Woman and Socialism

by August Bebel

In those Prussian districts where a limited form of woman suffrage exists, the enfranchised women participate directly or indirectly in the elections for members of the dietines. In the electoral groups of great landowners and the representatives of mining and manufacturing establishments, the women vote for members of the dietines directly; but in the rural communities they vote indirectly, since here the town council does not elect the representatives themselves, but only their electors. As the local dietines elect representatives to the provincial diets, the small number of enfranchised women are enabled to exert a very modest influence on the administration of the provinces.

During recent years women have been admitted to boards of charity, and have been made overseers of the poor and of orphan asylums in growing numbers and with marked success. (Bavaria constitutes the only exception.) In some cities (in Prussia, Baden, Wurtemberg, Bavaria and Saxony), they have also been admitted to school boards, and in one city (Mannheim), they have been made members of a commission for the inspection of dwellings. Insurance against sickness is the only public institution in connection with which women may vote and be voted for. They remain excluded from voting for members of courts of trade.

The above-quoted instances show that suffrage in Germany and Austria is determined, almost without exception, not by the person, but by property. Politically, human beings are mere ciphers if they have no money and no possessions. Neither intellect nor ability, but property is the determining factor. It is very instructive to note this fact in regard to the morality and justice of the present state.

We see that a number of exceptions have already been made to the theory that women are in the same class with minors and that the franchise must accordingly be withheld from them. And yet people vehemently oppose the endeavor to give women full political equality. Even progressive people argue that it would be dangerous to enfranchise women because they are conservative by nature and are susceptible to religious prejudices. But these arguments are true to some extent only, so long as women are maintained in ignorance. Our object must therefore be to educate them and to teach them where their true interest lies. Incidentally it may be stated that the religious influence on elections has been overestimated. The ultramontane agitation was so successful in Germany only because it wisely combined the religious interests with social interests. For a long time the ultramontane chaplains vied with the Socialists in revealing social deterioration. It was this that caused them to become so influential with the masses. But with the end of the struggle between church and state this influence gradually declines. The clergy are obliged to abandon their struggle against the power of the state; at the same time the increasing class differences compel them to show greater consideration for the Catholic bourgeoisie and the Catholic nobility and to be more reticent in regard to social questions. Thereby they lose their influence upon workingmen, especially if consideration for the ruling classes compels them to favor or to tolerate actions and laws that are directed against the interests of the working class. The same reasons will eventually also destroy the influence of the clergy upon women. When women learn in meetings, or from newspapers, or by personal experience, where their true interests lie, they will emancipate themselves from clerical influence just as men.[182]

In Belgium, where ultramontanism still predominates among large circles of the population, a number of the Catholic clergy favor woman suffrage because they deem it an effective weapon against Socialism. In Germany, too, a number of conservative members of the Diet have declared themselves in favor of the woman suffrage bills introduced by Socialist members and have explained their position by asserting that they consider woman suffrage a weapon against Socialism. Undoubtedly there is some truth in these opinions, taking into consideration the present political ignorance of women and the strong influence exerted over them by the clergy. But still this is no reason to disfranchise them. There are millions of workingmen, too, who vote for candidates of bourgeois and religious parties against their own class interest and thereby prove their political ignorance, yet no one would propose to disfranchise them for this reason. The withholding or the rape of the franchise is not practiced because the ignorance of the masses—including the ignorance of women—is feared; for what these masses are, the ruling classes have made them. It is practiced because the ruling classes fear that the masses will gradually become wise and pursue their own course.

Until recently the various German states were so reactionary that they even withheld from women the right of political organization. In Prussia, Bavaria, Brunswick, and a number of other German states, they were not permitted to form political clubs. In Prussia they were not even permitted to participate in entertainments arranged by political clubs, as was distinctly set down by the supreme court in 1901. The rector of the Berlin University even went so far as to forbid a woman to lecture before a social science club of students. In the same year the police authorities of Brunswick forbade women to take part in the proceedings of the social congress of Evangelists. In 1902 the Prussian secretary of state condescended to give women the permission to attend the meetings of political clubs, but under the condition that they had to take their seats in a part of the hall specially set aside for them, like the Jewish women in their synagogues. Nothing could have better characterized the pettiness of our conditions. As late as February, 1904, Pasadowsky solemnly declared in the Diet: “Women shall keep their hands off politics.” But eventually this state of affairs became unbearable even to the bourgeois parties. The new national law on assembly and organization of April 19, 1908, brought the only marked improvement by establishing equal rights of women in regard to political organization and public assembly.

The right to vote must of course be combined with the right to be elected to office. We hear the cry: “How ridiculous it would be to behold a woman on the platform of the Diet!” Yet there are other states where women have ascended to the platforms of parliaments, and we, too, have long since become accustomed to see women on platforms in their meetings and conventions. In North America women appear on the pulpit and in the jury-box; why not on the platform of the Diet? The first woman to be elected to the Diet will know how to impress the other members. When the first workingmen were elected to the Diet they, too, were the objects of cheap wit, and it was asserted that workingmen would soon recognize the folly of electing men of their type. But the working-class representatives quickly succeeded in winning respect, and at present their opponents fear that there may be too many of them. Frivolous jesters exclaim: “But picture a pregnant woman on the platform of the Diet; how shocking!” Yet the same gentlemen consider it quite proper that pregnant women should be employed at occupations which shockingly degrade their womanly dignity and decency and undermine their health. That man is a wretch, indeed, who dares to ridicule a pregnant woman. The very thought that his mother was in the same condition before she gave him birth must drive the blood to his cheeks in shame, and the other thought, that his wife’s being in the same condition may mean the fulfillment of his fondest hopes, must silence him.[183]

The woman who gives birth to children is serving the community at least as well as the man who risks his life in defence of the country. For she gives birth to and educates the future soldiers, far too many of whom must sacrifice their lives on the battlefield. Moreover, every woman risks her life in becoming a mother. All our mothers have faced death in giving us life, and many of them have perished. In Prussia, for instance, the number of deaths in child-birth—including the victims of puerperal fever—by far exceeds the number of deaths from typhoid. During 1905 and 1906 0.73 and 0.62 per cent. of typhoid patients died. But among 10,000 women 2.13 and 1.97 per cent. died in child-birth. “How would conditions have developed,” Professor Herff rightly remarks, “if men were subjected to these sufferings to the same extent? Would not the utmost measures be resorted to?”[184] The number of women who die in child-birth, or are left sickly as a result of same, is far greater than the number of men who die or are wounded on the battlefield. From 1816 to 1876, in Prussia alone, no less than 321,791 women fell victims of puerperal fever; that is an annual average of 5363. In England, from 1847 to 1901, 213,533 women died in child-birth, and still, notwithstanding all hygienic measures, no less than 4000 die annually.[185]

That is a far greater number than the number of men killed in the various wars during the same time. To this tremendous number of women who die in child-birth must furthermore be added the still greater number of those who become sickly as a result of child-birth and die young.[186] This is another reason why woman is entitled to full equality with man. Let these facts be especially noted by those persons who advance the military service of men as an argument against the equal rights of women. Moreover, our military institutions enable a great many men to escape the performance of this duty.

All these superficial objections to the public activity of women would be impossible if the relation of the sexes was natural, instead of there being an artificially stimulated antagonism between them. From their early childhood on the sexes are separated in their education and their social intercourse. It is especially the antagonism we owe to Christianity that keeps the sexes apart and maintains one in ignorance about the other, whereby free social intercourse, mutual confidence and the ability to supplement each other’s traits of character are prevented.