The First Lady of Radio by Stephen Drury Smith

majority of married women who work contribute the major part of their earnings to the support of dependents—children, parents, unemployed relatives.
    ER: That spikes the statement I am sure you have heard many times, that women take jobs away from men and spend the money on clothes, beauty parlors, and pleasures.
    RS: Oh, yes, I know. Some of their money does go for that. But why shouldn’t it? There’s no reason why our production methods shouldn’t benefit our girls. It would be a waste of our economic resources if we didn’t use the clothes we produce. And another angle on that: I know of the case of one factory foreman who told one worker that if she couldn’t make a better appearance on the job, she’d get fired.
    ER: Neat, nice-looking clothes definitely contribute to the efficiency of a worker. Now, Rose, I’ve been carrying on a pretty spirited correspondence with a woman from a state where there is some legislation proposed for the protection of women in industry. She herself is evidently a professional woman. Now, here’s one of the things she says: “Weare worried to death about a bill to limit women but not men to forty hours a week.” You see, Rose, her contention is that it is unfair to limit women and not men. She forgets that men, being better organized than women, have already made many of these arrangements rather successfully for themselves.
    RS: Few people realize how difficult it is for unskilled women to organize [a labor union]. They frequently look on their employment as temporary. They’re looking for some man to come along to take care of them. Also they’re afraid if they organize they may lose the jobs they need so desperately.
    ER: That’s true. Now, this lady I’ve been corresponding with adds this: “Somehow I cannot shut out of my heart a little resentment against those men who are so blithely attempting to take from me the right to compete with any competitor for the best living I am capable of making.”
    RS: I’d like to answer that.
    ER: I’d like to have you.
    RS: In all seriousness, I am not interested in maximum hours and minimum pay for professional women. They are trained and educated and can jolly well take care of themselves. Let’s face facts as they are. Of course I want the best possible working conditions for all people, men and women, and it’s obvious to me, as it must be to you, Mrs. Roosevelt, that when the working conditions of women are bettered, those of men automatically rise too. You see, when women work long hours and for next to nothing, they are not only competing against each other but are pulling down the wages of their men folks. The women who are working in factories who have home responsibilities, too, need improved conditions most. There are very few men who go home at the end of the day to do the housework.
    ER: Oh, I’ve known some who have.
    RS: Oh, yes, of course some do. But they only do it in an emergency. They drop it as soon as they can.
    ER: That’s so. And I don’t think there’s any question that a woman who works to give her children the necessities and some of the advantages of life should have her workday limited to eight hours. She has to provide her child with companionship. She has to oversee her home, for no home can run without supervision. I know one woman with six children to bring up. Her husband’s wages were not sufficient to give the children the clothes and educational advantages she was determined they should have, so she worked on the night shift in a mill. She was strong and sturdy, and for a time things went well, although I think the sum total of the sleep she got was only four hours a day. After a while she found that her children were getting out of hand. The eldest boy was in trouble with the police. If that woman could have worked an eight-hour day, she could not only have provided the necessities but could have given her boys