Lida Parce was among the most interesting Socialist feminist writers of the Debs period and among the strongest opponents of misogyny in the Socialist Party. Here she both sums up her position, and gives advice on what and how to read on the ‘woman question.’

‘What is the Woman Question?’ by Lida Parce from Progressive Woman. Vol. 2 No. 22. March, 1909.

The way to find out what the woman question is is to determine first the nature of woman, as an individual and member of society, and then to investigate her situation in society with a view of determining whether it corresponds to her nature, and is thus proper for her to remain in. If her situation is proper to her nature, then there is no woman question.

If her situation is wrong, but will right itself without effort on her part, then there is no sex struggle. But if her position in society is not fitted to her needs and requirements, then the question is, how to alter it so that it will be fitted to them. If the alteration requires effort on her part, then there is a sex struggle.

There has been much heated discussion of woman’s separate abilities and disabilities, and as a result some paliatives have been applied to her legal disabilities, in the shape of statutes. And many people have the impression that nothing but frivolous and fragmentary reforms are required to set the position of woman in society quite right. But the question is not: Shall woman have the ballot, or shall she go in for higher education, or go into business. It is not whether woman shall work outside “the home,” whether she shall be a joint guardian of her children and own her clothing and her wages. These are simply superficial fragments of the question.

The Greatest Question.

It is larger than any of these and embraces them all, and the answer to it depends upon the answer to another question, namely: Is woman a normal human being, or is she a sex appendage to the species? Is a woman’s primary function that of securing nutrition, or that of child-bearing? This may sound like a simple question at first, but ask yourself how it has been answered always; then ask yourself if that answer is right. In a recent novel by Professor Brander Mathews of Columbia University, he says of women: “They have lost their prime function. They will not, or they can not, get children.” This sentiment is expressed without explanation or apology, and the book is taken very seriously by the reviewers. The author knows that every one will understand what he means, and he does not imagine that any one will question the assumption on which he proceeds. There is no doubt that society also assumes that the “prime function” of woman is child-bearing.

Must Eat First.

Now let’s see. Is it more important to a woman to eat, or to bear a child? Which must come first in her life? If child-bearing, then reproduction is her “prime function.” But if nutrition comes before reproduction or any other thing in the natural order of her functions, then nutrition is her prime function, logically speaking, these organic operations which constitute life are the first function of the human animal. Nutrition is the second function; and to this point man and woman are precisely alike. But the third function is reproduction, and in this the first difference appears.

But since civilization began, society has been organized on the theory that woman and man are altogether different, that woman’s “prime function” was reproduction. Religion, law, morality, social usage, economics, education, every department of life and thought have been formed on the inverted order of woman’s functions. People think in the terms of this inversion, they feel in the moods of this inversion. On this inversion all society rests, and all its operations are adjusted to it.

Origin of the Theory.

This theory was established when the only basis of theories was the supposed will of the gods, when thought was imaginative and wholly egotistic. Selfish interest determined the people’s conclusions as to what the gods willed. Woman had become deteriorated as compared with man, because she had borne the entire burden of productive industry. The care of the young is mostly a social and economic function. It is only to a very limited degree biological. But all its burdens were left to woman during the entire prehistoric period of development, and she had broken down under them. So when man conceived, in his imagination, that woman was utterly different from himself he was able, by reason of his superior physical condition, to establish society on the basis of that theory.

Government had come to be wholly masculine, and the laws embodied the masculine idea of woman’s inverted functions. Religion was in the hands of men, and it gave the sanction of the gods to this theory which was so flattering to man by the comparison it made between him and woman. Men were socially free, and they ostracized woman from society. They were in control of education and they shut woman out from it. They were in control of economics and they made woman the universal slave laborer of the race. Now, remember! They could do these things, not because women were the mothers and hence handicapped; for maternity is a normal function. It is not a disease, not a disability. It is only when maternity is forced and unduly numerous that it is a handicap, and it is only when an unjust portion of the care of the young is left to woman that she is burdened by it, out of proportion to her strength. But woman had fed and clothed both the young and the adult population almost alone not for any biological reason, but for the psychological reason that man declined to help, excepting in so far as game formed a part of the fool supply.

Now the history of these facts has become perfectly well known to students. And the facts relating to the biological functions are equally familiar even to the average reader who keeps up with scientific discussion. It is not strange that in earlier times, when science had not placed people in possession of these facts, men believed, in their ignorance, that they were the superior sex, and women, a sort of adjunct to themselves, to be tolerated as the only means of propagating the species. But now that the facts are within the reach of all, it is difficult to discover a satisfactory and creditable reason why a supposedly learned man should make the above quoted melodramatic misstatement of them.

