Waitresses who preferred separate locals gave many reasons, but one recurring rationale involved the effect such organizations had in developing women's leadership. Separate locals ensured that women would hold responsible positions within the union and learn what was required to run a local—from grievance handling, negotiating contracts, to public relations and parliamentary procedure. Female participation was neither expected nor encouraged in mixed organizations, but in separate locals, women had no choice but to participate, even if the activities struck them as unappealing and unfeminine. Alice Lord of the Seattle waitresses understood this principle. “In a mixed local,” she wrote to the editor of the January 1906 Mixer and Server, “the girls do not take the interest that they should; they always leave the work to the boys,…but if the girls know that the success of the local depends on their efforts, they will put their shoulders to the wheel, and most invariably they will come out ahead, as the few waitresses’ locals which are in existence prove that such is the case.”23