Woman and Socialism

by August Bebel

Since then the demand for political rights of women has remained dormant for a long time; but gradually it has been taken up again by the woman’s movement in all countries and has become realized in a number of states. In France the St. Simonists and Fourierists favored sex equality, and, in 1848, the Fourierist Considérant moved in the constitutional committee of the French parliament to bestow equal political rights upon women. In 1851, Pierre Leroux repeated the motion in the chamber, but likewise unsuccessfully.

At present matters have an entirely different aspect. The development of our social conditions and all social relations have undergone a tremendous transformation and have at the same time transformed the position of women. In all civilized states we find hundreds of thousands and millions of women employed in the most varied professions, just like men, and every year the number of women increases, who must rely on their own strength and ability in the struggle for existence. The nature of our social and political conditions, therefore, can no longer remain a matter of indifference to women. They must be interested in questions like the following: Whether or not the control of domestic and foreign affairs favor war; whether or not the state should annually keep hundreds of thousands of healthy men in the army and drive tens of thousands from the country; whether or not the necessities of life should be raised in price by taxes and duties at a time when the means of subsistence are very scarce to a great majority, etc. Women also pay direct and indirect taxes from their property and their earnings. The educational system is of the greatest interest to women, for the manner of education is a determining factor in the position of their sex; it is of special importance to mothers.

The hundreds of thousands and millions of women employed in hundreds of trades and professions are personally and vitally concerned in the nature of our social legislation. Laws relating to the length of the work-day, night-work, child labor, wages, safety appliances in factories and workshops, in one word, all labor laws, as also insurance laws, etc., are of the greatest interest to working women. Workingmen are only very insufficiently informed about the conditions existing in many branches of industry in which women are chiefly or exclusively employed. It is to the interest of the employers to conceal existing evils that they have caused; and in many instances factory inspection does not include trades in which women are exclusively employed; yet in these very branches of industry protection is most needful. We need but point to the workshops in our large cities, where seamstresses, dressmakers, milliners, etc., are crowded together. We hardly ever hear a complaint from their midst, and there is no investigation of their condition. Women as bread-winners are also interested in the commerce and custom-laws and in all civil laws. There can no longer be any doubt, that it is as important to women as it is to men, to influence the nature of our conditions by means of legislation. The participation of women in public life would give it a new impetus and open new vistas.

Demands of this sort are briefly set aside, with the reply: “Women don’t understand politics; most of them do not wish to have a vote and would not know how to use it.” That is both true and false. It is true that until now, in Germany, at least, not very many women have demanded political equality. The first German woman to proclaim the rights of women, as early as the sixties of the last century, was Hedwig Dohm. Recently the Socialist working women have been the chief supporters of woman’s suffrage and have undertaken an active agitation for the winning of the ballot.

The argument that women have until now shown only a very moderate interest in politics, does not prove anything at all. If women have failed to care about politics formerly, that does not signify that they ought not to care about them now. The same arguments that are advanced against woman suffrage were, during the first half of the sixties, advanced against universal manhood suffrage. In 1863 the writer of this book himself was among those who opposed it. Four years later it made possible his election to the Diet. Tens of thousands experienced a similar development. Nevertheless there still are many men who either fail to make use of their political right, or do not know how to use it. Yet that would be no reason to deprive them of it. During the parliamentary elections usually from 25 to 30 per cent. of the voters fail to vote, and among these are members of all classes. While among the 70 to 75 per cent. who do vote, the majority, in our opinion, vote as they ought not to vote if they understood their own advantage. That they do not understand is due to a lack of political education. But political education is not obtained by withholding political rights from the masses. It is obtained only by the practice of political rights. Practice alone makes perfect. The ruling classes have always known it to be in their own interest to keep the great majority of the people in political dependence. Therefore it has been the task of a determined, class conscious minority to struggle for the common good with energy and enthusiasm, and to arouse the masses from their indifference and inertia. It has been thus in all the great movements of history, and therefore it need not surprise or discourage us that it is the same with the woman’s movement. The success that has been obtained so far shows, that work and sacrifice are not in vain and that the future will bring victory.

As soon as women shall have obtained equal rights with men, the consciousness of their duties will be awakened in them. When asked to vote they will begin to question “why” and “for whom.”

Thereby a new source of interest will be established between man and woman that, far from harming their mutual relation, will considerably improve it. The inexperienced woman will naturally turn to the more experienced man. Therefrom an exchange of ideas and mutual instruction will result, a relation that until now has been very rare between man and woman. This will give their life a new charm. The unfortunate differences in education and conception between the sexes that frequently lead to disputes, breed discord in regard to the various duties of the man and injure the public welfare, will be adjusted more and more. A congenial and like-minded wife will support a man in his endeavors, instead of hindering him. If other tasks should prevent her from being active herself, she will encourage the man to do his duty. She will also be willing to sacrifice a fraction of the income for a newspaper and for purposes of agitation, because the newspaper will mean instruction and entertainment to her, and because she will understand that by the sacrifices for purposes of agitation, a more worthy human existence can be won for herself, her husband and her children.

Thus the common service of the public welfare, that is closely linked with the individual welfare, will elevate both man and woman. The opposite of that will be attained which is claimed by short-sighted persons or by the enemies of equal rights, and this relation between the sexes will develop and become more beautiful as improved social conditions will liberate both man and woman from material care and excessive burdens of toil. Here, as in other cases, practice and education will help along. If I do not go into the water I will never learn to swim; if I do not study and practice a foreign language, I will never learn to speak it. That is readily understood by everyone; but many fail to understand that the same holds true of the affairs of the state and society. Are our women less capable than the inferior Negro race that was given political equality in North America? Or shall a highly cultured, educated woman be entitled to fewer rights than the most coarse and ignorant man, only because blind chance brought the latter into the world as a male being? Has the son a greater right than the mother from whom he has perhaps inherited his best qualities and who made him what he is? Such “justice” is strange, indeed.

Moreover, we are no longer risking a leap into the dark and unknown. North America, New Zealand, and Finland have paved the way. On the effects of woman suffrage in Wyoming, Justice Kingman, from Laramie, wrote to “The Woman’s Journal,” on November 12, 1872, as follows: “It is three years to-day that women were enfranchised in our territory and were also given the right to be elected to office, as all other voters. During this time they have taken part in the elections and have been elected to various offices; they have acted as jurors and as justices of the peace. Although there probably still are some among us who oppose the participation of women, on principle, I do not believe any one can deny that the participation of women in our elections has exerted an educational influence. The elections became more quiet and orderly, and at the same time our courts were enabled to punish various kinds of criminals who had been allowed to go unpunished until then. When the territory was organized, for instance, there was hardly a person who did not carry a revolver and make use of same upon the slightest provocation. I do not remember a single case where a person had been convicted of shooting by a jury composed entirely of men; but, with two or three women among the jurors, they always followed the instructions of the judge.”

The prevailing sentiment in regard to woman suffrage in Wyoming, twenty-five years after its introduction, was expressed in a proclamation by the legislature of that state to all the legislatures of the country. It read: