Can Women Handle Big Business?

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Can Women Handle Big Business? is an article written by Mary Conan Doyle, the first daughter of Arthur Conan Doyle, published in the San Francisco Examiner on 30 october 1921.



Editions


Can Women Handle Big Business?

San Francisco Examiner
(30 october 1921, Second News Section, p. 7)

"Yes," is emphatic reply of peeress, declaring common sense and practical ability are natural assets of her sex.

By MARY CONAN DOYLE
(Daughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.)

London, Oct. 29. — I was shown into a bright room, with nice wide windows, and cheery cretone curtains. There was only such furniture in the room as was essential to its owner's needs — a large desk and a couple of easy chairs. The result was a most refreshing sense of space and airiness.

It registered a fact on my mind: We are all over-crowded. Our rooms reflect our minds. In many cases there is too much jostling, and mental irritation results.

Lady Rhondda herself has no such defects. One feels about her whole personality a sense of restfulness, a certain poise, and a huge reserve force, which make possible that restfulness in the midst of a busy life. She might work to the highest pitch of human capacity, but she'd never be "rushed" — that condition which implies weakness and lack of discipline, for all that it is cultivated and admired by many.

There is also complete concentration. One knows that whether Lady Rhondda is attending a board meeting, opening a national food kitchen, or granting a reporter ten minutes for an interview, her whole mind is there, and there is no overlapping.

HER ANSWER IS YES.

"Are women on the whole fit to tackle Business — that is, business with a capital 'B'?" I asked, as she motioned me into a chair.

"Most emphatically yes!" came the reply. "And they are wanted. The common sense and practical ability which women have are a natural asset. There is no marked difference between male and feminine mentality, anyway; it is mostly a matter of their environment and training."

Yet, I thought to myself, one still finds that the average group of men talk politics, where women get together and talk clothes. It struck me later that though this is true now, education is a good deal inherited, and on the female side it is scarcely more than two generations old!

"College training is certainly good," Lady Rhondda went on, "as systematic training of the mind, though all teaching is only the preparation for self-tuition, which is the real developing factor. As far as business goes, the natural bent, plus experience, means more.

"In any case, all this talk about business training is misleading, for it is not sufficiently realized how experimental the whole idea is. What is sure, though, is that the most successful business men, up till now, have had a natural gift for it, and their training has been in simply carrying on their business, extending the ideas that work, and eliminating those that don't!"

EXPERIENCE "PICKED UP."

"How did you acquire your knowledge"? I asked.

"Same way — picked it up! The whole matter interested me vastly and my father used to talk to me and tell me all about his concerns."

"A good memory and a head for figures are essential, I suppose"?

"Up to a certain point, yes; but a mathematician is not necessarily a good business man — or woman."

I then asked how we compare with Frenchwomen, who have such a high reputation for efficiency.

"It is true they have a particular aptitude in the business line," Lady Rhondda replied, "they certainly tackle unusual things. Perhaps the strangest I have ever come across was a woman coal exporting agent. It was a case of carrying on while the husband was away, I fancy.

DUE TO MONOTONY.

"It is possible Frenchwomen owe their ability to the fact that their country is far more acquainted with wars than our own. We know what this last war has done to develop the latent powers in American and British women, and the French had the start of us, inasmuch as their women already knew what war conditions meant, and so the necessary readjustments could work automatically."

This led us to talk of our own country's troubles.

"Everybody's disgruntled after the war — that's the broad situation at present," Lady Rhondda remarked, "so many forces are acting and re-acting on each of her just now. As regards the present unrest, there is no knowing how it will all end, but one thing I do think — there is no doubt that a good deal of the present discontent arises from monotonous surroundings.

"There are many examples in the big manufacturing districts of houses not actually bad in the sense of being insanitary or out of repair, but they are dull dreary, miserable in the extreme. It is the hopeless monotony which, though often not realized, exercises its depressing influence on those lives. These conditions we must hope to alter in time."

As I got up to leave Lady Rhondda smiled goodbye to me, with such a cheery, twinkly smile, accompanied with the truest handshake. I was struck again by the peace and clearness that characterizes her so, and could not help thinking how fortunate those people were whose work brought them under her influence.