"The so-called woman movement, the beginning of the great transformation
in her condition," continued the doctor, "was already making quite a stir
in your day. You must have heard and seen much of it, and may have even
known some of the noble women who were the early leaders."
"Oh, yes." I replied. "There was a great stir about women's rights, but
the programme then announced was by no means revolutionary. It only aimed
at securing the right to vote, together with various changes in the laws
about property-holding by women, the custody of children in divorces, and
such details. I assure you that the women no more than the men had at
that time any notion of revolutionizing the economic system."
"So we understand," replied the doctor. "In that respect the women's
struggle for independence resembled revolutionary movements in general,
which, in their earlier stages, go blundering and stumbling along in such
a seemingly erratic and illogical way that it takes a philosopher to
calculate what outcome to expect. The calculation as to the ultimate
outcome of the women's movement was, however, as simple as was the same
calculation in the case of what you called the labor movement. What the
women were after was independence of men and equality with them, while
the workingmen's desire was to put an end to their vassalage to
capitalists. Now, the key to the fetters the women wore was the same that
locked the shackles of the workers. It was the economic key, the control
of the means of subsistence. Men, as a sex, held that power over women,
and the rich as a class held it over the working masses. The secret of
the sexual bondage and of the industrial bondage was the same--namely,
the unequal distribution of the wealth power, and the change which was
necessary to put an end to both forms of bondage must obviously be
economic equalization, which in the sexual as in the industrial relation
would at once insure the substitution of co-operation for coercion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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