We see that they fought with great energy during the struggle in North America for the abolition of slavery. Briefly, in all those periods in which the middle-class agitated for the complete attainment of democratic principles as a means of effecting its own political emancipation and securing power, it also fought for the recognition of equal rights for women. But with whatever zeal and whatever trouble and whatever energy this question of the rights of women was demanded by the middle-class, yet it was not till the advent of Socialism that the struggle began in earnest. Already in 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft, in her celebrated work, “The Claims of Woman,” already in 1787, Condorcet, in his Letters from a Citizen of Newhaven,[[1]] had claimed equal rights for women; and the cause also received an impetus from the French Revolution. The demand for Woman’s Suffrage was inscribed among the list of reforms desired by some electors at the French Revolution, and a petition asking for it was also presented to the National Assembly. But this body contented itself by issuing a platonic declaration that it relegated the question to the consideration of mothers and daughters. But in 1793 the Committee of Public Safety, on the motion of Amar, dissolved all the women’s organisations, and forbade their meetings. Then the French middle-classes gave up the struggle for Woman Suffrage; and the first Socialists—the Utopians—Saint Simon and Fourier, and their disciples, took up the cause. In 1848 Victor Considérant, in 1851 Pierre Leroux, agitated concerning this question. But they received no encouragement, and their arguments were received with scorn and derision. In the English Parliament in 1866 a numerously signed petition in favour of Woman Suffrage was first presented by John Stuart Mill, one of the most enlightened minds of the democratic middle-class.
[1]. “Letters from a Citizen of Newhaven to a Citizen of Virginia on the Uselessness of Dividing the Legislative Power in Several Bodies.”
These struggles for the emancipation of women have indeed secured some concessions, and many advantages have been gained; but the political emancipation of the female sex to-day, and especially in industrial lands, is as far off as ever, while the most stalwart exponents of middle-class democracy for men, having attained most of their demands, are no longer clamouring, as during the fight, for equal rights for women. The preliminary condition for success is that there should be a great increase in capitalist production. It stands in the closest relation with the revolutionising of the household. With the increase of industry, which in primitive conditions was carried on in the family, and when that family carried out industrial operations as a whole in the home, there was not then a demand for the emancipation of woman from the family and the household, and women did not then, always living at home, feel the need for political power. The same machinery which drove with decisive power the home industries from the family, allowed woman to become an active worker outside the home, and her advent on the labour market produced not only new economic, but also new social, effects. The destruction of the old middle-class woman’s world has created, of necessity, a new moral purpose in women’s lives, in order to secure to them new advantages. Therefore, the middle-class woman’s world was compelled to recognise the necessity of advocating the political emancipation of women as a precious and useful weapon, and with its help to endeavour to procure changes in the law, so that man should no longer enjoy a monopoly, and prevent women from earning their living. In the proletarian women’s world the need, so far from being less, was indeed much greater to obtain political power, and they advocated complete political emancipation. Hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of women workers have been exploited by capitalist methods. Statistics are there to show how in all capitalist countries women are more and more going into the labour market. In Germany, the last census (that of 1895) gives the number of women working as 6,578,350, and of these the workers in factories, etc., were no less than 5,293,277. In Austria, in 1890, there were 6,245,073 women working, and of these there were 5,310,639 working in factories; in France, in 1890, the numbers were 5,191,084 and 3,584,518; in the United States, in 1890, 3,914,571 and 2,864,818; in England and Wales, in 1891, 4,016,571 and 3,113,256.
This I only give as an illustration, not only to show that women deserve the suffrage, but also to show what importance the labour of women has attained. It is evident that the question of woman’s rights must be greatly influenced, owing to the fact of so many women being in the labour market. Hundreds of thousands of working women who labour with their brains are just as much exploited by the action of capitalists and middle-men as the millions of women who work with their hands, because the whole capitalist class hangs together, and defends its interests. By this economic process, women have also been taught to think and act for themselves. And they now demand Universal Suffrage as a social necessity of life as the aim and means which will give them a stimulus to obtain protection and improvement by obtaining an improvement in their economic and moral interests. But when we place the demand for Woman Suffrage in the front as a social necessity, we also argue that it should be granted to us as a self-evident act of justice. Woman is not only now emancipated from the family and the home, but she is determined to use the activity of her brain and hand in order, just as man, to improve her mental and social position, for the clear light which the furnace of great factories has thrown on the path of woman has made her conscious of the social worth of her activity, and has directed it into other channels. It has taught her the great social importance and the great social worth of her career as a mother and the educator of youth. For the multitude of women who go to factories will generally become wives; they then will become mothers and bear children, and they know that the care which they give to their new-born children, the zeal with which they discharge their duties in training children, shows that the service rendered by the mother in the home is no private service simply to her husband, but an activity which is of the highest social importance.
