Kathlyn Oliver
Kathlyn Oliver was born on 31 March 1884. According to her own account, her father "occupied a good position in the civil service", but unfortunately, "he did not think it necessary that his daughter should have a more than a very secondary education". When her father died and she had to earn her own living, domestic service was her only option. (1)
Her biographer, Laura Schwartz, points out: "She loathed this work, resenting not just the low wages and long hours but also how she was constantly watched over and treated like a machine." (2)
As a teenager she realised she was attracted to women. She fell in love with a girl of her own age when she was fourteen, and again when she was seventeen with a member of her Bible class. When she was in her early twenties she suffered a broken marriage engagement with a man. (3) She later commented: "For reasons which it is unnecessary to explain here, we couldn't marry, and from the till now I have had to crush and subdue the sex feeling. As I said, this feeling awoke in me when I loved, but it never did, and it never will, govern me as it governs and enslaves the majority of men." (4)
Kathlyn Oliver: Trade Unionist
Oliver moved jobs seven times before finding "a reasonable and fair employer". (5) Her life changed when she went to work for Mary Sheepshanks, principal of Morley College for Working Men and Women. Sheepshanks also was a leading speaker for the National Union of Suffrage Societies. (6) Sheepshanks, allowed Oliver to organize her own work so that she had some evenings free to attend classes at Morley College and pursue her political interests. (7)
Laura Schwartz pointed out in her book, Feminism and the Servant Problem (2019): "Kathlyn Oliver did not write much about her relationship with her mistress, Mary Sheepshanks, beyond expressing gratitude for allowing her evenings off to attend political meetings and classes at Morley College. Oliver and Sheepshanks moved in similar activist circles, both were socialists and pacifists as well as feminists." (8)
About this time Kathlyn Oliver read The Jungle (1906) by Upton Sinclair, one of the leading socialist propagandists in the United States. In the book Sinclair described domestic work as "deadening and brutalising work, and ascribes to it anaemia, nervousness, ugliness and ill-temper, prostitution, suicide and insanity." (9)
Oliver also started reading Woman Worker, a newspaper edited by Mary Macarthur, Secretary of the Women's Trade Union League. In 1909 Oliver joined a discussion already taking place in the correspondence pages of the newspaper, expressing her support for servants' demands for their own trade union. Macarthur encouraged her to organise such a trade union. In October 1909 she held a meeting to form a committee. Oliver made it clear that she wanted a union run by its members that would agitate for shorter hours and better food and accommodation for live-in servants, enforced by government legislation. (10) The following month The Daily Mirror published a picture of Oliver and stated that she was going to be the general secretary of the Domestic Workers' Union of Great Britain. (11)
Domestic Workers' Union
Kathlyn Oliver claims that she was "besieged on all sides with letters from servants requiring information". (12) The Domestic Workers' Union of Great Britain (DWUGB) was officially launched in the spring of 1910, admitting both men and women members. Kathlyn Oliver became disillusioned with trying to recruit domestic servants into the DWUGB and handed over the role of general secretary to a domestic cook, Grace Neal. (13)
However, she continued to give her support to the DWUGB. Kathlyn Oliver was aso a self-proclaimed feminist. (14) She supported women's suffrage and was a member of the People's Suffrage Federation. In 1911 the organisation published Olivier's pamphlet, Domestic Servants and Citizenship (1911) In the pamphlet she argued that the living-in system should be abolished in favour of the state-employment or "nationalization" of domestic workers. She predicted that when domestic workers have the vote they will be regarded, with respect, and that when they are regarded with respect, "the conditions of the labour will speedily improve". (15)
The pamphlet was reviewed by The Clarion, a socialist weekly, that had been established by Robert Blatchford, a Manchester journalist. The newspaper pointed out that Oliver "makes a striking appeal for the domestic servants' admission to the electorate". The reviewer added: "We are not sure that we agree with Miss Oliver that the mere occasion of a vote to domestic servants will necessary or even probably improve their conditions. She admits that the living-in system makes the organisation of servants practically impossible, and it seems to us the difficulty of organisation must be overcome before the vote can become an effective instrument for bettering their conditions. We would not oppose the granting of a vote to domestic servants, but we quail before the prospect of greasy canvassers pushing their political wares under the bewildered eyes of cook and parlour-maid at the tradesman door. We see no immediate solution of the difficulty, but we are quite sure that 'domestic service' is radically wrong. And we are unable to see that the vote would help matters." (16)
