The effect of these changes in the law accomplished in the last eight and a half years, added to the changes of previous years, has been to remove many of the most important legal discriminations against women. 9 The right of jury service, however, is still withheld from women in twenty-seven states (with two more in doubt). The property laws in six states allow the husband to take his wife's wages, and in the eight community property states the husband has complete control of all the property of both parties during his lifetime. No state allows to the wife the right of choice of domicile (except as voting residence); nor is joint headship of the family anywhere allowed by law.

Other than these, however, the injustices that remain are either (a) confined to a small number of states, or only one; or (b) cause hardship to relatively few people; or (c) however important, are still the subject of emphatic difference of opinion among women themselves with respect to what constitutes equality in those situations.

If that be true, our obvious next step is one of analysis and appraisal.

There are innumerable laws that differentiate between men and women, and some are found in every state. For present purposes, the most important may be listed in three groups under topical headings as follows:

I. Laws that Differentiate between Men and Women

Obviously, however, not all these laws that differentiate can be held to be discriminatory against women. Some of them have been and are among the chief legislative objectives of women's organizations because they are believed to operate toward equal rights and equal opportunity for men and women, and must be distinguished from laws which merely differentiate. From the above list of headings, therefore, four must be set over into another category;namely—

II. Laws that Differentiate without Adverse Discrimination

Still another category is needed, however, to describe another set of laws. These are in a sense and unclassifiable group because they deal with situations so intricate, and so highly personal and conditional, that women themselves are not prepared to say conclusively what provision equality demands. They are included under—

III. Laws that Differentiate on Subjects Where Equality Is Not Yet Adequately Defined

For a plan of legislative action, then, the way has been clear enough as to the political inequalities. Presumably nobody has questioned, at least nobody who worked for equal suffrage, that women should have identical public rights such as citizenship, eligibility to jury service (a reservation here), eligibility to public office and to public employment. It has been apparently accepted that husband and wife should have the same or reciprocal rights of property and contract; but some of us would have these provided on the basis of separate property for married persons, while others believe that equality can best be attained under a community 02121property system. For reasons partly judicial and partly economic and political, it has been possible to have laws regulating hours of women's labor, or fixing minimum wage standards for women, only by making a difference in the contract rights of men and women. Therefore the question of legal equality here seemed unimportant as compared with the need for the equalizing economic effect of the laws. Nor was the point raised with reference to maternal and infant hygiene laws, or mothers’ pension laws.

The net result of this examination, then, is to re-emphasize the dangers of generalization and call for a clear definition of terms. The laws of the forty-eight states differ, they have been amended in different ways in the different states, and the remaining needs are so uneven as to have, in concrete terms, no common denominator at all.

In fact, for some of the type situations found under existing codes, no standard of equal rights has been set up, no definition framed. Two things are therefore reaffirmed by this examination:

1. The continuing necessity for subject-by-subject and state-by-state analysis of the law, and the importance of a carefully worked out specific program for the needed legislative changes on each subject of the law. But in order to accomplish this we must meet—

Analysis of existing laws we leave, necessarily, to the lawyers. It is the lay woman's job, however, especially her job as a voter, to say what she wants the law to be. What then is our concept of equal rights? Or rather, what are our concepts for each of the subjects of the law where we ask for change to bring about equal rights for men and women? That is the question before us.

Our inquiry brings forward the fact that long before the suffrage movement took form in the United States, the law's injustices to women were recognized by legislators, and the slow but steady progress toward equalization began. From 1809, when Connecticut led the way by correcting one item of the discriminatory common law, the movement slowly gathered impetus through the following hundred and twenty years until many of the old injustices have been erased from the statute books, and a whole new concept of women's status, in law and in life, has now been substituted.

Nevertheless, because the old ideas of “woman's place” were so deeply embedded in the common law, and because one injustice was oftentimes overlaid by another; because some inequalities became virtually inoperative in practice as the ways of the world outgrew them; because some are yet stubbornly upheld by an unyielding public opinion; or because some are actually neglected—for these or other reasons countless inequalities are still to be found in the law, or the administration of the law.

Meanwhile, however, another movement was more rapidly in progress which complicated the question of equality. That was the industrial revolution, which swiftly changed the whole face of the civilized world, not only for the wage-earning people, but for all the others as well. New social problems were created for the community to deal with by law. New methods of dealing with these problems began to be reflected in the law, as science contributed new knowledge, and a new understanding of health. 05454A new philosophy of social responsibility and co-operation superseded the old theories of individual rights and free competition.

The newer philosophy called for a newer principle in law—not the old arbitrary equalitarianism, but a classification of citizens for purposes of providing equal protection of the law. This is not to deny a general equality of rights, but to bring about adjustment permitting the exercise of those rights. Women are a class from this point of view, as are all wage-earners, and all property owners, or farmers, city-dwellers, immigrants, or children—whose needs as classes are respectively so different that they must be differentiated for treatment. In specialized conditions of life, only specialized legislation can meet new and special legislative needs.

But here the two philosophies collide—the individualist ideal and the collective, or social-justice ideal. Social legislation frequently differentiates between men and women in the interests of social justice. But there are feminists who consider a differentiation in the law between men and women a discrimination against one or the other. Others regard some differentiations as discriminatory, but they see in other differentiations an equalizing process.

Obviously, if inequalities are to be corrected, they must by recognized as such, and they must be replaced by something that can be defined as equality. How shall we decide what laws to change, and what new laws to pass in order to provide an equal footing for men and women?

We have inquired from the basis of three premises:

A. Equality may exist between things of a kind or of different kinds. Difference may exist without inequality.

To test, from these points of view, the typical differences in the law as applying to men and women, we have asked the following questions in each case: Is it of advantage to women, and through them to society in general? If it disadvantageous to women, how shall it be changed to put them on an equal footing with men in terms of the law? Would legal equality in this instance coincide with social and economic equality? Would it be consistent with social justice?

The test, in short, is to apply a concrete definition of equality to each particular situation that calls for change. What constitute equality here?

Legislation is drawn, however, with reference to other forces that bear on the situation, and in the United States it is drawn with reference to somebody's concept of “equal protection of the law,” as required by the Constitution. To attempt to change it to secure equal rights for men and women requires, as we see it, first, that we reckon with the factors in the given situation which are determined by social and economic forces in addition to the law.

Proceeding in this fashion., we find that instead of final answer as to kinds of rights desired by women in order to establish equality with men, we are left under nearly every topic with a question; thus:

Public Rights

Citizenship

Should alien immigrant wives be allowed a shorter and simpler naturalization process than alien husbands? The existing law does so provide in order to meet the social problem of facilitating naturalization of women immigrants, who are slower to accept citizenship responsibilities than are their husbands.

Jury Service

Should jury service be compulsory for women as for men, and if so should the exemptions be identical with the exemptions for men? Or should mothers of young children be exempted, though the fathers are not?