Because millions are condemned, not through their own fault, not through a want of their motherly instinct, but owing to the pressure of capitalist influence, to forego their bodily, spiritual, and moral good, then, as a consequence, there is a great increase in infant mortality, and children do not receive proper attention in their tender years. All this proves the high social worth of labour which woman performs in the producing and rearing of children. The demand for Woman Suffrage is only a phase of the demand that their high social worth should be more adequately recognised.
But they base this right also on the ground of the democratic principle in its widest bearing, not only on the fact that the same duties demand equal rights, but we also say that it would be criminal for the democracy not to use all the strength which women have in order that by their work of head and hand they may take part in the service of the community.
We do not maintain, like certain advocates of women’s rights, that men and women should have the same rights because they are alike. No; I am of opinion that in bodily strength, in spiritual insight, and in intellectual aims, we are very different. But to be different does not necessarily imply inferiority, and if it be true that we think, act, and feel differently, then we say that this is another reason which condemns the action of men in the past, and a reason why we should try and improve society.
From this point of view of history, we demand the political equality of women and the right to vote as a recognition of the political rights due to our sex. This is a question which applies to the whole of women without exception. All women, whatever be their position, should demand political equality as a means of a freer life, and one calculated to yield rich blessings to society. Besides, in the women’s world, as well as in the men’s world, there exists the class law and the class struggle, and it appears as fully established that sometimes between the Socialist working women and those belonging to the middle class there may be antagonisms. For women the Suffrage has practically an entirely different meaning according to the conditions under which they live. It may indeed be said that the value of the Suffrage depends, in most cases, on the property they possess. If women happen to have a large property, the sooner they can hope to attain political rights, because they can bring more pressure to bear by the very fact of being rich. The question is also one of great importance for the women of the middle class. A large number of them are not in the same pleasant position as their richer sisters who have not to get their living by their own work. Often, however, they do not depend so much on their work for a means of living, but they engage in work rather to increase their wealth. Naturally, they think a great deal of their class and their position, and do not imagine that by any possibility they might become working women, either employed in factories or the land, because they are earning their bread in so-called free or liberal callings. The same equality of opportunity with man, and the possibility of exercising these callings will often, as far as women are concerned, be hindered by social customs if not by legal impediments. Therefore, it behoves the women of the middle classes, women living in fair comfort, to agitate for the possession of the Suffrage in order to pull down the legal fetters which in some way hinder their development or cripple their energies. This middle class should agitate for the Suffrage, not only in their own interests, in order to weaken the power of the male sex, but they should also labour in the cause of the whole of social reform, and give what help they can in that matter. But while we are ready as Socialists to use all our political might to bring about this change, yet we are bound to notice the difference between us and them. The middle-class women really wish to obtain this social reform, because they think it is a measure which will strengthen and support the whole of middle-class society. The working women demand the Suffrage, not only to defend their economic and moral interests of life, but they wish for it not only as a help against the oppression of their class by men, and they are particularly eager for it in order to aid in the struggle against the capitalist classes. And they ask for this social reform not in order to prop up the middle class society and the capitalist system. We demand equal political rights with men in order that, with them, we may together cast off the chains which bind us, and that we may thus overthrow and destroy this society. These reasons show us clearly why, up till now, the middle-class women have not been in favour of universal, equal, secret, and direct voting for all legislative bodies without distinction of sex. Besides, as soon as this simple principle of Woman Suffrage is adopted, then all the nonsense about the weakness of woman falls to the ground. The difference of social classification has been the cause that the middle class demand for women’s rights has never really fallen into line with the majority of the women workers who demand the Suffrage, because the upper ten thousand have never really been anxious to obtain political equality with man. Much less is it right that the middle-class women’s movement should calmly and placidly be enthroned in the clouds, far above party strife, in the clear heights of blameless rectitude and freedom from party spirit. The world congress for women’s rights has yielded a fine crop of fallacies. Carefully have its members embarked on a sea of perplexities, and have declared in a spick and span manner what kind of Suffrage they wished for. The President of the Society of German Women has indeed revealed herself more radical than the women of the radical middle class, for she at all events has said that she not only wanted a vote, but that she was in favour of universal, equal, secret, and direct Suffrage for both men and women. Of the other middle-class women groups, not one has shown itself in favour of this cardinal point of the Suffrage. For while not a single one of these ladies has discussed the question of Universal Suffrage, the President of the united organisation has declared, personally, that she is only in favour of a vote which shall be the same for men and for women. This declaration certainly honours the person who made it, but it cannot alter our position with reference to the middle-class women who are in favour of obtaining the vote. It cannot be otherwise as long as these women will not fall into line and advocate the measures of which we are in favour. I remember how, in the winter of 1901, the Radical Women’s Union, “The Welfare of Women,” sent in a petition to the Prussian Landtag asking that the right of voting for that body might be granted to women, but only to those who had qualified by living for one year in the constituency, and who paid a certain sum, however small, in direct taxation. The meaning of that is clear, that for this, as for other bodies, the franchise should only be granted to ladies and not to the working women, who are without property. As you know, many people would be in favour of that; and not only would working women not get the vote, but the next step would be to deprive men of their vote, for that is what is behind that idea of granting votes only to people who pay taxes. Yet such a scheme is palpably absurd, for I would ask—do not the poor pay taxes? They do, and it is the ruling classes who receive them.
