Women's Social and Political Union

“ Now that the Labour Party has grown strong Liberals dare not utter such slanders concerning Labour men, but they think they can afford to traduce the women's movement in their accustomed way. Quite undeterred, encouraged rather, by their attacks the Women's Social and Political Union holds firmly to its by-election policy. ”

“ Women who considered their rightful claims to full citizenship with lukewarmness are now falling under the influence of the new demands and are flocking alike into the old Suffrage Societies, and into the Women's Social and Political Union. ”

“ In this instinctive desire not to lose ground, to keep up both with altered social claims of society upon women and with the improved political equipment of their brothers, is to be found the economic crux of women's demand for the vote in every country and in every succeeding decade. ”

“ The working woman is in fact beginning to show powers, hitherto unsuspected, of social work and political action. The Insurance Act has demanded women officials as “Sick Visitors” and “Pay Stewards,” and the new duties thrown on the secretaries and committee by that Act are likely to bring about an increasing demand for the participation of women. The rapidly increasing numbers of women in the Shop Assistants’ Union, the movement for a minimum wage in the co-operative factories, the increasing number of women in general labour Unions, all these are hopeful signs of a movement towards unity. ”

“ Sisters of America! your socialist sisters of France are united with you in the vindication of the right of woman to civil and political equality. We have, moreover, the profound conviction that only by the power of association based on solidarity—by the union of the working-classes of both sexes to organize labor—can be acquired, completely and pacifically, the civil and political equality of woman, and the social right for all. ”

“ In fact, the political equality of women, one of the present-day demands in the platforms of all Socialist parties, will be one of the corner-stones in the foundation of the new social order. A perfect political democracy will have to be realized before an industrial democracy will become possible. In the Socialist state women will vote on all public questions, will be eligible to all offices, and will enjoy the equal rights and perform the equal duties of unrestricted citizenship. ”

“ But since the rapid development of industry has brought millions of women out of the home into the world, women have become a factor of increasing importance in the public life of all nations, and the question of their social, civic and political rights has become one of the most important of the present time. With the sweeping change in the position of women, Socialists have given more and more attention to the woman question, and have found that "Workers of the world, unite" means women as well as men. ”

“ So the application of knowledge and humane principles by a civilized society, collectively owning the means of production, will give women security as well as freedom; it will give them a nobler wifehood and a better motherhood as well as equal citizenship. Because women to-day are less free than men, because they are still hampered by social and political restrictions as well as by economic burdens, women have even more to gain than men by a new order of society. Socialism holds out its greatest promise to women. ”

“ In the countries of continental Europe the evolution of local women’s organizations to State- and National Unions had been the same as in the United States and in England. But the majority of these societies remained conservative in regard to woman suffrage. Germany since 1813 has had the “Vaterlaendische Frauenverein” (Patriotic Women’s League) , a union of wonderful helpers for suffering humanity, both in peace and in war. Since 1865 a “General Association of German Women” tried to secure new rights for women, both along political and economic lines. ”

“ And all this despite the admitted fact that the social and economic problems, which are coming more and more into the field of parliamentary labours, are all but incapable of solution without the help of enfranchised women. ”

“ Hence we shall not discuss the very grave and important social and political questions which have arisen from the agitation to admit to equal political rights the women of our country, and to impose on them the burden of discharging, equally with men, political and public duties. Whether so radical a change in our political and social system would advance the happiness and welfare of the American people, considered as a whole, without distinction of sex, is a question on which there is a marked disagreement among the most enlightened and thoughtful of both sexes. ”

“ Their franchise is confined to municipalities, which can only make by-laws that relate to the execution of existing laws. But although women have no direct vote, they have, by much labor and united effort, effected some important changes in the criminal code and civil laws, as well as in the political position of women in the municipalities. The societies which have accomplished the most, if not all, of these changes are the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Women's Enfranchisement Association and the National Council of Women. ”

“ The tendencies of democratic institutions, in reference to the rights and interests of the female sex, have been fully developed in the United States; and it is in this aspect, that the subject is one of peculiar interest to American women. In this Country, it is established, both by opinion and by practice, that woman has an equal interest in all social and civil concerns; and that no domestic, civil, or political, institution, is right, which sacrifices her interest to promote that of the other sex. ”

“ If all the "suffragists" of all the States could see eye to eye on this point, and stand shoulder to shoulder against every party and politician not fully and unequivocally committed to "Equal Rights for Women," we should become at once a moral balance of power which could not fail to compel the party of highest intelligence to proclaim woman suffrage the chief plank of its platform. "In union alone there is strength." ”

“ The extension of the right of suffrage would remove a handicap from the efforts of women and give them an opportunity to work for the welfare of the State. We do not claim that woman's voice in the government would at once sound the death knell to all social and political evils but we do believe that a government representing the interests and beliefs of women and men would prove itself, and is proving itself where it now exists, to be a better government than one which represents the interests and beliefs of men alone. ”

“ Broadly speaking, that for which we are fighting now is the emancipation of woman; her social freedom; her intellectual freedom; her economic freedom; her political freedom; and we believe that it is through the attainment of the rights of citizenship that all these doors will be opened to us.
I wish now, briefly, to show what, as I believe, the effect would be on society generally and on woman primarily if these her demands were granted; what, in fact, woman will be in the new era. ”