Party Management

Does equality demand equal numbers of men and women in official party positions? Or shall women be merely eligible to take their chances in the party machine with men—service and seniority being the rule for recognition?

Private Rights

Married Women's Property

Shall the property rights to husband and wife be equal on a separate or reciprocal basis, or on a common property basis? If on a separate basis, shall the wife have no legal claim on the husband's earnings, or shall a share of his earnings be counted equivalent to her household service? In this event, what shall be required of each spouse as an equitable minimum (a) where the income is so small that the wife must do all the household 05656work, and (b) where the income is sufficient to employ housekeeper and servants?

On a common property basis, shall husband and wife be joint owners of their combined earnings irrespective of the earning power of each, and irrespective of the extent of the wife's household services? Or shall they be proportional owners, and put some valuation on the services of the wife?

If husband or wife has had an illegitimate child, what should be the inheritance rights of that child or its other parent in relation to the married parent and the children of his or her marriage?

Marriage Age

Is if better to allow young people to marry when they are eighteen, or shall they wait until they are twenty-one? Do girls mature earlier than boys, and are the sexes then treated equally when the legal age for girls is eighteen and for boys, twenty-one? Or does equality require the same age provision?

Divorce

Shall divorce be granted for the same causes to either party, including non-support?

Sex Offences

Shall women and men be equally penalized for rape, notwithstanding the incapacity of the woman to commit the crime by physical force?

Public Health and Social Welfare

Is the public health more vitally threatened by ill health or fatigue of the mother than of the father?

If, as experience shows, legislation will enact and court will sustain laws protecting women from specified occupational hazards from which the law does not protect men, shall the needed protection be withheld from women unless or until it can be granted by law to men?

Are the laws prohibiting employment of women for a period before and after childbirth a discrimination in favor of women and, if so, are they justified?

Is there any inequality as between husband and wife in provisions for maternity and infancy care?

Should widowed fathers as well as widowed mothers receive the public aid provided for the protection of needy children?

Regulation of Hours and Wages

With men-employing industries largely on an eight-hour schedule and women-employing industries largely on a nine to ten-hour schedule, 05757do men need an eight-hour law as much as women do? If men's standards are union-made standards, but unions are absent or weak in most of the women-employing industries, and if minimum standards are attainable either through unions or the law or both, shall we insist on the standards themselves or upon a prescribed method of getting them? Shall we measure equality by results, or by the method of getting the results? Do we create inequality or lessen it by limiting women's hours of labor by law to the accepted maximum standard for men?

If women are now working in vast numbers for three-fourths or a half of men's wages, and a minimum-wage law for women raises their wages, and increases their bargaining power, by limiting their right to underbid their own low rates, does this increase inequality or lessen it? Does it make for equality or against it?

Under only two topics in our classification are we left with one clear, uncomplicated conclusion as to what equality is—namely, with respect to eligibility to public office, and guardianship of children. To us it seems clear that on these two subjects there is no debatable ground in the propositions that men and women should have identical rights under the law, that this would mean equality in fact, and that equality here would coincide with justice.

This is not to say, of course, that other questions on other topics we have listed are not satisfactorily clear to other minds, or that there is no debate as to these two exceptions of ours. But it is interesting to note that these are the two subjects upon which the law thus far gives the same status to men and women in the greatest number of states, women being eligible to the major public offices of all but two states, and there being now joint (if not wholly equal) guardianship laws in all but eleven states.

What we would say, and emphasize again and again, is this:

Each subject of the law where differentiation occurs between men and women needs study to discern the purposes underlying existing provisions, the appropriateness of such provisions to present-day conditions, the bearing of social forces as well as the law upon those present-day conditions, the functions the law can and should serve for the remedy of injustice and inequality. These things understood, the rights of men and women affected by the given provision of law can presumably be measured, practical equality defined, and an equitable provision formulated.

In brief, for the attainment of equal rights for men and women, a pragmatic approach, and pragmatic treatment of the problem is the policy necessary.

It is a step-by-step, pragmatic policy for removal of legal discriminations against women that has been pursued thus far in the woman movement, and it has resulted as we have seen. The most acute injustices have been removed in all or nearly all the states, but some inequalities, of widely varying actual importance, persist everywhere. The National League of Women Voters in particular, as successor to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, has advocated, and has in its own work followed this step-by-step procedure. Is there any better way?

Another way has been proposed; in fact two other ways, the one a variant and a wider application of the other. The first has been advocated since 1921, when the National Woman's Party, another group of former suffrage workers, drafted and offered to the Congress a proposal for a new amendment to the federal Constitution, as a means of “carrying forward today the fight for the complete freedom of women undertaken in 1848.” The draft of their proposal, as now pending before the Congress, reads: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” 56

This legislation is advocated by its proponents as “the most effective and the surest, quickest and least expensive method of securing the equality of men and women before the law.” It would, they assert, “establish the principle of equal rights once and for all,” because a national amendment would “override all existing legislation which denies women equal rights with men, and would render invalid every future attempt on the part of any legislators or administrators to interfere with these rights.” A national amendment, they say, “is more inclusive than state legislation, is more permanent and would make unnecessary the costly and laborious state-wide referendum campaigns involved in amending state constitutional provisions dealing with the position of women.” 57

As an affirmative proposal to an end which, generically, is widely desired by modern-minded men and women, this method of removing inequalities calls for studious examination. It has been so examined by various organizations of women, by many lawyers and legislators, and by numbers of other citizens and groups of citizens. After seven years, however, although the amendment has been introduced at each session of the Congress, has been the subject of hearings before the Judiciary Committees of both houses, and has received widespread publicity throughout the country, it has little organized support and many organizations oppose it.

Why is the amendment not more widely acceptable? The answer to that question varies, naturally, with point of view. The opinion of many of its critics, however, is the exact reverse of the claims made for it by its proponents. It can be shown, we believe, that any such blanket proposal for the removal of the wide variety of inequalities between men and women under existing law would be probably the least effective, the most uncertain, the slowest, and the most expensive method that could be devised for the purpose of securing the ends desired by the proponents themselves, while it would almost certainly be destructive to the purpose of other advocates of equal rights.

The variant of the amendment proposal, coming from the same source, takes the form of a treaty, a draft of which was presented at an informal session of the Sixth International Conference of American States at Havana, Cuba, in January and February of 1928. The language of the main article of the treaty proposal (for full text see page 117 herein) is almost identical with that of the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States: “The contracting states agree that upon the ratification of this treaty, men and women shall have equal rights throughout the territory subject to their respective jurisdictions.”

