Ethel Snowden

“ Far below the lowest working-man is the woman. But Socialism will bring liberty to both, a double portion of liberty to her; and the two, set free, shall show to the world what it has never yet dreamt of, of what human nature is capable when it dwells in the warmth and sunlight of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. ”

“ No man could claim to be more religious-minded than the writer of the world’s greatest epic, "Paradise Lost"; yet he, writing after more than sixteen hundred years of the teaching and influence of Christianity, advocates one scale of morality for one sex and a different one for the other, putting into the hands of the man the power of divorce, “the right which God had, from the beginning, entrusted to the husband.” ”

“ A Socialist system which does not represent the feminine point of view as recorded at the ballot-box is no Socialism at all. It is the dreariest shadow of Socialism for men, and for women it is additional degradation. ”

“ Far back in those dim ages, before the dawn of civilisation, animal-man and animal-woman lived in savage happiness, roaming the woods for the fruits and nuts with which they nourished themselves, and slaying for food such animals as came their way with the rude weapons they possessed. No knowledge was there of the inferiority of the one sex or the superiority of the other. ”

“ But we demand that that which qualifies a man, whatever it may be, shall also qualify a woman. We desire the stain removed from our womanhood. The power of the vote is important, but it is a secondary consideration. Remove the hateful stigma from your mothers, your wives, and your daughters, which places the noblest and the best of them in a lower position than the most uncultured and immoral specimen of the male sex who pays his rates and taxes."
On these lines must the Socialist woman of the present agitate, in and out of season, if she be true to her Socialist principle of equality. ”

“ How to care for her own body; how to care for her child, to nourish and clothe it, and to tend it in its earliest and most dependent years; these and kindred subjects will form part, and an important part, of the education of every Socialist girl.
And in securing for its women the highest possible education, the Socialist State will be not only acting justly, but it will be displaying the deepest wisdom. "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" is an old saying, but an infinitely true one. That is why the world is no better than it is. ”

“ The movement for women’s votes means to the intelligent woman agitator something far more than its name implies. She appears to be asking for a vote for her own use. In reality she is demanding the raising of the status of a sex. To be deprived of the vote herself would not cause her a single pang, nor cost her a single tear, though she realises sufficiently its tremendous power and importance. The disgrace is not in the voteless condition of women, but it lies in their powerlessness to qualify, in any circumstances, for the elementary right of citizenship, because of an accident of birth. ”

“ The second is the promise of the future; and society has no brighter hope, humanity no larger promise than her coming, radiant with health and happiness, love and liberty shining from her eyes, the beautiful, high-souled, sister-mother of the men that are going to be. ”

“ Surely nothing less than a new social ideal as well as a new economic system is going to allow of a moral relationship between men and women. Surely nothing more is wanted to teach and convince men that the degradation of woman is wrong. ”

“ If there be one individual more than another who will feel the benefit of a fully–established Socialism in her life and upon her work it is the average working–man's wife.
What heavier drudgery could be imagined, what more depressing existence conceived than the life of such a woman? ”

“ But their praises shall be sung from the mountain-tops and chanted in the valleys when the day of woman’s freedom shall dawn; and their reward shall be more than marble monuments and the sound of trumpets, for they shall be enthroned in the hearts of a people made free through their efforts and exalted through their sufferings and sacrifices. ”

“ It must be realised by women that the economic independence which is the promise of Socialism, is the aim to be kept in view in the exercise of the vote for which they are agitating. It must be understood by Socialists that the political enfranchisement of women is an absolutely necessary part of the establishment of Socialism; that, indeed, Socialism in the only true sense of that term, in the only wise conception of that State, can never be brought into the fulness of its being until women have been made equal with men as citizens. ”

“ Not turned aside by arguments of expediency, nor frightened of the consequences upon legislation of middle-class and aristocratic women’s votes, but determined to be just in all things, she will go on, in spite of sneers and calumnies, fighting for her oppressed sisters of all classes. And as certainly as that to-morrow’s sun will rise, so surely will the end prove to the advocates of expediency before justice that it is always expedient to be just. ”

“ It is a fact worthy of note that when, in days gone by, women have temporarily recovered their liberty, it seems to have been at the cost of their virtue, as in the case of the Roman women, domestic drudges before they became unmarried wives; and that when chastity has been restored, as Christianity restored it to the world, it has been as the result of taking away the liberty of the woman and putting her under the yoke of a husband.
It remains for Socialism to prove that woman can be both free and virtuous. ”

“ To please men, whom they feel themselves bound to please, the most odious outrages upon nature are perpetrated by women. The body is crushed in the tight waistband, the feet are cramped into small boots, the hair is dyed, the face is powdered and painted. To excite the passions of men they expose their arms and shoulders in the hot ballroom with a shamelessness which would disgrace a courtesan. ”

“ Plato, who was more advanced than many of his contemporaries, and whose ideal is still to be fully realised, spoke the thoughts of the modern woman when he taught: “None of the occupations which comprehend the ordering of a State belong to woman as woman, nor yet to man as man, but natural gifts are to be found here and there in both sexes alike; and so far as her nature is concerned, the woman is admissible to all pursuits as well as the man.” ”