Woman’s Historic Position.

We know what the historical posttion of woman in society is. And we know how false that position is. Now the question is: How can the life of woman be adiusted to the nature of her being; as a human animal and as a member of society? In answering this question, we must begin by taking into account woman’s practical disabilities, and the manner in which they arose. The facts are historical and are in no wise subjects of emotion or mere opinion.

A Masculine Trinity.

The Christian religion worships a trinity that is wholly male–the father, son and holy ghost–and it adores a woman who is unlike, and hence a rebuke to other women, in that she is a virgin mother. Woman is excluded almost uniformly from a voice in the councils of the churches. In education, she is excluded from any of the higher institutions of learning; and some that admit her to their labors, discriminate against her in recognition of work done. Public opinion, keeping pace with these official actions, excludes her from, or only reluctantly admits her to, the practice of liberal arts and professions. Social custom relegates her to a negative position in the relations of the sexes, decreeing that, though maternity is her “prime function,” she shall not choose the father of her children, but shall be chosen by him. And since nutrition is classed as being a wholly minor and incidental function in her case, she yields up her economic identity in marriage to the man who chooses her, without receiving any guaranty whatever that her economic welfare will be provided for–her nutrition secured.

Now a normal animal must secure nutrition before anything else. Nature will look after those “prime” organic operations that constitute life, if the organism is fed. The question, then, is: how to so arrange life that woman’s first physical necessity shall be her first undisputed social right, instead of her secondary.

Woman a Minor.

In law woman is held in a state of minority and tutelage. The fact that woman is not allowed to vote is justified by the legal fiction that she is always a minor. The fact that under the common law she can not sign contracts is referred to the same reason. I recently received a letter from a middle-aged woman who lives in the great and free state of Missouri. This woman has two sons, now grown to manhood. In their childhood she lived on a farm and raised poultry, and kept cows, which she fed and milked herself, though her husband also lived on the farm She sold butter and eggs, chickens, ducks and turkeys, and with these products she paid the bills for food and clothing, at the crossroads store. When the children were older and needed better schooling she moved to town, learned the tailor’s trade, and by working at it, kept a home for the boys and her husband, and kept the boys in school till they were graduated. When they left home and went to work she gave her husband liberty to support himself, and went into business to provide, at last, for her own old age. But she found that before she could begin to do business in the great state of Missouri a male guardian must be appointed over her, supposedly to control her acts and her property. In the other states of America woman is more or less held in this disgraceful and humiliating bondage. Her contractual powers are limited, because, as alleged by a recent supreme court decision, “she depends upon her brother.”

She Is all His.

In marriage the law assumes that “Her identity is dissolved and absorbed into that of her husband.” Imagine the experience! According to the common law he owns her bodily and acquires control of all that is hers.

Her children are not hers, but his. Her wages and the wages of her children belong to him. Even her clothing is his. If she is injured the damages must be collected by him, she being his property and not being an individual herself. “This complete legal subjection of the wife,” says Sir Henry Maine, in Ancient Law, “runs through every department of rights, duties and remedies.”

In order that woman may have a fair field in which to earn her living, the spirit of her subjection must be utterly eliminated from the law. She must be admitted to the full privileges and opportunities of citizenship, the medieval notion that her identity is “dissolved” under any circumstances, must be disavowed. The legal fiction that her identity can be “absorbed” by any one must be uprooted. All restrictions upon her contractual powers and her liberty of action must be removed. Those theological doctrines which exclude the feminine element from an equal place upon the throne of deity must be destroyed. And those false views of the normal physiological functions, which have been cultivated with erotic fury by the church for centuries, must be abated. Woman must be admitted to all the facilities for education on absolute equality with man. All artificial opposition of a social nature must be withdrawn from her in the choice of her means of making her living. She must be equally free with the man to choose her mate, and social life must be adjusted to the principle of her freedom and equality. Contempt for woman as the “inferior” sex, and adultation of man as the “superior sex” must alike disappear from both the feelings and the utterances of society. All these changes must occur before woman can take her normal place as a human being, whose first necessity is nutrition, and her first social right an equal chance with all to earn her living.

Revolution Necessary.