Oliver also used The Common Cause the newspaper of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) to promote the Domestic Workers' Union of Great Britain. She was aware that a large number of NUWSS members employed servants but was unafraid to complain about the way servants were treated. In November 1911 she argued: "I think there can be little doubt that the entire system of domestic service needs revolutionising, or rather, nationalising. I know that few will agree, but I feel that on the present basis, with the present ideas, domestic work can never be entirely satisfactory, except perhaps for a few... The ideas which now make it possible for an employer to talk about allowing her domestic so much (or so little) freedom must be swept away, as well as the ideas which cause some employers to expect servility and bowing and scraping, in return for certain wages." (17)
Employers of servants attempted to defend themselves. A fellow member of the DWUGB gave her support to Kathlyn Oliver: "I notice she tells us some ladies have said they allow their maids to go to bed at ten o'clock and one evening out a week, also alternate Sundays. Well, granted that is true, as it is in my experience, let us see what this means to the servant. In a fairly good place she has to get up not later than seven, and from that hour she is at the command of her mistress until ten o'clock at night, all the week through from Monday morning until Sunday night. When we average our time off one week with another it only averages eight hours a week, eleven one week and five the other, and should the lady be entertaining (which she often is) we are expected to give it up willingly, and if we did not, we should be marked as not obliging. Undoubtedly the domestic servant has many grievances, and the greatest of all is excessive hours of labour and too little time for recreation and self-culture." (18)
Sexual Freedom
Dora Marsden and Grace Jardine, worked for the Women's Freedom League newspaper, The Vote. However, they left and joined forces with Mary Gawthorpe to establish their own journal The Freewoman. The journal caused a storm when it advocated free love and encouraged women not to get married. The journal also included articles that suggested communal childcare and co-operative housekeeping. Marsden argued: "The publication of The Freewoman marks an epoch. It marks the point at which feminism in England ceases to be impulsive and unaware of its own features and becomes definitely self-conscious and introspective. For the first time, feminists themselves make the attempt to reflect the feminist movement in the mirror of thought." (19)
Oliver was soon having her letters published in The Freewoman. At first she criticised the idea of free love. This resulted in her being attacked in the letters page. "I quite anticipated when I stated in your columns that abstinence had no bad effect on my health, I should be accused of not being normal. I have been told this before by another of the male persuasion. But from my knowledge of many single women and girls. I deny that I am not a normal woman. Of course, girls and women do not discuss the sex question as it affects themselves, but from my observation of unmarried girls and women whom I have known intimately, there is not the least ground to suppose that they are in any way troubled or affected diversity by complete chastity. I think I speak for most women when I say that until they love, the idea of the sex relationship seldom enters their thoughts, but if it does it appears repulsive rather than attractive."
Oliver explained that after a broken relationship she "had to crush and subdue the sex feeling." She added: "My intellect and reason rules my lower instincts and desires, and is this fact which raises me above the lower animals (including men). I repeat, these years of abstinence have not diversely affected my spirits. I become at times very morbid and depressed when I see life slipping by and youth going, going, going, and myself still loving, but unable to marry. Yes, at times it affects my spirits, but it will never affect my reason, because I have other interests and ideals in life, which are quite as real and as beautiful and as worth while as love and the sex relationship."
Oliver pointed out that her views on sex was linked to her political views: "As a suffragist and a feminist, I often talk at the equality of the sexes, but in sex matters it is surely indisputable that we women are miles above and beyond men. Some men would have us believe that their laxity in this matter and their inability or lack of desire to restrain or control their lower appetite is a sign of their superiority, but to me it only proves that, in spite of their advance in many directions, they have still a long way to go before they are really emancipated and evolved from the lower animal. But alas! They hug the chains which bind them." (20)
Although she argued for chastity she admitted that she did not have conventional views on the subject of sex. (21) In the Woman Worker she admitted that "I have been more in love with women than I have with any of the opposite sex… I cannot explain this (perhaps) unnatural state of things, but I know it is so". (22) On another occasion she described herself as being of the "Intermediate sex", a term first used by Edward Carpenter. (23)
Dora Marsden criticised the suffrage movement for encouraging the image of "female purity" and the "chaste ideal". Dora suggested that this had to be broken if women were to be free to lead an independent life. She made it clear that she was not demanding sexual promiscuity for "to anyone who has ever got any meaning out of sexual passion the aggravated emphasis which is bestowed upon physical sexual intercourse is more absurd than wicked." (24)
Kathlyn Oliver also discussed this issue with Stella Browne in the The Freewoman. Oliver claimed she had always practised chastity and that, contrary to what some of the new sexologists were claiming, this had in no way damaged her health. Oliver was also implicitly critical of the heterosexual bias of those who argued that sex with men was necessary to women's health. (25) "Oliver was also implicitly critical of the heterosexual bias of those who argued that sex with men was necessary to women's well-being." (26)
