The Living Present by Gertrude Atherton

I

Certain doctors of England have gone on record as predicting a lamentable physical future for the army of women who are at present doing the heavy work of men, particularly in the munition factories. They say that the day-long tasks which involve incessant bending and standing and lifting of heavy weights will breed a terrible reaction when the war ends and these women are abruptly flung back into domestic life. There is almost no man's place in the industrial world that English women are not satisfactorily filling, with either muscle or brains, and the doctors apprehend a new problem in many thousand neurotics or otherwise broken-down women at the close of the war. Although this painful result of women's heroism would leave just that many women less to compete for the remaining men sound of wind and limb, still, if true, it raises the acute question: Are women the equal of men in all things?