Mary Barnett Gilson Quotes

The woman who does her job for society inside the four walls of her home must not be considered by her husband or anyone else an economic "dependent," reaching out her hands in mendicant fashion for financial help.

The economic dependence of woman and her apparently indestructible illusion that marriage will release her from loneliness and work and worry are potent factors in immunizing her from common sense in dealing with men at work.

A worker was seldom so much annoyed by what he got as by what he got in relation to his fellow workers.

The industrial world would be a more peaceful place if workers were called in as collaborators in the process of establishing standards and defining shop practices, matters which surely affect their interests and well-being fully as much as they affect those of employers and consumers.

The higher one climbs the lonelier one is.

Shopping seemed to take an entirely too important place in women's lives. You never saw men milling around in men's departments. They made quick work of it. I used to wonder if shopping was a form of escape for women who had no worthwhile interests.

During the first World War women in the United States had a chance to try their capacities in wider fields of executive leadershipin industry. Must we always wait for war to give us opportunity? And must the pendulum always swing back in the busy world of work and workers during times of peace?

Education fails in so far as it does not stir in students a sharp awareness of their obligations to society and furnish at least a few guideposts pointing toward the implementation of these obligations.

The matter of consulting experienced workers, of keeping all the workers informed of changes in production and wage methods, and how the changes are arrived at, seems to me the most important duty in the whole field of management.

Until the sky is the limit [for women], as it is for men, men as well as women will suffer, because all society is affected when half of it is denied equal opportunity for full development.

The self respect of individuals ought to make them demand of their leaders conformity with an agreed-upon code of ethics and moral conduct.

It means eating your words, this thing of refusing to be a fence-sitter, but I'd rather eat my words than get calluses from sitting.
No one who has not experienced the condescension of a buyer toward an ordinary salesgirl can have any conception of its withering effect.

Until opportunity is as free from sex discrimination as the right to vote finally came to be, no man has any right to criticize women for failure to measure up to men.

Probably nothing in the experience of the rank and file of workers causes more bitterness and envy than the realization which comes sooner or later to many of them that they are "stuck" and can go no further.

Unless a group of workers know their work is under surveillance, that they are being rated as fairly as human beings, with the fallibility that goes with human judgment, can rate them, and that at least an attempt is made to measure their worth to an organization in relative terms, they are likely to sink back on length of service as the sole reason for retention and promotion.

Until both employers' and workers' groups assume responsibility for chastising their own recalcitrant children, they can vainly bay the moon about "ignorant" and "unfair" public criticism. Moreover, their failure to impose voluntarily upon their own groups codes of decency and honor will result in more and more necessity for government control.

Work is only part of a man's life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation.

The intelligent employer encourages challenge, questioning
not blind acceptance and "our Leader knows best" acclaim.