Dora Marsden attacked traditional marriage: "Monogamy was always based upon the intellectual apathy and insensitiveness of married women, who fulfilled their own ideal at the expense of the spinster and the prostitute." According to Marsden monogamy's four cornerstones were "men's hypocrisy, the spinster's dumb resignation, the prostitute's unsightly degradation and the married woman's monopoly." Marsden then added "indissoluble monogamy is blunderingly stupid, and reacts immorally, producing deceit, sensuality, vice, promiscuity and an unfair monopoly." (27)
Marsden's friends assumed that Marsden was writing about her relationships with Grace Jardine and Mary Gawthorpe. Stella Browne provided support for Marsden: "The sexual experience is the right of every human being not hopelessly afflicted in mind or body and should be entirely a matter of free choice and personal preference untainted by bargain or compulsion." (28)
Trade Unionism and Women's Suffrage
The Domestic Workers' Union of Great Britain head office was at 211 Belsize Road, London and by January 1913 the union had acquired a regular subscribing membership of about 400 domestic servants. (29) That year the Domestic Workers' Union joined forces with the Scottish Federation of Domestic Workers founded by Glasgow-based domestic servant Jessie Stephen. A member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) Stephen had started organizing maidservants in Glasgow into a domestic workers' union branch in 1912. She moved to London to work for the Domestic Workers' Union. Stephen was an active member of the Women Social & Political Union and helped to develop close links with both organisations. (30)
On 28th January 1913, Margaret Macfarlane took part in an attempt to discuss women's suffrage with David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Organised by Flora Drummond and Sylvia Pankhurst, Macfarlane was apparently representing the demands of the Domestic Workers' Union. As Votes for Women explained: "Mrs Drummond led a deputation of working women from the Horticultural Hall to demand a further interview at the House of Commons with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The interview was refused, and the women were treated with violence by the police. Mrs Drummond herself was knocked down and injured shortly after her emergence from the hall. Persisting, however, in her mission, she and a number of other women, including Miss Sylvia Pankhurst were taken into custody... Of the window-breakers. Miss Mary Neil was fined and ordered to pay the damage, or in default fourteen days; Miss Margaret Macfarlane was similarly dealt with, or in default fourteen days." (31)
On 20th March 1913, Margaret Macfarlane was arrested again and charged with breaking two windows at the Tecla Gem Company, Ltd, Old Bond Street, Macfarlane sentenced to five months in the second division. (32) The Suffragette reported that the Domestic Workers' Union held protest meetings about this sentence: "At a meeting organised by the Domestic Workers' Union of Great Britain in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, a resolution was unanimously carried, protesting against the sentence of five months imprisonment passed on Miss Margaret Macfarlane for her actions on behalf of domestic servants, and calling upon the government to release her immediately." (33)
Kathlyn Oliver supported women's suffrage and was a member of the People's Suffrage Federation. Yet her advocacy of domestic servants' rights often led to clashes with the leaders of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and Women Social & Political Union (WSPU). "She was quick to point out the hypocrisy of middle-class women who claimed to be working for the emancipation of their sex while exploiting their female servants. She insisted that the Domestic Workers' Union was there to represent the interests of the workers, rather than depend upon the goodwill of a handful of enlightened mistresses, and she did not attempt to deny accusations of advocating ‘class war' between women." (34)
Although the leader of a trade union and critical of the middle-class nature of the women's suffrage organisations, Oliver realised that the servants' self-organization alone was enough to bring about the changes she desired, and she now preferred to "advocate the parliamentary vote as the best means of improving the conditions of domestic labour". (35)
In June 1913 she became involved in the dispute between NUWSS and the WSPU. In a letter to The Daily Citizen, the newspaper of the Labour Party about the NUWSS unwillingness to break the law: "I quite fail to understand those suffragists who are always advertising the fact that they are law-abiding and constitutional. There is little virtue in being law-abiding when law breaking is so promptly punished, and little sense in being constitutional while the constitution is so obviously against women. These suffragists are always telling us how wicked and unfair the present laws are, and at the same time proudly brag that they are law-abiding. Surely it is more immoral to obey laws which we feel to be wrong than to break windows, etc. Whether law-abiding suffragists believe it or not, there are times when law-breaking becomes the only decent and moral thing. It is always moral to break the law without when it clashes with the law within." (36)
