(1857-1933)
German Marxist theorist, leader, activist, and organizer of the First International Women's Day in 1911
"As far as the proletarian woman is concerned,
it is capitalism’s need to exploit and to search
incessantly for a cheap labor force that has
created the women’s question. It is for this
reason, too, that the proletarian woman has
become enmeshed in the mechanism of the
economic life of our period and has been driven
into the workshop and to the machines. She
went out into the economic life in order to
aid her husband in making a living, but the
capitalist mode of production transformed her
into on unfair competitor. She wanted to bring
prosperity to her family, but instead misery
descended upon it. The proletarian woman
obtained her own employment because she
wanted to create a more sunny and pleasant life
for her children, but instead she became almost
entirely separated from them.
She became an equal of the man as a worker; the
machine rendered muscular force superfluous
and everywhere women’s work showed the
same results in production as men’s work. And
since women constitute a cheap labor force
and above all a submissive one that only in the
rarest of cases dares to kick against the thorns
of capitalist exploitation, the capitalists multiply
the possibilities of women’s work in industry.
As a result of all this, the proletarian woman
has achieved her independence. But verily, the
price was very high and for the moment they
have gained very little. If during the Age of
the Family, a man had the right (just think of
the law of Electoral Bavaria!) to tame his wife
occasionally with a whip, capitalism is now
taming her with scorpions. In former times,
the rule of a man over his wife was ameliorated
by their personal relationship. Between an
employer and his worker, however, exists only a
cash nexus.
The proletarian woman has gained her economic
independence, but neither as a human being nor
as a woman or wife has she had the possibility
to develop her individuality. For her task as
a wife and a mother, there remain only the
breadcrumbs which the capitalist production
drops from the table."
Excerpt from Only in Conjunction With the Proletarian Woman Will Socialism Be Victorious(1896)
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