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Station W B N X
260 East 161st Street
Friday, December 4
4:45 to 5 PM
SPEAKER: Miss Lee Ya Ching

Miss Lee: In this universal conflict the nations have had to call upon every course of strength that they possess, and this has meant that women - for the first time - are being almost universally employed in the grim business of war.
All of us have heard how the women of Russia have shouldered arms, piloted the fighting airplanes, turned out munitions in the factories, and fought for their country in the greatest guerrilla resistance to the German invader. Now we see English and American girls doing many war jobs for their country. But I wish to tell you about the women of my native land - China - and how they have joined the great sisterhood of women everywhere in fighting for freedom and for human decency.
Although Chinese women were beginning to emerge from the home as important economic and social factors even before the war began, the war hastened their emancipation, and today Chinese women are doing scores of jobs not usually filled by women in warring nations.
China's most picturesque army is its secret army back of the fighting lines - its army of women. It consists of thousands of peasant women, young and old, brightly garbed and chattering like magpies, who make up road gangs. These women are opening new paths to the western provinces - [[strikethrough]] hewing [[/strikethrough]] digging roads out of the mountains with spades, axes, picks and even cooking utensils.