Where Shall I Spend My Efforts?

"The Woman's Voice" has opened this section in the hope that every lady who works outside the familiar women's spheres will favor it with her opinion and with the results of her experience.

*

Mrs. Hana al-Khoury — directress of the well-known commercial house of Constantine Khoury — said to us, in answer to a series of questions we put to her:

1: From the dawn of my working life I was not directed toward trade; I turned to teaching and practiced it for a time, until my late father, Constantine Khoury, came to need a helper. Having no brothers, I went down into my father's shop by force of necessity; and he — God rest his soul — was anxious that his name should remain in the market after he had left this world.

2: You ask me about difficulties? What work is free of them? They are indeed many in trade, because people among us are accustomed to seeing woman as a seamstress, or a nurse, or a teacher, or a saleswoman in a store like the A.B.C.; but they are not accustomed to seeing a woman manage a shop, order goods, work to dispose of them, keep accounts, oversee the shipping, and "wear her heart out" with customers who do not look upon a woman as they look upon a man.

Moreover, in trade there is always ebb and flow... It happened that I went down into the market in days of prosperity, that is, after the end of the last war, when business enjoyed that great boom. Profits on goods were plentiful and demand was steady, so I took heart and gave myself to the work with a whole will. Then came days when something of a slump occurred, and I suffered great difficulties; yet they did not turn me from carrying on the work, nor did they sap my resolve. I finished the course, reckoning that trade is profit and loss.

3: As for your "mischievous" question about colleagues — it perhaps ranks first among the hardships of women working in spheres woman has not yet entered. One amusing thing that happened to me: one of my father's customers came in one day and said, where is the owner of the shop? I said, I act for him, if you please. So he began explaining to me what he wanted with evident coldness. While we were thus engaged, a great merchant, one of those with whom my father used to deal, came in upon us; he too, in his turn, asked for my father, and I answered him that I take his place. His face reddened, and he began to apologize, saying:

It is hard for a man to overcome what he was reared on. Here I am, ashamed of myself, and I apologize to you, madam. I have toured the capitals of Europe dozens of times, and grown used to buying and selling and dealing with firms managed by ladies. And here I am in my own country, in the presence of a lady who has been managing a shop for two years, and I am not ashamed to ask her, where is the owner of the shop??

4: No. Commercial work has not tired me more than teaching did. But I will say that a woman who takes up trade must be physically strong. In commercial affairs there is grave responsibility, requiring a clear head, alertness, wisdom in the conduct of business, and courtesy with customers. And I say quite frankly that in the management of "large" commercial concerns there is a strain that not every woman may be equal to.

As for me, I have loved my work, and you see me attached to it as every woman is attached to the rearing of a child or to a humane project she loves.

They say that commercial work calls for recreation more than other kinds of work. That may be true, and I may indeed feel the need of an outing in the open air, because I attend to all the tasks of my shop myself. The accounts — from the daybook to the receivables to the ledger — are in my hands. Every year I must present to the government the shop's balance sheet, stating the total of sales and purchases and the net profits on which the government levies the lawful tax; this besides receiving every customer, writing every order, and pursuing every debt... But what work does not tire and wear out the body? And what creature works forever?

And "The Woman's Voice" takes leave of this energetic, successful lady with this final question:

— Do you advise women to enter the commercial world?
— By all means. On condition that they arm themselves with steadfastness, never despairing before a difficulty however great, and never losing heart before a loss however heavy.