Words matter. These are the best Clara Zetkin Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
It is out of the question that the task of socialist women’s activity should be to alienate proletarian women from duties as wives and mothers; on the contrary, it must operate so this task is fulfilled better than before, precisely in the interests of the proletariat.
When a battle for suffrage is conducted, it should only be conducted according to socialist principles, and therefore with the demand of universal suffrage for women and men.
When the men are silent, it is our duty to raise our voices in behalf of our ideals.
Bourgeois society is not fundamentally opposed to the bourgeois women’s movement, which is proven by the fact that in various states reforms of private and public laws concerning women have been initiated.
What made women’s labour particularly attractive to the capitalists was not only its lower price but also the greater submissiveness of women.
The capitalists speculate on the two following factors: the female worker must be paid as poorly as possible and the competition of female labour must be employed to lower the wages of male workers as much as possible.
The machines, the modern mode of production, slowly undermined domestic production and not just for thousands but for millions of women the question arose: Where do we now find our livelihood?
When the men kill, it is up to us women to fight for the preservation of life.
All women, whatever be their position, should demand political equality as a means of a freer life, and one calculated to yield rich blessings to society.
What practical conclusions may we now draw for our propaganda work among women? The task of this Party Congress must not be to issue detailed practical suggestions, but to draw up general directions for the proletarian women’s movement.
In the women’s world, as well as in the men’s world, there exists the class law and the class struggle, and it appears as fully established that sometimes between the socialist working women and those belonging to the middle class, there may be antagonisms.
These interests of the workers, as the exploited and oppressed, class of society, are the same in all countries.
The most disastrous phenomenon of the current situation is the factor that imperialism is employing for its own ends all the powers of the proletariat, all of its institutions and weapons, which its fighting vanguard has created for its war of liberation.
In individual industries where female labour pays an important role, any movement advocating better wages, shorter working hours, etc., would not be doomed from the start because of the attitude of those women workers who are not organized.
The guardianship of the weaker sex has survived in the family law which still states, ‘And he shall be your master.’
Women’s propaganda must touch upon all those questions which are of great importance to the general proletarian movement. The main task is, indeed, to awaken the women’s class consciousness and to incorporate them into the class struggle.
We would, however, perform an injustice to the bourgeois women’s rights movement if we would regard it as solely motivated by economics. No, this movement also contains a more profound spiritual and moral aspect.
The proletarian woman fights hand in hand with the man of her class against capitalist society.
The workers have nothing to gain from this war, but they stand to lose everything that is dear to them.
We are not making this demand for the sake of a principle, but in the interests of the proletarian class.