This resulted in Louise Maude complaining about Kathlyn Oliver's support of the WSPU. She was quick to point out that was not the case as she was a pacifist: "I should like to explain, in answer to Mrs Aylmer Maude, that I did not intend, to back or support the militants. I abhor all kinds of violence. I merely wanted to point out that there is no essential virtue in law-abiding, and that legality and morality are not necessarily synonymous terms. With regard to the militants, is not the shocked attitude of the public on this question rather farcical when we remember that the same public permits what, in my opinion, is far worse than violence to property, viz., violence to little children in the form of corporal punishment? We allow with perfect calmness the flogging of children, but hold up our hands in horror when a woman breaks a window." (37)
Kathlyn Oliver developed this point in a letter three months later: "I wonder if it has ever occurred to any of your socialist readers that, when they plead or demand that the majority shall rule, the present majority are on the side of everything which the true progressive would abolish? The majority today are at the back of everything which is harmful to humanity. They support the military spirit; they respect property far more than human life; they regard the humanitarian movement with amused contempt and the woman's movement either with contempt or active hostility. Socialism to the majority is either a dream of idealists or a vicious scheme, which they denounce whenever opportunity occurs. It is the minority which stands for morality and humanity, and I am proud myself to be in the minority." (38)
Although not a member of the NUWSS she was willing to provide support against the actions of hostile men. In the summer of 1914 men were attempting to break-up their weekly Sunday afternoon meetings in Hyde Park. The Common Cause reported that at a meeting addressed by Millicent Fawcett, Kathlyn Oliver, Rosika Schwimmer and Inez Milholland helped to provide enough protection to make sure she was able to finish her speech. (39)
Later Life
Kathlyn Oliver was opposed to British involvement in the First World War. Along with other left-wing pacifists she formed the World Order of Socialism (WOS). Other members included Dora Montefiore, Walter Crane, Arthur St. John Adcock, James Keighley Snowden and Sir Francis Fletcher-Vane. (40) The Daily Herald reported "All of these are Heraldites. There is hope for the WOS." (41)
Oliver was appalled that leading figures in the Women Social & Political Union (WSPU) such as Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst were willing to play a prominant role in persuading men to join the armed forces. She was unaware that the WSPU carried out secret negotiations with the government and on the 10th August 1914 it was announced it was releasing all suffragettes from prison. In return, the WSPU agreed to end their militant activities and help the war effort. Christabel Pankhurst, arrived back in England after living in exile in Paris. She told the press: "I feel that my duty lies in England now, and I have come back. The British citizenship for which we suffragettes have been fighting is now in jeopardy." (42)
After receiving a £2,000 grant from the government, the WSPU organised a demonstration in London. Members carried banners with slogans such as "We Demand the Right to Serve", "For Men Must Fight and Women Must Work" and "Let None Be Kaiser's Cat's Paws". At the meeting, attended by 30,000 people, Emmeline Pankhurst called on trade unions to let women work in those industries traditionally dominated by men. She told the audience: "What would be the good of a vote without a country to vote in!". (43)
Kathlyn Oliver was appalled by what she considered to be an act of betrayal. She later recalled: "As an animal welfare worker, I have had much experience of the average women's callousness and lack of imagination in connection with animal suffering. One remembers, too, how the gentle creatures hounded their men folk into the war, and no one was more pleased than I when continuous air raids gave these 'angels of pity' a little of what men suffered every hour of every day for three or four years." (44)
The First World War brought an end to the Domestic Workers' Union as many of its members left service for better-paid work in factories and munitions. (45) Oliver now concentrated on other matters. In 1915 she read Intermediate Sex (1908). In the book Edward Carpenter provided a defence of homosexual love. In a letter to Carpenter she asked him for help in meeting other "Uranians" as "I myself belong to that class". (46) Kathlyn told Carpenter that she had not experienced sexual desire until 1913 when she fell passionately in love with a hetrosexual woman who rejected her. She admitted to Carpenter that: "I should love above all things to be able to live with her and be as intimate as it is possible to be, and I don't feel that this desire is at all immoral or degrading." (47)
In 1915, longing for a "woman who could fill the emptiness in my life" she advertised in the Daily Herald where she described herself as a "lonely Woman Rebel" seeking "friendship' with another like herself". (48) This yielded a correspondence with a woman for whom she felt physical desire though she was uncertain if it was reciprocated. In 1917 she became a member of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology (proposed by Stella Browne and seconded by Laurence Housman) which advocated free and open discussion of sexual matters, including homosexuality. (49) Other members included George Bernard Shaw, Havelock Ellis and Ernest Jones. (50)
