Comrade Lida Parce was one of the most consistent challengers to male supremacy in the Socialist Party of the Debs era. In this short essay, she refutes the then notion of women’s conservatism held by many men in the Party.

‘The Relation of Socialism to the Woman Question; by Lida Parce from The International Socialist Review. Vol. 10 No. 4. October, 1909.

THERE is a reason why woman suffrage should have a place in the Socialist platform, but the platform doesn’t mention what it is. The platform gives the reason for the faith that is in it on every other question, but not on this one. By this silence an obvious and excellent opportunity for propaganda is missed.

Only a few of our very best speakers have anything vital to say on the woman question. Usually, when you hear a Socialist speech, if the speaker is really conscientious, he will approach the woman question with fear and trembling toward the end of the performance. He will gather up all his nerve and say something violently dogmatic about the slavery of woman; but it is utterly unconvincing, because he has not given his reasons. And in his heart he does not believe there is a reason. If he did, the platform would have something to say about it. The speaker closes “these few remarks” in confusion and haste, with a pious feeling that, at any rate, he has done his best. He has, poor man, but his best was not good enough. He has not connected up his thoughts on the subject, because his interest was only perfunctory.

A Socialist recently said to me that he worked for woman suffrage all the time and hoped it would come as soon as possible, though he knew perfectly well that woman’s conservatism would delay Socialism. The reflection with which he closed is frequently heard among party members, but it is based on a false application of the word “conservatism.” Now this is precisely the point. That wrong application of the word is a fallacy that has had a wide acceptance, which is readily accounted for by the fact that it requires a little analysis to detect it. We speak of the conservation of anything that has become established, no matter how ephemeral or how unrelated to the well-being of the race. But a woman’s conservatism is not that kind; it relates to the species. It was developed by the discipline of being the protector and the provider for the young. The only thing that can be called female conservatism’ is that fundamental, ineradicable, dominating interest in the preservation and well-being of the race, either as individuals or as a whole. What is so often called. woman’s conservatism is that timidity and caution which arise from the double uncertainty and perils of her doubly enslaved condition.

The present egotistic system is built on the male psychology. The subjection of woman had to be accomplished before the foundations of the present system could be laid in the private ownership of land. It was necessary to do this first, because women were dominated by the mother-spirit of altruism and had always worked cooperatively for the benefit of the whole group. So that, both historically and logically, the question of the status of woman is prior to the question of economic organization. I have not said “more important;” I have said “prior.” But if it is prior it can not be less important. To suppose that the male psychology, unaided, will become so. altruistic as to reestablish the co-operative system, while it remains so egotistic as to keep woman in sexual and political subordination is to imagine a vain thing.

The comrade who made the reflection quoted, referred to the suffrage states, to show that women wish to maintain the present state of things, and that revolution does not follow on woman suffrage. The obvious reply is that men who have had the ballot for generations are at present unable to control economic affairs by means of it. Political liberty with economic dependence is utterly meaningless.

For ages women have been kept in a position where they were dependent upon the performance of sex functions for a chance to work. A woman had to look to a man, who had access to land, for a chance to produce the necessities of life for herself and her children. Under these abject and withering conditions, women were prevented from the normal exercise of their dominant traits. The access to that land was a terribly important thing; and a woman was obliged to compete with other women. for a chance to thus prostitute her faculties. In time she came, like man, to see the economic consideration too large, the human consideration too small. She was, for the time, psychologically unsexed. The average woman now depends upon her husband for the money with which to care for her family. And he depends upon a complex of political and economic conditions for a chance to earn that money. She is not in personal touch with these conditions, and she is powerless to remedy them, however bad they are. Again, it is, he is making some kind of a living, and if there were to be a change she cannot tell how it would end. He is timid and uncertain about it himself, though he is a free citizen. Then how much more timid must she be, in her restricted position and with the living of her children at stake. But this timidity and caution are not female conservativeness. They are the reasonable traits of a slave psychology.

Individually, women have no power to affect conditions. But the juvenile courts, the libraries, the parks and play-grounds, the civic improvements of every kind, and literally thousands in number, that have been established by the women’s clubs in America, prove what kind of thing it is that women do when, by association, they gain some power to act. The question raised by women in their club work is not: “Will it pay us?” But: “Will the condition of the people be improved?” They do not get together and say: “We will buy some books for our children to read; we will make a park for our children to play in.” Their work is communal, just as it was before the “dawn of civilization.” It is for all the people. This is the true female conservatism. This is the mother psychology. Woman is not only the mother of individuals; when she acts collectively, she is the mother of the race.

There is not an ill arising from the present competitive organization of society that would not have been modified or avoided altogether if woman had not been bound and gagged. And yet many Socialist speakers can with difficulty find anything to say on the woman question. The platform sets forth no reason for its woman suffrage plank.

There is endless material for argument on the woman question, all of which hies back to the place of the female in every animal species, and to the sex-psychology of woman, as the great conservator—not of dollars, but of human beings.

The dominant mental attitude of man is that of acquisition and personal control. History tells its own story on that point, and so does the present social system. Whether the male mind in general will ever adopt feminine standards and aims sufficiently to establish society on the feminine principle may be doubted. But if the normal feminine mind were freed and in a position to express itself there can be no doubt what the result would be.

The Socialist agitation of the woman question, therefore, should take the form of spreading a knowledge of the true psychological sex-character of woman. This can not fail to appeal strongly to every woman who comes to understand it; for it is the basis of her dignity, the justification of her destiny as a free human being. At the same time it must not be forgotten that the feminine mode of life has been forcibly perverted, and it will take time for woman to readjust herself to the expression of her normal character. Any one who is a true Socialist will welcome this understanding of female conservatism with enthusiasm, when he is convinced of its truth; and he will not allow his traditional sex-attitude to interfere with his comprehension.

Socialists should not allow the capitalist imputation of radicalism to stand for an instant. It is capitalism that is radical. Socialism is the very essence of conservatism. And if woman can be educated in the principles of Socialism and then freed for action, it is a foregone conclusion how she will respond.

It is a cheerful capitalist custom to “view with alarm” the remotest suggestion of feminism, and to get gay over the special at- tributes of the feminine mind. But the time for that sort of thing is nearly past. The masculine psychology, unbridled and unhindered, has about tried itself out. And though it has many achievements to its credit, its record does not justify any lofty or disdainful attitude toward woman. On the contrary that record shows cause why man should, with patience and humility undertake the task of freeing woman, not for the sake of her deliverance; but for delivering the race from the penalties of his folly.

It is to the Socialist Party alone that we can look for any adequate or dignified treatment of the woman question. It is only on the basis of the materialist interpretation of life that the really ideal reasons for woman suffrage can be advanced. But even the Socialist Party needs to be admonished from time to time “lest we forget.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v10n04-oct-1909-ISR-gog.pdf