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【Cicely Hamilton】婚姻交易（十三）

The habit of judging a woman entirely by externals—appearance, dress, and manners—is not confined to the man who is in search of a wife. It is very general amongst all classes of male employers, and its result is, it seems to me, a serious bar to efficiency in women's work. 

To a certain degree, of course, a man's fitness for any particular work is judged by externals; but never to the same degree as a woman's.  Further, the judgment passed upon a man who is chosen to fill a vacancy because his prospective employer "likes the look of him" has some relation to the qualities which will be required of him in the execution of the duties he will be called upon to perform—it is not biased by irrelevant considerations of sex.

I do not mean, of course, that the element of sexual attraction enters consciously into the calculations of the ordinary male employer when engaging a woman, but it certainly enters unconsciously into the calculations of a good many. A man who says that he likes the looks of a girl whom he has engaged to fill the position of typist or cashier, does not usually mean at all the same thing that he means when he says that he likes the looks of his new porter or junior clerk...That is to say, he is influenced in engaging her by considerations unconnected with her probable fitness for the duties of her post, since a straight nose, auburn hair, or an engaging smile have no necessary connection with proficiency in typewriting or accounts.

The conspicuously attractive girl who enters a tradeor business usually takes a very short time to find out that her advancement depends more on her conspicuous personal attractions than on the steady work and strict attendance to business which has to be rendered by the woman less bountifully endowed by nature. Hence she has every inducement to be less thorough in her work, less intelligent, less reliable, and less trustworthy. 

There is one other disadvantage under which women’s work in the paid labour market is apt to suffer—a disadvantage from which men' work is exempt, and which is directly traceable to the idea that marriage is woman's only trade.

One result of the assumption that every woman is provided with the necessaries of life by a husband, father, or other male relative is that the atmosphere which surrounds the working-woman is considerably more chilling than that which surrounds the working-man. His right to work is recognized; hers is not. He is more or less helped, stimulated, and encouraged to work; she is not. On the contrary, her entry into the paid labour market is often discouraged and resented.