDUSTRY.
It will readily be recognized, that the abnormal requirement of prolonged standing is one to which a very large proportion of our working-girls are subject, in a wide range of employment. Both physiological and anatomical considerations cry out against it, and common humanity should prohibit it.
The following illustration, taken from Prof. Clarke,* notes in a marked manner the ill effects of standing, and general error in the conduct of industrial pursuits by our young women: —
“ Miss C- was a bookkeeper in a mercantile
house. The length of time she remained in the employ of the house, and its character, are a sufficient guaranty that she did her work well. Like the other clerlft, she was at her post, standing during business hours, from Monday morning till Saturday night. The female pelvis being wider than that of the male, the weight of the body in the upright posture tends to press the upper extremities out laterally in females more than in males. Hence the former can stand less long with comfort than the latter. Miss C-, how
ever, believed in doing her work in a man’s way, infected by the not uncommon notion that womanliness
* Op. cit. p. 77.