This proposal was advocated at Havana on the following basis: “We have chosen the treaty method because it is the most dignified. It is the easiest. It is the most permanent. It will not only abolish existing national and international inequalities. It will prevent new ones from being written. And lastly, it obviates a cruel waste of energy. For we ought never to be compelled to appeal for 06060our rights to the most backward opinion in any State. Our appeal to the most select, the most cultivated, the most imaginative men in the world, should be welcomed, approved and answered in this most dignified method.” 58

The treaty, once adhered to by any two nations, would become law within those jurisdictions, without waiting for action by any other nation. Subject to constitutional limitations, all laws in conflict with the terms of the treaty would be automatically abrogated in those jurisdictions. (See page 81 herein for further discussion.) The Pan American Union, had the Havana Conference voted to submit the treaty proposal, would have had the duty of advocating it throughout all the member nations.

The Conference took no action upon the treaty proposal itself. It did, however, create an Inter-American Commission of Women “to prepare the juridical information necessary for a proper consideration at the Seventh Conference of the civil and political equality of women,” the United States to be represented by the proponent of the treaty. The similarity, and likewise the differences, between the constitutional amendment and the treaty proposal call for discussion as part of our subject in these pages. (See page 83.)

Women now, as voters, seeking to equalize their status is life with the status of men, are confronted with a definitely practical problem. The evangelistic phase of the women's rights movement has passed. The principle of equality was officially conceded with the adoption of the equal suffrage amendment, if not before. The thing that is wrong is the practice. The immediate problem before us, then, is how to put the accepted principle into actual practice.

Approached on its legislative side, the problem is one of lawmaking method. How shall the law be changed to give women the rights they still lack, so far as the law can give them? What procedure is best?

The proposed amendment undertakes (a) to remove all inequalities at one stroke, by (b) inserting in the federal Constitution a mandate affecting all existing law and all future legislation on this subject, and (c) empowering the Congress to enforce the mandate.

Such an undertaking assumes a number of things that cannot be taken for granted.

In February, 1928, at the Sixth International Conference of American States at Havana, Cuba, the proponents of blanket “equal rights” legislation in the United States made a corresponding international proposal the form of the draft of a treaty in virtually the same language as their proposed constitutional amendment, viz.: “The contracting states agree that upon the ratification of this treaty, men women shall have equal rights throughout the territory subject to their respective jurisdictions.”

Again, a constitutional question is involved, as well as a question of public policy, in this case national and international.

Treaties are negotiated between governments, through their plenipotentiaries and chief executives. In the United States the President “shall 08282have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” 82 Unless the treaty is self-executing 83 , however, the action of the President and the Senate would not establish its provisions or permit their enforcement. This would remain to be done by act of the Congress in the present instance, because the rights of men and women are the subject of widely varying legislation, state and federal, which would have to conform to some definition of “equal rights.” In other words, this treaty would not be self-executing, and could not come into force until the Congress had passed the necessary legislation to that effect.

The treaty-making power of the President and the Senate is, moreover, always limited by the Constitution, 84 in the provision that “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.” Treaties, therefore, “are not the supreme law of the land by themselves, but in connection with the Constitution and law of the United States. ... No treaty can violate any of the provisions of the Constitution.” 85

The question as to whether any given treaty does violate the provisions of the Constitution must of course be determined by the United States Supreme. And while a treaty takes precedence over any statute, state or federal, if the subject of the treaty is held to be within the treaty-making power of the government, this particular treaty proposal apparently is subject to a question of constitutionality. It involves the same question that arose in the United States delegation to the Havana Conference, with reference to the projected code of private international law, which was submitted by the Conference to all the member nations—the question of federal jurisdiction vs. the reserved powers of the states. On this ground, the United States delegation, headed by Mr. Charles Evans Hughes, declined to subscribe to that proposed international code (see page 114 herein).

So far as the United States is concerned, the “equal rights” treaty proposal seems therefore to raise not only the same controversial issues involved in the proposal for “equal rights by national amendments,” but to inject still more. “No theory has been more earnestly debated,” writes Justice George Sutherland, 86 “nor has given rise to more pronounced differences of opinion, than that which challenges the validity of a treaty stipulation disposing of a matter which otherwise would fall within the reserved powers of the states; and especially which would fall within their police powers.”

For other than the purely constitutional reasons, moreover, it may well be concluded that any possibility adherence by the United States Government to such a treaty as that proposed for “equal rights” is extremely remote. It would from the outset encounter the same opposition that has been aroused by the proposed “equal rights” amendment, for it it were allowed to become the law of the land it would be equally destructive. It would, if accepted, add to our law as it stands the same indefinite, indeterminate kind of provision that is contained in the proposed amendment, and thus would act as a mandate to the states with the same effect the constitutional amendment would have. State laws could be challenged as being in conflict with the legalistic definition of equality. The same groups of laws that would be endangered or nullified by the “equal rights” amendment would be thrown into similar confusion or jeopardized by the treaty, and some would be nullified outright. All laws that differentiate between the women, whether involving health or physical capacity, sex functions, economic or political status, or any difference whatsoever, would at once be called into question. The same destructive effects on labor and social legislation applying to women only must be expected.

In the Latin American states, where women are not yet enfranchised, there would be much more to gain by the treaty proposal, should it be valid, than in the United States. Latin American women would gain the vote and other political rights, no doubt. To that extent the treaty would have more constructive results than would the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States and more constructive results than the treaty would have in this country.

Otherwise, however, in Latin America the effects would be problematical. Undoubtedly the treaty would rise the same questions of definition that the amendment raises. What are equal rights, what is equality 08484for men and women under the law? The interpretation of a Latin court on the basis of the Spanish or French or Portuguese development of the Roman law, may be very different from the interpretation of a United States court, on the basis of the English common law and its development in the United States. Just how the treaty, if accepted, would affect, in the Latin American states, existing laws for women which are desired by women, as well as laws which the women of those states desire to change, is, therefore, a subject which should have thorough study before any such treaty proposal is presented for action. Opinions of Latin American jurists are needed to clarify this question.

From a North American point of view, however, the proposed “equal rights” treaty would seem to collide specifically with at least three other international conventions already ratified in some Latin American states, and at present pending before the legislative bodies of others; namely, the conventions for maternity benefits, for regulation of night work by women, for protection against the lead poisoning. The Havana Conference itself, the very day the “equal rights” treaty draft was offered, recommended to all the Pan American states maternity protective legislation of the very type which is actively opposed by the legalistic equalitarians, a type of legislation which in the United States would be jeopardized by the enactment of the proposed “equal rights” constitutional amendment, and also by the acceptance of the treaty.