The Radical Women’s Union, to which I have referred, have shown that they are not in favour of Woman Suffrage as we understand it, because, in 1903, when there were elections to the Reichstag, their union worked for middle-class Progressives and Liberals, and opposed the Socialist candidates. I will not here argue the question any further. The fact has, moreover, been admitted on the middle-class side, and the middle-class woman’s union has been guilty of the shameful fact of supporting, in Hamburg, the middle-class candidate, though his opponent was Bebel, who has been one of the first and most strenuous fighters in the cause of the complete emancipation of woman. This is admitted, and, to add to their shame and treachery, it is also to be said that they have supported candidates of the middle-class Liberals in opposition to other Social-Democrats. I will now tell you what that means by reminding you that in the last election for the Bavarian Landtag the Association for Women’s Rights supported the National Liberal candidates, though they were declared enemies and opponents of the extension of the Suffrage to women, which was advocated in Bavaria by the Social-Democrats and also by the Centre Party.
In the beginning of August, the International Congress for Women held its sittings at Copenhagen. At this Congress, not only questions of organisation and of propaganda were discussed, but also the much more important question what badge the members of the Union for Woman Suffrage should wear. But the Congress did not say a word about the question of Universal Suffrage, and failed to say clearly what they thought about the matter. This is the more remarkable because the delegates from Finland and Hungary had declared that the struggle for the political emancipation of women had made most progress in those countries where it was advocated in concert with the demand for Universal Suffrage, especially when the minds of men were influenced by that demand urged on behalf of the proletariat. Here, again, where there was an opportunity to join hands with us, and to press on our just claims, they have adopted a cowardly attitude instead of a plain, straightforward one. The middle-class advocates of women’s rights, also, always say that the Social-Democrats are unwilling champions of the cause of Woman Suffrage, but that the Progressives and the National Liberals are best supporters for the political equality of women. In order to support this assertion against the Socialists, they say that abroad some of the women leaders of the Social-Democracy have been lukewarm, or at all events critical, on the question of female Suffrage, and that, owing to tactical exigencies, in some countries the struggle for women’s rights has been kept somewhat in the background. But as to this opinion, as to the action of the German Social-Democracy, they are unable to bring the slightest evidence by which to support their charge. The German Social-Democratic Party brought forward, for the first time in 1895, in the Reichstag, a motion advocating universal, equal, secret, and direct Suffrage, without distinction of sex, in all the States of the German Empire. Our comrades in Saxony brought forward the same resolution in their local Parliament. I need not refer further to the action of our comrades in Bavaria and other States; but I may again call attention to the fact that while our party this year organised meetings demanding that in every State of Germany the legislative bodies should be elected by Universal Suffrage, they also insisted that women should also have the vote equally with men. This claim has been advocated in the press, and has been defended by thousands of speakers—men and women—at meetings, and was finally brought forward as a resolution in the Reichstag. On this question all the middle-class parties were united. All members of middle-class parties voted against this resolution, even those members who generally are praised by the middle-class women parties as being worthy of honour, because they are friendly to the cause. In these are included Herr von Gerlach, who declared that he voted against this Socialistic motion on the ground of “expediency.” These women’s unions must declare their hostility to these tactics if they are really in favour of women’s rights, and not of ladies’ rights. The only real supporters in Germany of the cause of complete social and political rights for women are the members of the Social-Democratic Party. But the middle-class women are afraid to admit this, because they think they would then have to recognise the justice of our demands.