In the 1920s she became very concerned about animal welfare. In October, 1925, she wrote. " I think women are less brutal than men in their treatment and regard of animals. The former are practically never convicted of the horrible cruelty to animals that men indulge in so frequently. I am not aware whether or to what extent women doctors amuse themselves with vivisection, but bad as they may be, I feel they would find considerably less enjoyment in the cruel experiments practised on living animals than does the male medical student and doctor." (51)
Oliver remained single and in 1932 she advertised again for a partner. This time she described herself as a "woman bachelor" keen to hear from "intelligent" members of her own sex. (52) In the 1930s she focused on advocating animal rights, especially those of horses, cats, and dogs, and became involved in Paddington Animal Shelter. Oliver returned to domestic service and in 1939 was employed as a housekeeper to a family in Ladbroke Road, Notting Hill, London. (53)
Kathlyn Oliver had several letters published in the 1930s explaining why she was a pacifist. This resulted in hostile replies from people who wanted to go to war with fascist governments in Europe. One correspondent described her as "that Christian, tender-hearted Kathlyn Oliver." She replied that she was not a Christian and her ideology was based on logical thought: " I do fear war and detest those who cause it and regard with contempt the poor dupes (without whom war would be impossible) who allow themselves to be driven like cattle to slaughter. They have about as much brains as cattle, but foolishly believe themselves to be heroes whereas they are just and only 'hired assassins' to quote the poet and pacifist Shelley." She added "I do not allow governments to create enemies for me. The wide world is my country. The British electorate should, with no uncertain voice, make it clear to the Government that they may not drag us into foreign quarrels. If England did not consist of 'so many millions, mostly fools' to quote Thomas Carlyle, no Government would dare launch wars just when they pleased." (54)
Kathlyn Oliver became involved in politics again after nuclear weapons were used in the Second World War. She was deeply influenced by John Hersey's book, Hiroshima (1946). An event she described as the "crowning example of man's inhumanity to man". In March 1948 she read an article in the News Chronicle by A. J. Cummings about the possiblity of the British government accepting the placing of nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom. This resulted in her sending a letter to her local paper, The Kensington Post about the matter: "This country is to have the dubious honour of 'absorbing the first wave of attack in order to give USA a cushion of time to prepare for action.' Are we to infer from this amazing revelation that Britain and America have arranged a pact with the 'enemy' as to how the next "war for freedom" is to be conducted? I read every available paper for several days following this alarming announcement but no protest appeared. Those who would have to take the first Atom bomb attack seemed as unconcerned as cattle grazing in the field before the day due for slaughter." (55)
The following month Oliver returned to the attack: "Will the British worm never turn? Are we men and women or maggots, that we allow politicians to make such havoc of our lives and reduce us to a constant state of misery and fear. The Atom bomb is a logical in modern warfare and none who approve of war should complain if they have to 'take it'. They must realise that each succeeding war will be worse than the last. There was a time when killing, in war, was confined to the combatants, when soldiers who went to war, was confined to the combatants, when soldiers who went to war could be confident that their homes and families were safe: when Generals and other officers of high rank took some risk as common soldier and were not, as now, mere 'Chocolate Soldiers,' when even Kings took an active part in the war. These are not so foolish now, and gone are the days when chivalry was extended to women and children in war time. Cattle have to be driven to slaughter and some have the guts to attempt to escape and put up a fight for their lives. Are we always to take these infernal wars, for interests not our own, lying down, or at any rate approving?" (56)
Kathlyn Oliver died from a cerebral haemorrhage due to hypertension on 22nd January 1953.
Primary Sources
(1) Grace Neal, Labour Leader (13th January 1911)
Miss Kathlyn Oliver is the late secretary of the Domestic Servants' Union and she makes a striking appeal for the domestic servants' admission to the electorate. She submits that workers who do not possess the vote are beyond the ken and interest of Parliament. She predicts that when domestic workers have the vote they will be regarded, with respect, and that when they are regarded with respect, "the conditions of the labour will speedily improve". We are not sure that we agree with Miss Oliver that the mere occasion of a vote to domestic servants will necessary or even probably improve their conditions. She admits that the living-in system makes the organisation of servants practically impossible, and it seems to us the difficulty of organisation must be overcome before the vote can become an effective instrument for bettering their conditions. We would not oppose the granting of a vote to domestic servants, but we quail before the prospect of greasy canvassers pushing their political wares under the bewildered eyes of cook and parlour-maid at the tradesman door. We see no immediate solution of the difficulty, but we are quite sure that "domestic service" is radically wrong. And we are unable to see that the vote would help matters.
