Socialism; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women and socialism
Although the change in the position of women is obvious to all who
go through life with open eyes, we still continue to hear the idle
talk that the home and the family are woman’s natural sphere. This
cry is most loudly raised wherever women attempt to enter the learned
professions to become teachers at higher institutions of learning,
physicians, lawyers, scientists, etc. The most ridiculous objections
are resorted to and defended in the guise of scientific arguments. In
this respect, as in many others, supposedly learned men base their
arguments on science to defend what is most ridiculous and absurd.
Their main objection is, that women are intellectually inferior to
men; that in the realm of intellectual activity they cannot attain
any noteworthy achievements. Most men are so prejudiced in regard
to the professional abilities of women, that whoever resorts to
arguments of this sort is sure to meet with approval. As long as the
general status of culture and knowledge is as low as at present,
new ideas will always be met with rigorous opposition, especially
when it is in the interest of the ruling classes to limit culture
and knowledge to their own strata. Therefore new ideas are at first
upheld only by a small minority, and this small group is subjected
to ridicule, slander and persecution. But if the new ideas are good
and rational, if they have sprung up as a natural consequence of
existing conditions, they will be disseminated, and the minority
will eventually become the majority. It was thus with every new idea
in the course of human history, and the idea of obtaining woman’s
true and complete emancipation will meet with the same success. Were
not the believers in Christian faith at one time a small minority?
Was the reformation not ushered in by a small and persecuted group?
Did not the modern bourgeoisie contend with overwhelmingly powerful
opponents? Nevertheless they were victorious. Or was Socialism
destroyed in Germany by twelve years of persecution by exceptional
laws? The victory of Socialism was never more certain than when it
was thought to be destroyed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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