Miss Marie Popelin is the leader of the middle-class woman’s rights movement in Belgium. She is in charge of the Woman’s Rights League (Ligue du droit des femmes), founded in 1890. With the support of Mrs. Denis, Mrs. Parent, and Mrs. Fontaine, Miss Popelin organized, in 1897, an international woman’s congress in Brussels. Many representatives of foreign countries attended. One of the German representatives, Mrs. Anna Simpson, was astonished by the indifference of the people of Brussels. In her report she says: “Where were the women of Brussels during the days of the Congress? They did not attend, for the middle class is not much interested in our cause. It was especially for this class that the Congress was held.” Dr. Popelin is also president of the league that has since 1908 taken up the struggle against the official regulation of prostitution.
The schools and convents are the chief fields of activity for the middle-class Belgian women engaged in non-domestic callings. As yet there are only a few women doctors. One of these, Mrs. Derscheid-Delcour, has been appointed as chief physician at the Brussels Orphans’ Home. Mrs. Delcour graduated in 1893 at the University of Berlin summa cum laude; in 1895 she was awarded the gold medal in the surgical sciences in a prize contest for the students of the Belgian universities.
In Belgium 268,337 women are engaged in the industries. The Socialist party has recognized the organizations of these women; it was instrumental in organizing 250,000 women into trade-unions. Elsewhere this would be impossible.[87]
Madame Vandervelde, the wife of the Socialist member of Parliament, and Madame Gatti de Gammond, the publisher of the Cahiers feministes, were the leaders of the Socialist woman’s rights movement, which is organized throughout the country in committees, councils, and societies. Madame Gatti de Gammond died in 1905, and her publication, the Cahiers feministes, was discontinued. The secretary of the Federation of Socialist Women (Fédération de femmes socialistes) is Madame Tilmans. Vooruit, of Ghent, publishes a woman’s magazine: De Stem der Vrouw.
The women are demanding the right to vote. The Belgian women possessed municipal suffrage till 1830. They were deprived of this right by the Constitution of 1831. A measure favoring universal suffrage (for men and women) was introduced into Parliament in 1894. This bill, however, provided also for plural voting, by which the property-owning and the educated classes were given one or two additional votes. The Socialists opposed this, and demanded that each person have one vote (un homme, un vote). The Clerical majority then replied that it would not bring the bill to a vote. In this way the Clericals remained assured of a majority.
For tactical purposes the Socialists adopted the expression—un homme, un vote. It harmonized with their principles and ideals. At a meeting of the party in which the matter was discussed, it was shown that universal suffrage would be detrimental to the party’s interests; for the Socialists were convinced that woman’s suffrage would certainly insure a majority for the Clericals. Hence, in meeting, the women were persuaded to withdraw their demand for woman’s suffrage on the grounds of opportuneness, and in the meantime to work for the inauguration of universal male suffrage without the plural vote.[88]
In the Fronde, Audrée Téry summarized the situation in the following dialogue:—
The man. Emancipate yourself and I will enfranchise you.
The woman. Give me the franchise and I shall emancipate myself.
The man. Be free, and you shall have freedom.