(2) The Clarion (19th May 1911)
Miss Kathlyn Oliver is the late secretary of the Domestic Servants' Union and she makes a striking appeal for the domestic servants' admission to the electorate. She submits that workers who do not possess the vote are beyond the ken and interest of Parliament. She predicts that when domestic workers have the vote they will be regarded, with respect, and that when they are regarded with respect, "the conditions of the labour will speedily improve". We are not sure that we agree with Miss Oliver that the mere occasion of a vote to domestic servants will necessary or even probably improve their conditions. She admits that the living-in system makes the organisation of servants practically impossible, and it seems to us the difficulty of organisation must be overcome before the vote can become an effective instrument for bettering their conditions. We would not oppose the granting of a vote to domestic servants, but we quail before the prospect of greasy canvassers pushing their political wares under the bewildered eyes of cook and parlour-maid at the tradesman door. We see no immediate solution of the difficulty, but we are quite sure that "domestic service" is radically wrong. And we are unable to see that the vote would help matters.
(3) Kathlyn Oliver, The Common Cause (23rd November 1911)
I was disappointed to see in this discussion on Domestic Service that so many of the correspondence refuse to give their names; but, though I do not like to say so, it is typical of the whole class. As I mentioned in a previous letter, I am a domestic myself and am as dissatisfied with the general conditions of domestic service as anyone, but, unlike the average domestic, I do not keep my opinions on the subject a secret.
My experience in domestic service has been wide rather than long, and for the last five years I have been in constant touch and association with domestics as one of themselves, and their attitude on this subject has infuriated and disgusted me. I feel that if they would give up their petty backbiting of their employers and the secret grumbling and complaining, and openly and honestly voice their grievances some, if not all, of the objectives would vanish.
I think there can be little doubt that the entire system of domestic service needs revolutionising, or rather, nationalising. I know that few will agree, but I feel that on the present basis, with the present ideas, domestic work can never be entirely satisfactory, except perhaps for a few.
One feels that Upton Sinclair, in his wonderful book The Jungle, does not write too strongly against domestic work in its private capacity when he describes it as deadening and brutalising work, and ascribes to it anaemia, nervousness, ugliness and ill-temper, prostitution, suicide and insanity.
The ideas which now make it possible for an employer to talk about allowing her domestic so much (or so little) freedom must be swept away, as well as the ideas which cause some employers to expect servility and bowing and scraping, in return for certain wages.
(4) Kathlyn Oliver, The Evening Standard (23rd November 1911)
As a domestic servant, it is with regret that I endorse the opinion of your correspondent, a "Well-known Sheffield Resident", that the average domestic servant is mean, underhand, and possess little, if any, sense of honour. But these deplorable characteristics in domestic servants are the inevitable effect of a cause. Mistresses themselves are entirely responsible. The average employer of domestic labour regards this work as one of the lowest and meanest order, and domestic workers as menials and as infinitely their inferiors. Surely it is a little illogical to expect our "inferiors" to act as our equals in sense of honour, etc. In spite of the heroic efforts which many of my previous employers have made to convince me that I was their inferior because I performed domestic work they never succeeded. I am a domestic, and, incredible as it may appear. I have a sense of honour, and I scorn mean, underhand dealings, not necessarily because I respect my employer (I had the same feelings when I worked for those whom I despised), because I respect myself.
Will employers never learn that they cannot have servility and straightforward, honourable dealing at the same time? The two are absolutely incompatible. If they desire the former it must be rendered at the cost of the latter and vice versa. (22 Calais Gate, Camberwell, SE)
(5) Letter signed "One in Five", The Common Cause (23rd November 1911)
I read the letter on Domestic Service in the issue of The Common Cause, November 2, and being a domestic servant, I was particularly interested in it. I notice she tells us some ladies have said they allow their maids to go to bed at ten o'clock and one evening out a week, also alternate Sundays. Well, granted that is true, as it is in my experience, let us see what this means to the servant.
In a fairly good place she has to get up not later than seven, and from that hour she is at the command of her mistress until ten o'clock at night, all the week through from Monday morning until Sunday night.
When we average our time off one week with another it only averages eight hours a week, eleven one week and five the other, and should the lady be entertaining (which she often is) we are expected to give it up willingly, and if we did not, we should be marked as not obliging.
