The unnaturalness of the situation is intensified by the fact that the
employee is practically debarred by distance and lack of leisure from
her natural associates, and that her employer sympathetically insists
upon filling the vacancy in interests and affections by her own tastes
and friendship. She may or may not succeed, but the employee should not
be thus dependent upon the good will of her employer. That in itself is
undemocratic.

The difficulty is increasing by a sense of social discrimination which
the household employee keenly feels is against her and in favor of the
factory girls, in the minds of the young men of her acquaintance. Women
seeking employment, understand perfectly well this feeling among
mechanics, doubtless quite unjustifiable, but it acts as a strong
inducement toward factory labor. The writer has long ceased to apologize
for the views and opinions of working people, being quite sure that on
the whole they are quite as wise and quite as foolish as the views and
opinions of other people, but that this particularly foolish opinion of
young mechanics is widely shared by the employing class can be easily
demonstrated. The contrast is further accentuated by the better social
position of the factory girl, and the advantages provided for her in
the way of lunch clubs, social clubs, and vacation homes, from which
girls performing household labor are practically excluded by their hours
of work, their geographical situation, and a curious feeling that they
are not as interesting as factory girls.

This separation from her natural social ties affects, of course, her
opportunity for family life. It is well to remember that women, as a
rule, are devoted to their families; that they want to live with their
parents, their brothers and sisters, and kinsfolk, and will sacrifice
much to accomplish this. This devotion is so universal that it is
impossible to ignore it when we consider women as employees. Young
unmarried women are not detached from family claims and requirements as
young men are, and are more ready and steady in their response to the
needs of aged parents and the helpless members of the family. But women
performing labor in households have peculiar difficulties in responding
to their family claims, and are practically dependent upon their
employers for opportunities of even seeing their relatives and friends.

Curiously enough the same devotion to family life and quick response to
its claims,