“ It is true that many of their leaders are women of the higher social classes but this same phenomenon has characterized, though not to the same degree, the movements of working men to conquer political rights.
“What in England and America has been the movement of a whole sex, has, in Germany under Social Democracy been merged in the movement of the working class. Women are to have their rights not as a sex, but as workers.” ”

“ As she has been advanced in the social scale, our laws have kept pace with that advancement and conferred upon her rights and privileges with accompanying duties and responsibilities. She has not abused those privileges, and has been found equal to the duties and responsibilities. And the day is not far distant when the refining and elevating influence of women will be as clearly manifested in the political as it now is in the social world. ”

“ Confessing that her own National American Woman Suffrage Association in comparison was poor in numbers and limited in funds, she added, "I would philosophize on the reason why. It is because women have been taught always to work for something else than their own personal freedom; and the hardest thing in the world is to organize women for the one purpose of securing their political liberty and political equality." ”

“ The programme is, in fact, to give to woman an economic independence out of the earnings and taxes of man.
Nor does feminist ambition stop short here. It demands that women shall be included in every advisory committee, every governing board, every jury, every judicial bench, every electorate, every parliament, and every ministerial cabinet; further, that every masculine foundation, university, school of learning, academy, trade union, professional corporation and scientific society shall be converted into an epicene institution—until we shall have everywhere one vast cock-and-hen show. ”

“ Still these sister-women, though antagonistic to each other on class lines, have a great many more points in common than the men engaged in the class struggle, and though they march in separate armies they may strike a united blow. This is true in regard to all endeavors pertaining to equal rights of woman under the present social order; that is, her right to enter any trade or profession adapted to her strength and ability, and her right to civic and political equality. ”

“ But the women here do appear to possess by far the most energy, vigor, vitality and ambition. Their predominance in office just now is owing to their over-powering number, the women’s vote polled being ten to one over that of the men. This strong sex influence has been fruitful in greatly changing and modifying the domestic, social and political laws of the community. ”

“ Many of them feel absolutely no need for an extension of rights for by virtue of their sex precedence they possess many more rights than any social democracy could afford them.
Many women have been stimulated by a sense of duty to their city and their state to take an active interest in political and civic affairs. On the other hand, there will always be many women just as there are many men who will be indifferent to political issues and who will need the stimulation and suggestion political meetings afford before they take an active part in the political life of the community. ”

“ Resolved, That as neither free trade, finance, prohibition, capital and labor, nor any other political question, can be so vital to the existence of the Republic as the enfranchisement of women, it is clearly our duty to aid and support the great National party that shall first inscribe woman suffrage on its banner. ”

“ We agree that no party, left to itself, will allow women an equal chance. Neither labor nor the farmer nor the business man nor the banker is ready to assume executive and political ability in women. They will steadily, perhaps instinctively, resist any such belief. They will accede to women's demands only so far as they wish to please or placate the woman vote. For every party job, for every political office, for every legal change in the direction of equality, women will have to fight as women. ”

“ Therefore, Resolved, by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring, That, in view of these results, the enfranchisement of women in every state and territory of the American Union is hereby recommended as a measure tending to the advancement of a higher and better social order. ”

“ The new national law on assembly and organization of April 19, 1908, brought the only marked improvement by establishing equal rights of women in regard to political organization and public assembly.
The right to vote must of course be combined with the right to be elected to office. We hear the cry: “How ridiculous it would be to behold a woman on the platform of the Diet!” Yet there are other states where women have ascended to the platforms of parliaments, and we, too, have long since become accustomed to see women on platforms in their meetings and conventions. ”

“ Thus we see in some places the political rights of women asked for on industrial grounds, and fought for as an industrial expedient. Elsewhere the political rights of women are sought on a social basis alone. ”

“ Economic and Social Welfare Rights States Parties shall adopt and enforce legislative and other measures to guarantee womenequal opportunities in work and career advancement and other economic opportunities. ”

“ Despite a stringent budget for FY 1981, the Administration consistently supported the Women's Educational Equity Act and family planning activities, as well as other programs that affect women, such as food stamps, WIC, and social security.
We have been concerned not only about the American woman's opportunities, but ensuring equality for women around the world. In November, 1980, I sent to the Senate the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. ”

“ But in the struggles of the labouring classes, in the societies for reform of evils, for the spread of improvements, in the work of the County Council, etc., we find that women’s help is needed, and that it either cannot be given at all, or is miserably curtailed in its power for good and useful work, because it is not accompanied by the electoral powers which back up men’s endeavours. So it must remain till the power of the vote is granted, and so does the Nemesis of injustice and inequality before the law daily work out its revenge. ”

“ Since the elective franchise is the parent stem from which branch out legal, industrial, social and educational enterprises necessary to the welfare of the citizens, it will be readily seen how women engaged in reforms, public charities, social enterprises, are hampered and trammeled in their progress without the ballot. Women have beheld their plans frustrated, their Herculean labor undone, their lives wasted, for want of legislative power through the citizen’s emblem of sovereignty. ”