Wellesley's Elliott Addresses Problems of Working Women

"We need to shift our thinking about women" and "look at women's issues not as welfare issues but as working issues," Carolyn Elliott '58, director of the Wellesley Center for Research on Women, told a small group at a Radcliffe Union of Students brunch at Leverett House yesterday.

Elliott said the effects of modernization on women's roles has caused different problems in different societies. In the Yucatan, she said, "Women are gradually becoming economically dependent on men as they had not been before." In Malaysia, however, she said, "Women are entering the paid labor force in larger numbers than ever before."

Although Malaysian electronics companies prefer women for work in their factories, Elliott said, women are preferred "for all the stereotypic reasons."

China Syndrome

While Chinese society highly values women's work, Elliott said, the factories encourage women to return to the household during periods of high unemployment.

"We cannot assume that women's concerns will be taken care of by some more general progress or socialism," Elliott said. "To have an interest in women and a knowledge about women needs to be a part of every woman's education," she added.