Equal suffrage for men and women is but just achieved in Great Britain, for the Reform Bill of 1918 enfranchised no women under thirty years of age, though men vote at twenty-one. A renewed agitation during the past few years won from a reluctant Parliament the passage of the Equal Franchise Act of 1928, giving women, as well as men, the right to vote at twenty-one years of age. 90

Other legislation for equal rights has not, however, stood still meanwhile. Among the Acts of Parliament recorded as notable achievements from the standpoint of the National (British) Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship are the following: The Parliamentary (Qualification of Women) Act of 1918, making it possible for women to be elected to Parliament. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919, which “opened the legal profession, in both its branches, to women,” “enabled women to sit on Juries and to act as Magistrates,” and made clear to Oxford and Cambridge University authorities that they were 09191free to open the privileges of the institution to women, and to confer its degrees upon women as upon men. The Married Women's Property Act (Scotland) of 1920, which gives to married women the same rights over their property as single women, and brings Scottish legislation in line with English on this subject. The Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act of 1920, which makes it possible for sums payable under maintenance orders to be recovered from husbands who have gone to other parts of the Empire. The Summary Jurisdiction (Separation and Maintenance) Bill of 1922. This bill (based on the Separation and Maintenance Orders Bill of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship), introduced by the Government, provides that a married woman need no longer leave her husband before applying for a separation order on grounds of cruelty and neglect, and facilitates enforcement and payment of maintenance orders. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1922, which raises the age of consent to sixteen years, and takes away the plea of “reasonable cause to believe” a girl to be over sixteen, except in cases of young men of twenty-three and under, on occasion of first offense. The Law of Property Act of 1922, which came into effect in 1924, gives husbands and wives equal inheritance rights in real property. The Infanticide Act of 1922, which provides that manslaughter, instead of murder, shall be the verdict in cases where it can be shown that the mother was still suffering from the effects of confinement. The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1923, which permits divorce to women on the same grounds as to men. The Bastardy Act (England and Wales), 1923, which doubles the amount obtainable by the mother from the father of an illegitimate child. 91

It should be remembered, of course, that Acts of the British Parliament govern England, Scotland, Wales, and a part of Ireland, whole on this side of the Atlantic corresponding changes of law are for the most part made by forty-eight states legislatures for their several state 09292jurisdictions. The subject matter of the British laws above cited, however, together with further legislation proposed in the program of the British feminist organizations, concerning illegitimacy, guardianship of children, opportunity for women in the civil service, and various other civil and social problems, corresponds closely with the content of measures achieved or still to be achieved by women voters in the United States.

Of the laws secured, greatest importance was attached, perhaps, after suffrage, to the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919, attempting as it did to remove a number of inequalities at one stroke. This Act provides that— “A person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function, or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post, or from entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation, or for admission to any incorporated society (whether incorporated by Royal Charter or otherwise), and a person shall not be exempted by sex or marriage from the liability to serve a juror.”

It also provides that women shall be admitted as solicitors after having received the same training as men, and authorizes the admission of women to universities, notwithstanding any other statutes or any charter.

The Act contains, however, provisos that “notwithstanding anything in this section, His Majesty may by Order in Council authorize regulations to be made ... [for] admission of women to the civil service” and for the conditions of appointment, giving power to reserve to men any branch or posts overseas or in a foreign country; and, concerning jurors, that the judge or magistrate may at his discretion or on the request of the accused, order that the jury be composed of men only or women only, or may exempt women from service at their request on the ground of the nature of the evidence or the issue to be tried. 92

Supplementary legislation has been sought by British feminists, especially with reference to the civil service provisions and the exercise of public functions, for notwithstanding the provisions of this Act, British peeresses are still excluded from the House of Lords, and “the recent adverse decisions in the High Courts relating to married women teachers make the present time opportune for a Bill to amend the Sex Disqualification 09393Removal Act,” in the opinion of a feminist leader. 93 The same writer, setting forth the program of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship for the year (1926), added, “In order to safeguard the married woman worker other Bills will deal with the selection of women jurors and the position of married women under the law of coverture.”

Parallels and difference alike, as relating to American experience, seem to indicate for Britain as for the United States the importance of specific legislation, amending specific statutes.

In much of their program, British feminists have had support from British Labour. The Sex Disqualification Removal Act was first introduced by the Labour Party, 94 and the Labour Government in 1924 brought in an Equal Franchise Bill. 95 British Labour has also urged, although without the support of feminist organizations, the Factory Acts limiting hours of labor for women in industrial occupations and regulating their employment at night (1920) and in specified processes where lead is used. Maternity benefits for employed women, to whom employment is prohibited for a period before and after confinement, were provided by an Act of 1924. 96 A Factories Bill now pending, sponsored by Miss Ellen Wilkinson and other Labour Members, would reduce the hours of women, and apply numerous other provisions especially to women.

Labor laws for women, however, have now become a source of controversy among British feminists, as well as between feminist and labor groups, which had long been the case. 97 At the present time, the controversy has provoked within the feminist movement itself a lively debate and an actual cleavage on the question, “What is Equality?” (See pages 119-24.)

Denmark, which granted suffrage to women in 1915, and is commonly regarded as one of the countries most advanced in legislation affecting 09494women's rights, differentiates between men and women in several respects. It fixes the legal age for marriage (without consent of parents or guardians) at twenty-one for men and eighteen for women. It fixes an age of consent (twenty years) for girls only. Special provision is made for employed women when pregnant and after childbirth, and various regulations are applied to the conditions of women's work, especially in occupations which the Labor Department may designate as dangerous or prejudicial to health.

Women were enfranchise in Norway in 1913. In this country, however, although men and women both must reach the age of twenty-one before they are free to marry without the consent of parents or guardians, qualifications when consent is given are so differentiated as to recognize men of twenty and women of eighteen upon the same terms. The age of consent, however, is sixteen for boys and girls alike.

Labor laws of Norway prohibit the employment of women underground in mines, prohibit them from cleaning moving machinery, or “attaching straps, cord, or such like to rotatory discs”; and make special provision for pregnant women.

It was not until after the World War, in 1919, that Sweden granted women suffrage. The marriage laws of Sweden differentiate as to the age of men and women under some conditions, fixing twenty-one years for men and eighteen of women. The age of consent (fifteen years) applies to girls only. Maternity benefits for working women are provided by law, and Sweden is one of the countries that has ratified the international convention for protection of women against industrial poisoning in lead processes. There is also a night-work law for women, and against employing women in mines.

The laws of the Netherlands, where women have been voters since 1919, differentiate between men and women as to age of marriage, which is eighteen for men and sixteen for women, and the age of consent (twelve years under certain conditions, sixteen year otherwise) applies to girls only. The labor laws of the Netherlands fix a fifty-five-hour weekly maximum for women, sixty-six hour for men, and apply a special restriction 09595to women who have charge of a household. Numerous provisions regulate the conditions of women's work, including a night-work law, and seat regulations in shops.

In Germany the organized woman movement was relatively young and insignificant in strength in 1918 when the revolution occured and the new republic was born. German women, however, who came into full citizenship under the constitution of their new republic, were enfranchised before either of the two oldest suffrage movements (English or American) had reached the goal.