“ Equally uninformed are those individuals who think that Socialism means an equal division amongst its inhabitants of the world's wealth; or that it involves the destruction of private property.
Socialism means none of these things. Not one of these is a part of the Socialist programme. Far from aiming at the destruction of private property its object is to increase private property amongst those whose property is so limited that they have a difficulty in keeping themselves alive. Not the sub-division of wealth but the sharing of it is the desire of the Socialist. ”

“ Although machinery as used in factory and workshop will be more highly valued, much more used, and far better understood under Socialism and in Socialist workshops than at present, there will be a tremendous development of the home industries; not the sweated, underpaid "Outwork,” which is ruining the lives of thousands of women and children in these modern times, but the beautiful arts and crafts, the work in wood and metal and upon other substances, which will be executed by hand, and will exhibit individual genius and intelligence. ”

“ Women are everywhere outraged and abused. When the full chapter of woman’s wrongs and sufferings is written, the world will be horrified at the hideous spectacle.”
Is it not fitting that, about these things, women should consult an educated and sympathetic sister, who shall not only heal them, but tell them where the wrong is, teach them how to avoid the wrong, and command them not to bring up their daughters in the ghastly innocence and gross ignorance which have helped in their own undoing. ”

“ And even if we could do without them, would it be consistent with justice to refuse to them their fair share of honour and distinction, or to deny to them the equal right of all human beings to choose their occupation (short of injury to others) according to their own preferences, at their own risk? Nor is the injustice confined to them. It is shared by those who are in a position to benefit by their services. ”

“ And the dress of a Socialist woman will be in harmony with her home. What ages of masculine hatred, callousness, and cruelty does the dress of a modern woman reveal. It was specially designed to be a clog upon her movements, that she might not, in her misery, run away from her lord and master. ”

“ THE WOMAN SOCIALIST OF TO–DAY
Socialism is not yet an established fact. It is coming; nothing can prevent that, It is the next inevitable step in ordered progress. But women must not wait for its coming; nor must they consecrate their time and talents entirely to firing the imaginations and touching the hearts of men with pity for their own condition whilst women live in bonds. ”

“ Let Socialist women remember this fact; and let them give their lives to raising their sisters, no matter what their position in society, so that men and women, equally armed, may fight side by side for that economic liberty denied to so many.
The Socialist woman-citizen of the future will find strange reading in the accounts of to-day’s struggle for the political emancipation of women. ”

“ Free as the wind, the Socialist wife will be bound only by her natural love for husband and children. But such limitation, small at the worst, will be nothing but a joy, for it will spring out of respect and esteem, the surest foundations for a lasting love.
Recognising the sanctity of their unions in marriage, Socialists will, nevertheless, seek to remove some of the ridiculous anomalies of our present divorce laws. Divorce will, in all probability, be much less frequently asked for under a reorganised society ”

“ After, say, six or seven years have passed, the children will go into the elementary schools, where they will be fed, taught to work and play, drill and dance, sing and sleep, and live their happy lives under the kind eyes of sympathetic women, the State's kindly teachers, who will co-operate with the parents in trying to develop in the little ones all the perfections of character of which they may be capable.
When Socialism arrives it will be possible for the taunt to cease that no woman has written a book or painted a picture or composed a work of outstanding genius. ”

“ We have already travelled far along the road which leads to Socialism. Each day sees some fresh application or extended application of its principles, Our most admirable and wonderful organisations are those which are conducted on Socialist lines. Socialist enterprise is the most distinguishing feature of the last fifty years. Men and women are thinking Socialism, speaking Socialism, acting Socialism, in their daily occupations, in their municipal life, and in their national undertakings. Socialism is the spirit of the age ”

“ Again, although Socialism is not atheism nor confiscation, not division nor revolution, it has something to say upon all these questions and a thousand questions besides.
Socialism is a principle, the co-operative principle. Belief in that principle is bound to affect our opinion upon every other subject. The Socialist need not be an atheist, but his Socialism will not permit him to look at matters of religious import in precisely the same way as does his individualist friend. ”

“ One very necessary thing which Socialism can be relied upon to do is, to establish one moral code for men and women alike. Society then shall give no more quarter for an offence against morality to men than to women. ”

“ The inadequacy of a woman’s earnings is frequently the cause of two other unfortunate conditions of her life. The struggle for existence is sometimes so hard, so lonely, so bitter, that she is constrained to sell herself into a still more terrible bondage. ”

“ In his book, "The Subjection of Women," John Stuart Mill expresses the nation's need in words of moving eloquence. "Is there," he asks, "so great a superfluity of men fit for high duties, that society can afford to reject the service of any competent person? Are we so certain of always finding a man made to our hands for any duty or function of social importance which falls vacant, that we lose nothing by putting a ban on one half of mankind, and refusing beforehand to make their faculties available, however distinguished they may be? ”

“ Not only is it possible to conceive of the workers being little better off under a Socialist régime than under a Capitalist system, unless they be animated with something nobler than a fretful discontent with the existing order of things, but it is necessary to point out, and to emphasise the fact, that the position of women would actually be worse under a so-called Socialist system which neglected to give them political and economic equality with men. ”

“ A free woman, she will thus be able to give her love freely. And in the sense that no mercenary motive will influence towards matrimony, and no unhallowed sex-impulse will be the drawing power between the man and the woman, but mutual admiration and esteem and pure affection, there will be free love, love as free as the air, and as pure; as radiant as the sunshine and as warm; as beautiful as Nature and as holy.
It is more than probable that the ordinary Church marriage service will be abolished. ”