Page:Lily Gair Wilkinson - Revolutionary Socialism and the Woman's Movement.djvu/4



the whole period of civilisation woman has been a slave. The form of slavery may have varied from age to age, but in one way or another woman’s written history has been a record of dependence and subjection, and to-day the wrongs and degradation which slavery brings weigh more cruelly upon her than ever before. During the past century all the evils of society have been intensified by the monster power of capitalism; there is more poverty, more shame, and more oppression in our midst than was ever dreamt of in former days. And wherever there is oppression, it is women who are most oppressed by law and custom; wherever there is shame, upon women the stain is