The German constitution fixes the age qualification for voters, men and women alike, at twenty years. It then prescribes: Chap. II, Sec. I, Art 109: “All Germans are equal before the law. “Men and women have fundamentally the same civil rights and duties.” Chap. II, Sec. II, Art. 119: “Marriage, as the foundation of family life and of the maintenance and increase of the nation, is under the special protection of the Constitution. It is based on the equal rights of the both sexes. “The maintenance of the purity, the health, and the social advancement of the family is the task of the state and of the municipalities. Families with numerous children have a claim to equalizing assistance. “Motherhood has a claim to the protection and care of the state.” Chap. II, Sec. II, Art. 128: “All citizens without distinction are eligible for public office in accordance with the laws and according to their ability and services. “All discriminations against women in the civil service are abolished.” Chap. II, Sec. V, Art. 157: “Labor is under the special protection of the Commonwealth. “The Commonwealth will adopt a uniform labor law.” Chap. II, Sec. V. Art. 161: “For the purpose of conserving health and the ability to work, of protecting motherhood, and of guarding against the economic effects of age, invalidity and the vicissitudes of life, the Commonwealth will adopt a comprehensive system 09696of insurance, in the management of which the insured shall predominate.” 98

Under this constitution, Germany has elected more than thirty women to every National Assembly, and has enacted many special laws for women. The concept of sex equality here very obviously includes special treatment of women under the several headings of social and family welfare, motherhood, and labor. In other words, under the very constitutional provisions for equal rights of men and women which are cited by some American feminists as a precedent for American legislation, Germany has enacted the very kinds of special laws for women to which the absolute equalitarians of the United States and England are most opposed; namely, laws which add to the basic eight-hour provision for men and women a special limitation of overtime for women; regulate night work for women; regulate the employment and method of payment of women in inns and public houses; regulate the working time of women on farms; prohibit the employment of women in mines and lead processes, provide maternity benefits for employed women, 99 and make various other special provisions for women.

Germany's Agricultural Labour Act, of January 24, 1919, provides that women who have the care of a household shall be released from work “early enough to reach home one hour before the chief meal of the day, and on days before Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide they shall be exempted from work.” Women who have to provide meals for laborers outside the family shall allowed to work as farm laborers “only so far as their household duties are not seriously prejudiced.” 99

Not essentially different from the German concept rights is that which seems to be registered in the constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, adopted August 1, 1922, which provides: 09797 Chap. II, Sec. 10: “All citizens of Lithuania, men and women, are equal before the law. No special privileges can be given to, nor shall the rights of citizens be restricted because of race, creed, or nationality.” Chap. II, Sec. 24: “All qualified Lithuanian citizens, men and women, not less than twenty-one years of age, shall have the right to elect representatives to the Seimas, and those not less than twenty-four years of age, to be elected”. Chap. V, Sec. 69: “All citizens are equal before the Courts....” Chap. XIII, Sec. 97: “The working power of the people shall be guarded and protected by special laws....” Chap. XIII, Sec. 98: “The basis of the family life shall be motherhood. Equality of right for both sexes shall be made its basis. “The social welfare and family health shall be protected and maintained by special laws. “Maternity shall be under the special protection of the State.” Chap. XIII, Sec. 99: “Public morals and health shall be protected by special laws.” 100

Lithuanian law provides that “a day's work done by a woman shall be deemed equivalent to one done by a man.” It also provides that the Labour Inspection Department shall “in particular pay attention to health and life of women, children, and young persons.” The widow of an estate worker who has died during employment on the estate, or was killed in war, is allowed “free grants” if she maintains members of the family who are incapable of work or are under ten years of age (fourteen years if in school), and there are also maternity provisions for agricultural workers. Other special provisions apply to women domestic workers. 101

The Austrian Constitution, 102 adopted in 1920, provides in Article 7 of its first chapter: 102 Constitution of the Republic of Austria. In The New Constitutions of Europe, by McBain and Rogers, pp. 256-306. 09898 “All Austrian citizens are equal before the law. Privileges, based upon birth, sex, rank, class, or religious belief are abolished.”

Article 10 of this chapter provides that “the Federal State shall have powers of legislation and execution in respect to the following matters,” among which are “labor law and protection of workers and other employees not engaged in agriculture or forestry; social insurance and contract insurance.” Article 12, which provides that “the Federal State shall have the power of legislation as to fundamental principles, but the states shall have the power supplementary legislation and the power of execution in respect to the following matters,” lists among those matters “protection of maternity, infancy and adolescence,” and “labor law and protection of workers and other employees in agriculture and forestry.”

The suffrage, eligibility to election to the National Assembly, to the Presidency of the Republic, and to other offices, national, state, and municipal, is guaranteed in the second and fourth chapters of the Constitution.

Austrian law, 103 however, includes in its Agricultural Code (Lower Austria) a section entitled “Welfare of Women,” which provides that married women employed on farms shall have sufficient time for their household duties, and that exceptions to the law shall be allowed for necessary work in the care of animals and milking; that women in charge of large households, especially those who have to provide meals for laborers outside the family, shall only be allowed to work so far as their household duties are not seriously prejudiced; that pregnant women shall not be employed on dangerous work, nor during the four weeks before and after confinement.

The Industrial Code of Austria 103 provides that women working at machines shall not wear fluttering articles of clothing or hanging plaits 103 International Labour Office, Geneva. Legislative Series: 1919, Aus. [Austria] 7, night work; 1919, Aus. 11, mines; 1921, Aus. 2, Lower Austria, Agricultural Code, (pp. 9, 10) hours of married women, exemption from work during pregnancy and after confinement; 1921, Aus. 3, Upper Austria, Domestic and Agricultural Code, (pp. 13, 14) hours of married women, exemption during pregnancy and after confinement; 1921, Aus. 1, contract of service of private employees—commercial assistants, (p. 4) remuneration six weeks following confinement, (p. 5) prohibits dismissal on account of incapacity due to pregnancy and confinement; 1922, Aus. 3, theatrical contract of service, (pp. 3, 4) provides for remuneration and against dismissal during pregnancy and after confinement, (p. 9) on demand of husband actress may give four weeks’ notice and dissolve contract within two months after marriage; 1922, Aus. 6, sickness insurance (p. 4) remuneration during pregnancy and after confinement; 1923, Aus. 1, lead and lead compounds, (pp. 4, 12) prohibits employment of women in specified processes, works regulations, (pp. 21-23, 27) forbids fluttering clothes at certain machines, limits hours of work; 1924, Aus. 4, employment of disabled men, (p. 1) preference in employments to war widows. 09999or loose hair, and that their sleeves must be caught closely at the wrists. “Night work of women and young persons in industrial undertakings” is regulated by law, and women are forbidden to work in mines and in certain lead processes. The same regulations as in the agricultural code apply to pregnant women in industry.