It is plain that no mere reform can’ reach the roots of the evil of sex subjection. Only revolution which will do away completely with the common law basis of institutions will do the work. Two things are essential to this revolution: The socialization of industry, which will give woman a free chance to work in a social capacity, and the ballot, which will enable her to remove those special and artificial disabilities which have been placed upon her by male legislation. And with all this there is the necessity of deep thought and study.

How to Study the Woman Question.

The sources of information on this subject are scientific and historical in their nature. For knowledge on the nature and functions of animal life go to biology; and when you read on the subject of sex read with a discriminating mind. Many a scientific thinker loses his method when writing on this subject. His feelings are stronger than his reasoning powers or his intellectual rectitude. Havelock Ellis says truly that many a good scientific reputation is wrecked on this rock. So look out for unwarranted assumptions and for conclusions dictated by feeling rather than reason. Apply the principles of evolution impartially to woman, as to all other organic beings. Read Lester F. Ward’s Androcentric and Gynecocentric theories, as presented in Pure Sociology. Read Havelock Ellis’ “Man and Woman” and judge for yourself whether the traditional hypothesis of the “rib” is the correct theory of woman’s origin. Read Morgan’s “Ancient Society,” and then read other original observers of primitive peoples to learn what is the relative position of man and woman in primitive society. And don’t accept anybody’s reasoning and conclusions but your own. Follow the development of society till you approach the period of civilization, and you will find there the origin of our most venerated institutions and social customs, including the subjection of woman. All the way through apply your biology. Ask yourself what the natural needs and abilities of both man and woman are. Inquire what conditions are necessary in order that these needs may be met in the best way, and these abilities fully cultivated. Examine the evidence to discover what effect the conditions of environment had on people and institutions. Revert to your evolutionary theory to see what the effect of such restrictions and compulsions us were in force would have upon organisms subjected to them. Read Spencer’s Principles of Psychology, also Ward’s “Psychic Factors of Civilization.” Or, if you feel, somehow, that life is short, go to the indexes of these works and glean on points that you need in your investigations. Read Bebel’s “Woman” and Engel’s “Origin of the Family.” Then read history. Apply your scientific knowledge to the life of past times and judge for yourself how far woman’s degradation was inherent and how far it was forced upon her as near as you can to the original sources of church history. Inquire into the justification for the doctrines of theology concerning women. Were the premises correct? Was the reasoning good? Were the conclusions justified? Observe the ways in which theological dicta were incorporated into the web and woof of life–how laws were made to conform to them. Read Henry Maine’s “Ancient Law” and note what legal handicaps were placed upon woman. Apply your biology and psychology again. Draw your own conclusions as to the causes of woman’s position and the means used to enforce it. Follow the fortunes of woman through the dark ages and try to measure, if you can, the immeasurable ignominy that was hers. Read the furious denunciations of the church against her–they formed the most voluminous writing of the times. All the way along, apply your evolutionary theory, your biology and psychology. If you can get at Grotius’ work on jurisprudence, read and realize the meaning of his remarks on the subject of the “superior” and the “inferior” sexes. Get Blackstone’s points on the legal status of woman and see how they line up with her biological and psychological constitution. Follow her status in religion and economics down to the present time. You will see that there is no break in the derivation and history of institutions. And you will see that their bad blood can not be reformed out of them.

Investigate! Educate!

Ideal and emotional pleas for “justice” for women will have very little effect. Where real economic needs have forced women to demand some measure of redress they have received a very little. But neither men nor women have heretofore recognized the basis for the demands of woman to be free; in fact, that basis has been denied even when some small relief was given. Nor have they dreamed that freedom for woman is precisely the same thing as freedom for man. Investigate! Educated!

The Socialist Woman was a monthly magazine edited by Josephine Conger-Kaneko from 1907 with this aim: “The Socialist Woman exists for the sole purpose of bringing women into touch with the Socialist idea. We intend to make this paper a forum for the discussion of problems that lie closest to women’s lives, from the Socialist standpoint”. In 1908, Conger-Kaneko and her husband Japanese socialist Kiichi Kaneko moved to Girard, Kansas home of Appeal to Reason, which would print Socialist Woman. In 1909 it was renamed The Progressive Woman, and The Coming Nation in 1913. Its contributors included Socialist Party activist Kate Richards O’Hare, Alice Stone Blackwell, Eugene V. Debs, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and others. A treat of the journal was the For Kiddies in Socialist Homes column by Elizabeth Vincent.The Progressive Woman lasted until 1916.

PDF of original issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/socialist-woman/090300-progressivewoman-v2w22.pdf