Undoubtedly the domestic servant has many grievances, and the greatest of all is excessive hours of labour and too little time for recreation and self-culture.
However, there is a ray of light at last in the 18 months old organisation known as the Domestic Workers' Union of Great Britain. And although the task of combination is a difficult one on account of the fact that we work in ones, twos, threes, fours and fives and not in fifties and hundreds as the mill workers do, we nevertheless feel strong in our awakening strength, and let us all pull together in order that our Union may fulfil its mission.
(6) Kathlyn Oliver, The Freewoman (29th February 1912)
I quite anticipated when I stated in your columns that abstinence had no bad effect on my health, I should be accused of not being normal. I have been told this before by another of the male persuasion. But from my knowledge of many single women and girls. I deny that I am not a normal woman. Of course, girls and women do not discuss the sex question as it affects themselves, but from my observation of unmarried girls and women whom I have known intimately, there is not the least ground to suppose that they are in any way troubled or affected diversity by complete chastity. I think I speak for most women when I say that until they love, the idea of the sex relationship seldom enters their thoughts, but if it does it appears repulsive rather than attractive.
Personally, I never desired the sex relationship until I "fell in love" at about twenty, and then I did desire it, and occasionally I have desired it ever since.
For reasons which it is unnecessary to explain here, we couldn't marry, and from the till now I have had to crush and subdue the sex feeling. As I said, this feeling awoke in me when I loved, but it never did, and it never will, govern me as it governs and enslaves the majority of men.
My intellect and reason rules my lower instincts and desires, and is this fact which raises me above the lower animals (including men). I repeat, these years of abstinence have not diversely affected my spirits. I become at times very morbid and depressed when I see life slipping by and youth going, going, going, and myself still loving, but unable to marry. Yes, at times it affects my spirits, but it will never affect my reason, because I have other interests and ideals in life, which are quite as real and as beautiful and as worth while as love and the sex relationship.
As a suffragist and a feminist, I often talk at the equality of the sexes, but in sex matters it is surely indisputable that we women are miles above and beyond men. Some men would have us believe that their laxity in this matter and their inability or lack of desire to restrain or control their lower appetite is a sign of their superiority, but to me it only proves that, in spite of their advance in many directions, they have still a long way to go before they are really emancipated and evolved from the lower animal. But alas! They hug the chains which bind them.
(7) Kathlyn Oliver, The Daily Citizen (9th June 1913)
I quite fail to understand those suffragists who are always advertising the fact that they are law-abiding and constitutional. There is little virtue in being law-abiding when law breaking is so promptly punished, and little sense in being constitutional while the constitution is so obviously against women.
These suffragists are always telling us how wicked and unfair the present laws are, and at the same time proudly brag that they are law-abiding. Surely it is more immoral to obey laws which we feel to be wrong than to break windows, etc.
Whether law-abiding suffragists believe it or not, there are times when law-breaking becomes the only decent and moral thing.
It is always moral to break the law without when it clashes with the law within.
(8) Kathlyn Oliver, The Daily Citizen (13th June, 1913)
I should like to explain, in answer to Mrs Aylmer Maude, that I did not intend, to back or support the militants. I abhor all kinds of violence. I merely wanted to point out that there is no essential virtue in law-abiding, and that legality and morality are not necessarily synonymous terms.
With regard to the militants, is not the shocked attitude of the public on this question rather farcical when we remember that the same public permits what, in my opinion, is far worse than violence to property, viz., violence to little children in the form of corporal punishment? We allow with perfect calmness the flogging of children, but hold up our hands in horror when a woman breaks a window. (1 Barton Street, Westminster)
(9) Kathlyn Oliver, The Daily Citizen (19th September 1913)
I wonder if it has ever occurred to any of your socialist readers that, when they plead or demand that the majority shall rule, the present majority are on the side of everything which the true progressive would abolish?
The majority today are at the back of everything which is harmful to humanity. They support the military spirit; they respect property far more than human life; they regard the humanitarian movement with amused contempt and the woman's movement either with contempt or active hostility. Socialism to the majority is either a dream of idealists or a vicious scheme, which they denounce whenever opportunity occurs.
It is the minority which stands for morality and humanity, and I am proud myself to be in the minority.
(10) The Daily Herald (10 April 1915)
Would any lonely Woman Rebel, about 30, care to correspond with another with a view to friendship. Kathlyn Oliver, 1 Barton Street, Westminster.