Briefer than the Lithuanian provisions, the Esthonian Constitution, adopted June 15, 1920, contains the following provisions: Chap. II, Par. 6: “All Esthonian citizens are equal in the eyes of law. There cannot be any public privileges or prejudices derived from birth, religion, sex, rank, or nationality. In Esthonian there are no legal class divisions or titles.” Chap. II, Par. 26: “The rights and freedom of citizens referred to in paragraphs 6 [above quoted] to 24 do not exclude other rights emanating from the principles of this constitution or which are in agreement with it.” 104

Under this constitution, Esthonian prohibits the employment of women in “unhealthy and heavy occupations,” as determined by the Ministry of Labor, and specifies mining and the cleaning, greasing, or repairing of shafting, belts, ropes, and chains. It also prohibits the employment of women at night in specified occupations. 105

The Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic, 106 adopted in February, 1920, besides providing specifically for equal suffrage and the equal right of men and women to election as members of both chambers of the National Assembly, contains the following clauses: 106 Constitution of the Czechoslovakia Republic (in English). Prague: Edition de la Société de l'Effort de la Techécoslovaquie, 1920. 54 pp. See also McBain and Rogers, The New Constitutions of Europe, pp. 310-42. “Privileges due to sex, birth, or occupations shall not be recognized.” “Wedlock, family and motherhood shall be under the special protection of the law.”

Special laws for Czechoslovak women 107 include regulation of overtime in industrial occupations, regulation of night work, and prohibition of the employment of women in mines or in white lead processes.

The features common to the constitutions of the new republics of Europe appear also in the basic law of the Free City of Danzig, adopted August 11, 1920. 108 In this instrument it is provided that— 108 McBain and Rogers, The New Constitutions of Europe, pp. 429-51. Part I, ii, Art. 8: “Men and women shall have equal suffrage rights.” Part II, i, 72: “All citizens of the Free and Hanseatic City shall be equal before the law. ... Persons of both sexes shall have the same civil rights and duties.” Part II, i, 79: “Marriage as the foundation of family life shall be placed under the special protection of the state. It shall be based on the principle of equal rights of both sexes. Large families shall have a claim to compensatory support. Motherhood shall have a claim to the protection and support of the state.” Part II, i, 81: “The legislation shall extend similar conditions of physical, intellectual, and social development to illegitimate children as for children born in wedlock.” Part II, ii, 90: “Either sex eligible to positions in the public service.” Part II, v, 113: “In order to promote health and efficiency for work, to protect motherhood and to provide against the economic consequence of old age, weakness, and the vicissitudes of life, including unemployment, the state shall provide a comprehensive system of insurance....”

Although the Latin America countries are alike in that all withhold the suffrage from women—except the Mexican states of Chiapas 109 and San Luis Potosi 110 —they are by no means alike in respect to the civil and 109 Bulletin of the Pan American Union, Vol. LIX, No. 8 (August, 1925), p. 842. 110 Ibid., Vol. LVI, No. 3 (March, 1923), p. 309 101101social rights accorded to women, or even government rights other than suffrage, 111 Some Latin American women have attained important political positions. There is a woman mayor in the city of Ranquil, in Chile, 112 and the Ministry of Public Health, Social Welfare and Labor appointed two women labor inspectors in 1925. 113 Nicaragua has twice appointed a woman consul, one now serving at Hoboken, New Jersey. 114 In 1992, a woman was elected judge of the Supreme Court of Justice in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, and two women were elected members of the city councils of Merida and Yucutan. 115 A woman lawyer is in charge of the government libraries of Mexico. 116

In the professions, in some states, are to be found women lawyers and university professors, and at least one woman engineer.

Much greater advance, however, has been made in the civil than in then political status of women of Latin America. The civil codes of all the states are based on the old Roman law, as derived through the Spanish in nineteen states, and in two state through the Portuguese and the French, respectively. Modifications, of varying kind and degree in these twenty-one countries according to their respective ideals—social ,political and religious—have been brought about in greater or less degree throughout all Latin America.

Questions involving the rights of women and the necessity for definition of the terms of equality between men and women are now before all nations of the civilized world as a result of international conferences held since the World War. These conferences, participated in by official representatives of the respective governments by whom they were organized, have been held at Washington, Genoa, and Geneva by the International Labour Organisation; at Geneva by the Advisory Commission (to the League of Nations) on Traffic in Women and Children; and at Santiago, Chile, and at Havana, Cuba, by the Pan American Union.

These international conferences have dealt with the rights of women as involved in legislative proposals on several different subjects; proposals some of which are still in preparation, some of which are now pending before the legislative bodies of the different countries, and some of which have been ratified by some of the countries.

The present British discussion came to a climax in the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship at its annual meeting in March, 1927, 136 on the question of definition of the function of the National Union; i. e., whether the “primary function” which is stated to be “to secure a real equality of liberties, status, and opportunity between men and women” may properly be interpreted to permit the organization to support legislation for “family allowances, including provision for married women and children under the National Insurance Acts,” and “freedom of married women who desire it to obtain information on birth control at welfare centres in receipt of Government grants”; also whether it shall be the policy of the National Union to consider the workers’ own viewpoint with reference to Factory Acts applying to woman only.

On these issues, the vote of the Council meeting in 1927 favored the broader interpretation, thereby turning what had been a minority into a majority. The minority did not allow the issue to subside with this vote, apparently, but the opportunity to advance the Equal Franchise Bill during 1927 and 1928 led to action at the 1928 Council meeting postponing the reopening of the question until the fate of the then pending suffrage bill should be known. 137

A year later, according to the official organ of the National Union, the Woman's Leader of March 22, 1929, “The Women's Programme” was summed up as follows, on the occasion of a deputation to political leaders on behalf of the several societies composing the Equal Rights General Elections Campaign Committee: “Broadly speaking there was complete agreement on equal opportunity and pay in the civil service, and under municipal authorities; on the abolition of sex differentiation in industrial legislation; on the abolition of the law relating to prostitution and solicitation; on the right to retain their nationality on the part of married women; on the raising of the legal age of marriage for both sexes; on the employment of women police; on the admission of peeresses in their own right to the House of Lords; on equality for men and women in the League of Nations.... “Other matters regarding which some of the co-operating societies were not agreed or had not pronounced an opinion, were introduced by the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship. These included the proposal for legislation for testamentary provision for spouses and children; family allowances on their merits and as a means of attaining the goal of equal pay for equal work; and information of methods of birth control for married women who desire it at maternity centres subsidized by the Ministry of Health.”

Meantime, the debate has continued between the different feminist groups, and has developed two clear-cut views of equality, together with the names “new feminists” and “old feminists” set over against each other in an interesting opposition.

