Socialism; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women and socialism
[122] The trials of Moltke, Lynar and Eulenburg have since revealed
a more revolting picture than one could suspect. They have shown how
widespread is this perversity among the higher strata of society,
especially among military men and in court circles.
[123] Dr. Hugo Herz--Crimes and Criminals in Austria, Tuebingen,
1908.
[124] Director general of the army medical department, Dr. Chumburg,
The Venereal Diseases, Their Nature and Dissemination.
CHAPTER XIII.
Woman in Industry.
1.--Development and Extension of Female Labor.
The endeavor of women to earn their own living and to attain personal
independence is, to some extent at least, regarded as a just one by
bourgeois society. The bourgeoisie requires an unhampered release
of male and female labor power in order that industry may attain
its highest degree of development. The perfection of machinery and
the division of labor, whereby each single function in the process
of production requires less strength and mechanical training than
formerly, and the growing competition, not only between individual
manufacturers, but also between entire manufacturing regions, states
and countries--causes the labor power of woman to be sought more
and more.
The special causes which lead to an increased employment of female
labor in a growing number of trades have been set forth in a
previous chapter. One reason why employers resort more and more to
the employment of women beside men, or instead of men, is, that
women are accustomed to require less than men. Owing to their
nature as sex beings, women are obliged to offer their labor power
cheaper than men. They are, as a rule, more subjected to physical
derangements that cause an interruption of their work, and owing to
the complication and organization of modern industry, this may lead
to an interruption in the whole process of production. Pregnancy and
child-birth lengthen such periods of interruption.[125] The employer
makes the most of this fact and finds ~ample indemnification for
these occasional interruptions by the payment of considerably lower
wages~. Moreover the woman is tied to her particular abode or its
immediate environment. She cannot change her abode as men are enabled
to do in most cases. Female labor, especially the labor of married
women workers appears particularly desirable to employers in still
another way, as may be seen from the quotation from “Capital,” by
Karl Marx on page 129. As a worker the married woman is “far more
attentive and docile” than the unmarried one. Consideration for her
children compels her to exert her strength to the utmost in order to
earn what is needful for their livelihood, and she therefore quietly
submits to much that the unmarried working woman would not submit to,
far less so the working man. As a rule working women rarely combine
with their fellow workers to obtain better working conditions. That
also enhances their value in the eyes of the employers; sometimes
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