(11) Kathlyn Oliver, West London Observer (23rd October 1925)
As an animal welfare worker, I have had much experience of the average women's callousness and lack of imagination in connection with animal suffering. One remembers, too, how the gentle creatures hounded their men folk into the war, and no one was more pleased than I when continuous air raids gave these "angels of pity a little of what men suffered every hour of every day for three or four years.
However, on the whole, I think women are less brutal than men in their treatment and regard of animals. The former are practically never convicted of the horrible cruelty to animals that men indulge in so frequently. I am not aware whether or to what extent women doctors amuse themselves with vivisection, but bad as they may be, I feel they would find considerably less enjoyment in the cruel experiments practised on living animals than does the male medical student and doctor. (931 Fulham Road, SW7)
(12) West London Observer (25 November 1932)
Woman bachelor, wide interests, would like to hear from intelligent members of own sex. Kathlyn Oliver, 12 Queensboro Terrace, W2
(13) Kathlyn Oliver, West London Observer (10 April 1936)
Why Mrs. Jameson should have selected me for the doubtful honour of ministering to the needs of dictators and war makers whom she would banish to an island, is not clear. She describe me as "that Christian, tender-hearted Kathlyn Oliver." I may be tender-hearted at the right times, but I do not happen to be Christian. I could not repress a smile at Mrs Jameson's reference to the "innocent God-fearing Abyssinians." Are not the Italians God-fearing too? Mrs Jameson, also, I assume, is God-fearing but I do fear war and detest those who cause it and regard with contempt the poor dupes (without whom war would be impossible) who allow themselves to be driven like cattle to slaughter. They have about as much brains as cattle, but foolishly believe themselves to be heroes whereas they are just and only "hired assassins," to quote the poet and pacifist Shelley.
Mrs. Jameson tells us we must not blame God for war because. "He has given our rulers every opportunity to do their duty." Quite so, but if I happened to be a Christian I should wonder why He did not prevent this war of aggression on His God-fearing people - the "Abbs," just as I should wonder why He permitted earthquakes, shipwrecks, forest fires and droughts which kill off the innocent as well as the guilty. Anyway, I should like to assure Mrs Jameson that I was a pacifist in the last war and still am. I do not allow governments to create enemies for me. The wide world is my country. The British electorate should, with no uncertain voice, make it clear to the Government that they may not drag us into foreign quarrels. If England did not consist of "so many millions, mostly fools" to quote Carlyle, no Government would dare launch wars just when they pleased.
(14) Kathlyn Oliver, Kensington Post (13 March 1948)
One would need to be very tough and callous to wish to read, more than once, the horrifying account of the dastardly attack on Hiroshima as given by John Hersey in his book entitled "Hiroshima". According to this writer 100,000 were killed on that dreadful morning , of the untold number merely injured many would suffer permanently. When children who survived were bald, others had lost hands or fingers.
Every adult person should read this crowning example of "Man's inhumanity to man" to be possibly stirred from their present apathy and unconcern as to what our rulers may be plotting for.
In a recent speech Mr. Wilson, President of the Board of Trade told us "We were moving to a world we never dreamed of." Almost immediately prior to this gullible speech to inspire greater output… we had the alarming information from the News Chronicle by A. J. Cummings that "Britain is to take the first Atom bombs" in event of a future war. This country is to have the dubious honour of "absorbing the first wave of attack in order to give USA a cushion of time to prepare for action."
Are we to infer from this amazing revelation that Britain and America have arranged a pact with the "enemy" as to how the next "war for freedom" is to be conducted?
I read every available paper for several days following this alarming announcement but no protest appeared.
Those who would have to take the first Atom bomb attack seemed as unconcerned as cattle grazing in the field before the day due for slaughter. (Redcliffe Street, W10)
(15) Kensington News (9th April 1948)
Will the British worm never turn? Are we men and women or maggots, that we allow politicians to make such havoc of our lives and reduce us to a constant state of misery and fear.
The Atom bomb is a logical in modern warfare and none who approve of war should complain if they have to "take it". They must realise that each succeeding war will be worse than the last. There was a time when killing, in war, was confined to the combatants, when soldiers who went to war, was confined to the combatants, when soldiers who went to war could be confident that their homes and families were safe: when Generals and other officers of high rank took some risk as common soldier and were not, as now, mere "Chocolate Soldiers,"when even Kings took an active part in the war. These are not so foolish now, and gone are the days when chivalry was extended to women and children in war time.
Cattle have to be driven to slaughter and some have the guts to attempt to escape and put up a fight for their lives. Are we always to take these infernal wars, for interests not our own, lying down, or at any rate approving? (Ratcliffe Street, SW10)