As President of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, Miss Eleanor Rathbone, who has lately retired from that office, stated one view of the matter as follows: “As I see it, the women's movement comprises a large number of reforms, all of which are ‘feminism’ but only some of them ‘equality.’ The ‘equality’ reforms are necessary and immensely important. They consist in breaking away the fetters and restrictions which prevent women from developing their capacities and doing their best work. But this aim of enabling women to be and do their best will not have been accomplished even when every sex barrier has fallen. Those who think it will are suffering, I suggest, from a sort 121121of ‘inferiority complex’ bred in them by generations of sex subjection, which prevents them from thinking except ‘in terms of men.’ To every proposal for the good of women they apply the test ‘do men do it; do men want it for themselves,’ and it the answer is in the negative, they are suspicious of the proposal or at least set it aside as not part of feminism. We of ‘the new feminism’ apply a different test, ‘Is it good in itself? does it meet the needs of women's natures and women's lives; do women want it for themselves?’” 138 138 Time and Tide, London, March 12, 1926 (Correspondence). “The difference between ourselves and some of our colleagues,” Miss Rathbone says elsewhere, 139 “is not that we are indifferent, while they are enthusiasts, on the subject of Equality. It is that we interpret Equality differently. To Mrs. Abbot and those who think with her, equality reforms are limited to those which concern the achievement for women of a right or opportunity already possessed by men, or the removal from women of a prohibition or restriction not placed upon men. The rest of us likewise desire equality in this sense, and that is important. But we extend the meaning of the term to embrace also the securing for women of certain rights which are not at present possessed or desired by men as such, but which are necessary to enable women to attain the same freedom of self-development or self-determination that men enjoy.”

The opposing point of view, called “old feminism” by the “new feminists” and defined as “solely equalitarian” by its adherents, is stated it follows 140 on behalf of a feminist group which has formed a new organization under the name of the “Open Door Council”: 140 The Woman's Leader, December 16, 1927, pp. 360-61. “‘To secure that women shall be free to work and protected as workers on the same terms as men, and that legislation and regulations dealing with conditions and hours, payment, entry and training shall be based upon the nature of the work and not upon the sex of the worker. And to secure for women, irrespective of marriage or child-birth, the right at all times to decide whether or not they shall engage in paid work, and to ensure that no legislation or regulations shall deprive them of this right.’ “That official ‘Object’ looks comprehensive and sufficiently clear to describe a body which is solely equalitarian—feminist in the sense 122122that in every direction it combats the hydra-headed inequalities conditioning the status and work of professional and wage-earning women. It is not a case of believing in ‘equality up to a point’ and then conceding modifications. It is a really single-minded practice of submitting every conceivable law, custom or proposal to one touch-stone: Does it secure absolute equality of status, pay, opportunity, professional and industrial conditions as between men and women? In a word, it is an attitude of mind which invariably puts equality first and other desirable things second; and this from an innermost and unshakable conviction that without that solid foundation all superstructures are at their best insecure—so insecure, indeed, that at any moment they may sift, and from an intended good become an unmistakable—and at their worst a contemptuous implication that women are not to be regarded as reasonable adult creatures.”

The women composing the Open Door Council, who are not themselves industrial workers, have undertaken what they term “a wide and thorough education of the industrial women,” distributing circulars and handbills at Labour Women's Conferences and Trade Union and Labour Party meetings, to convince the industrial workers of the error of their ways. For in England or in America—indeed, beginning long ago—the feminists of this school find themselves arrayed not only against their own feminist colleagues, but against the women of a third group.

Labour women are that third group. Organized far more strongly in England than in the United States, in the Labour Party, Trade Unions, and Cooperatives, they number more than a million. Through their official representatives, the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organisations, they have issued a statement on the question of equality with reference to labor laws which contains the following paragraphs: “The Standing Joint Committee is in favour of all legislation which improves conditions of employment for the worker, and is especially concerned in securing these for the worst paid and least organized sections; unfortunately women belong to this section. Moreover, the Committee is especially concerned in securing adequate care and protection for women exercising the function of maternity.” 123123 “Protective legislation for women can be divided into three classes:—

“1. Provisions that would be good for men as well as women, but which can be obtained for women and not for men at the present time. “Legislation regarding hours of work comes under this heading. We can in factory legislation secure regulation of women's hours, and even the present Government (a year ago at least) was willing to enact a 48-hour week for women. Not all the efforts of Labour, and of agreements at International Labour Conferences, have been sufficient to secure 48-hour legislation for all workers. We prefer to take what regulation we can get rather than to delay it.

Between organized British feminists and British labour women the question of labor laws for women became an issue in the general elections campaign to such an extent as to cause a definite break. According to the Labour Woman (November 1, 1928, page 163), the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organisations had been represented on the Equal Political Rights Campaign Committee, “which was composed of representatives from organisations striving to gain equal franchise between men and women,” but “the Committee had decided to celebrate the gaining of equal franchise and to inaugurate a campaign for ‘pseudo-equality’ by an attack on protective laws for women workers. As the Standing Joint Committee and organised working women generally are so fundamentally opposed to this view it was decided to withdraw from the Equal Political Rights Campaign Committee and to inform the Press of the decision.”

It has been the opinion of Latin American women delegates to various international conferences that political rights would be the last and hardest to obtain from their respective governments. This opinion was voiced repeatedly by Doña Bertha Lutz, of Brazil, president of the Inter-American Union of Women which met in conference in Washington in 1925. In accordance with this conviction, feminist leaders in those countries have chosen a strategy just opposite to that of the organized woman movement in the United States and England; i,e., they have sought educational, social, civil, and economic freedom first, as a way toward suffrage, instead of seeking suffrage as a means to freedom in other respects. Such a course, they say, accords better with the Latin psychology, both male and female.

This attitude is reflected, moreover, in the fact that the Fifth Conference of the Pan American Union, held in 1923 in Santiago de Chile, included among its recommendations for consideration at the next (Sixth) 125125Conference in Havana in 1928, “Legislative measures for extending to women the same civil rights as those enjoyed by adult males,” and “Legislation designed to prevent the loss of nationality by a woman because of marriage”; but no recommendation concerning women's political rights. In 1928 for the first time the term “political equality” was discussed before a conference of Latin American governments, a fact which was obviously due to the bolder tactics of North American women and Cuban suffragists, on the ground in Havana, where the Conference was held.

So far as suffrage and all other political rights, and also some civil rights and social rights are concerned, this action has undoubtedly advanced the cause of women in Latin America. At the same time it has injected an issue not necessarily apparent on the surface, and apparently not at all understood at Havana, where the emphasis was almost exclusively upon suffrage and other political rights.

The purpose of the North American women proponents of the “equal rights” treaty, as shown by their campaign for their proposed “equal rights” amendment to the Constitution of the United States, is absolute legalistic equality. They oppose all laws that differentiate between men and women, and would have the law ignore the sex differences of men and women in their functions as parents or their rôles in family life.

But is this what those Cuban women meant who joined with the group of North American feminists at Havana in their petition to the Havana Conference? Did the Cuban women intend to repudiate such legislation as the recent Cuban maternity law for working women, the recent Argentine eight-hour law for women, and various other types of social and labor legislation lately written upon the statute books in Latin America?

