"Another thing that everybody knows," he continued to Mary, "a woman hasn't the natural knack for mechanics that a man has." "During the war," Mary told him, "she mastered nearly two thousand different kinds of skilled work--work involving the utmost precision.

And the women who did this weren't specially selected, either.

They came from every walk of life--domestic servants, cooks, laundresses, girls who had never left home before, wives of small business men, daughters of dock labourers, titled ladies--all kinds, all conditions." She told him, then, some of the things women had made--read him reports--showed him pictures.
"In fact," she concluded, "we don't have to go outside this factory to prove that a woman has the same knack for mechanics that a man has.
During the war we had as many women working here as men, and every one will tell you that they did as well as the men." "Well, let's look at it another way," said the chairman, and he nodded to his colleagues as though he knew there could be no answer to this one.
"There are only so many jobs to go around.

What are the men going to do if the women take their jobs ?" "That's it!" nodded the other two.

All three looked at Mary.
"I used to wonder that myself," she said, "but one day I saw that I was asking the wrong question.