These issues did not emerge in the discussions, and probably are the more obscure because, as stated by Sr. Poblete-Troncoso, 142 “none of the countries of Latin America have included labor legislation in their general or civil legislation. They have legislated by means of separate laws, which have not been incorporated in the positive civil legislation. This manner of proceeding is fundamentally different from that of most European labor legislation, which in its early stages was generally incorporated in the civil legislation.”

Thus “civil rights,” to the layman, does not necessarily connote labor rights, and labor rights, which may conflict with some other civil 126126rights and have to be especially provided for, are easily overlooked by non-labor groups. Yet the law and the courts deal with the labor contract as a civil contract, and too often, unfortunately, do not recognize the distinction which justifies the protection of labor against the superior bargaining power of the employer. So it could easily happen that Latin American women, thinking of civil rights, would not realize that absolute, undefined equality of civil rights would, as the law operates in the United States and possibly elsewhere, destroy economic rights guaranteed to women by labor laws which do not apply to men; laws which perhaps—as in laws for protection of maternity—could not be made to apply to men.

Indeed, the Club Feminino of Havana, which petitioned so effectively at the recent Pan American Conference, and the Cuban Federation of Women's Clubs were founded within the last ten years by a feminist leader who was distinguished for her advocacy of protection of working women and children. As described in 1923: “The trends among the women of Cuba simply obey a world-wide movement which makes for the physical improvement of women and recreative sports, the better protection of women and children, better laws, and above all the obtaining for women full civil and industrial rights.” 143

A similar juxtaposition of protective legislation and civil and political rights appears in the demands of the Women's Congress on Social Welfare which was held at Buenos Aires in 1926, the program of which included, specifically, “protection of the working mother; ... maternity benefits; day nurseries; ... amendment of the law on the labor of women and children; ... equality of civil and political rights; and means for improving women's social and educational position.” 144

So also the Inter-American Congress of Women in Washington in 1925, and in Panama in 1926, discussed ways and means toward political and civil equality for women in terms inclusive of legislation for the specific needs of the woman worker. The 1926 Conference adopted a resolution providing for a petition to the legislative bodies of all the countries there represented “asking for a law which will vest in women all the civil rights that the man has,” and abolish all laws contrary thereto. And at the same session this Conference adopted another resolution 127127providing for maternity benefits for employed women, and for penal laws “to the end that there may be real protection of women's honor.” 145

Special protection for motherhood and potential motherhood is apparently never missing from the efforts of feminist organizations in Latin America. So far as their proceedings show, their concept of equality never excludes the idea of differentiation, but on the contrary seems always to contemplate legislating especially for women, according to their special needs.

The issue should be clear. But it cannot be clear until women of all nations know just what they mean by “equal rights.” And then it must be understood that they do or do not mean the same thing in all countries. It is not merely a matter of word equivalents in different languages. It is a matter of knowing the meaning of equal rights in terms of the law of each country, as distinguished from common usage of the term.

The effects of the proposed “equal rights” amendment to the Constitution of the United States would be destructive to much legislation that the great majority of feminists in this country desire. This much has been established. Now an international treaty, phrased the same way and offered by the same minority feminist group, is proposed to countries with different basic codes of law, different constitutions, and different-minded courts. What would be the effect of such a treaty, if adopted, upon existing law in each of those countries?

That is a question for feminists of the different nations to study thoroughly before committing themselves to the proposal.

This organization was founded in 1888 by a group of suffragists which included Susan B. Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, and Mrs. May Wright Sewall, 148 and suffrage and equal rights for women have always been an important part of its program. Composed as it is, however, of national organizations of women having a wide range of interests, the international body extends its activities accordingly. Its standing committees deal with questions of peace and arbitration, suffrage, legal status of women, equal moral standard, public health, education, emigration and immigration, trades and professions, and child welfare. As indicating the content of “equality” to the minds of the membership of the International 148 Simmern, Elsie M., in Time and Tide, March 19, 1926 (Correspondence). 132132Council, the following resolutions, adopted at the last Quinquennial Meeting, in Washington, 1925, may be listed: For the formation of “an International Standing Committee of Women, whose object shall be to work unitedly for the appointment of suitable women on commissions or other bodies in the League of Nations where women's opinion should be represented.” Urging appointment of women lawyers on League of Nations Commission to consider Codification of International Law, especially to represent women's interests in the question of nationality of married women. Urging preparation of complete digest of laws of each country affecting women and children. Urging ratification of Convention of Geneva, 1921, for the protection of women and children (against traffic in women and children). Urging the “institution in all countries of Women Police, with the same status and responsibilities as men in the same service.” Urging formation of women's groups within the respective political parties in all countries, “in order to get the best results from their voting power.” Urging equal pay for equal work in the teaching profession. “That the statistics concerning the death rate of legitimate compared with illegitimate children under one year be circulated, and that the affiliated National Councils be asked to investigate what remedial measures they recommend.” Urging appointment of women officials in legations and consulates. “The International Council of Women opposes the professional inequality of women, and demands for them equal opportunities and rights within the various employments.” “The International Council of Women affirms the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work,’ which signifies that wages should be established on the basis of the occupation, and not on the basis of sex.” “The International Council of Women desires that the prohibition to work in the weeks before and after confinement be accompanied by a maternity provision.” 133133 “The International Council of Women declares itself against any limitations of the work of married women apart from provisions for maternity.” 149

Labor women, to defend the laws regulating conditions of their employment, thereby strengthening their bargaining power, and equalizing the economic position of working men and women, have taken action through several organizations to counteract the opposition of non-labor feminist groups to women's labor laws.

The International Federation of Working Women, which held three congresses, in 1919, 1922, and 1923, adopted the following resolution at the congress of 1923 in Vienna: “Nationally and internationally, there should be minimum standards of such work as the 8 hours day, but the method by which such standards are to be obtained, whether by Trade Union agreement or by law or by both means, should be determined by the organised workers of those countries, according to the economic and political conditions in each country:— “Therefore, the International Federation of Working Women declares in favour of legislation for women in countries where the organised working women wish to use this method to improve the industrial conditions.” 150

The following year the International Federation of Working Women was merged with the International Committee of Trade Union Women, organized under the International Federation of Trade Unions, and this Committee, on the 29th and 30th of July, 1927, brought together some fifty women trade unionists from thirteen countries of Europe and from Palestine. The resolutions adopted by this 1927 International Congress of Trade Union Women included the following: “Protection of Women Workers. “The women workers affiliated with the I. F. T. U. [International Federation of Trade Unions], at their conference in Paris on 134134the 29th and 30th July, 1927, declare their firm determination to ensure the achievement of their demands in respect of all women working for wages or salaries. These demands aim at:

“(1) The protection of the woman as a worker ; comprising all measures providing for the protection of labour, such as the eight hours day, factory inspection, sickness insurance, trade union liberty, and the fixing of minimum wages.