Page:Lily Gair Wilkinson - Revolutionary Socialism and the Woman's Movement.djvu/5

2 deepest; wherever there is poverty, it is women who suffer the greatest privations.

We hear much from reformers and moralists of the famous "Woman Question," but women themselves are at last awakening to the fact that all this questioning does nothing to alleviate the misery of their bondage. This is the healthy and hopeful sign of modern feminine slavery; women are everywhere beginning to recognise the inferiority of their social position and to revolt against it. No matter how heavily nor how lightly the invisible chains may weigh upon her individually, a woman who has truly become conscious of her subordinate position must always be a woman in revolt. To her there comes a burning sense of the shame and disgrace of subjection; there is always with her the living reality of slavery—a weight of chains insufferable, yet powerful enough to hold her down, strangling and impeding her efforts to be free.

Everywhere increasing numbers of women are beginning to feel this yoke—becoming conscious that they are born in bondage—and everywhere more and more are giving active signs that they can strive for freedom. It is no longer merely a case of a "Woman Question" bound up in the volumes of learned theorists; there is to-day an actual Woman's Movement where in the past there was only a mark of interrogation.

The world in general is at last startled out of its indifference by these signs, and on all sides there is much talk of woman and her slavery, of woman and her hopes of freedom. The many conflicting opinions (all equally assured) of course result in much conflict of action.

It is necessary that the Socialist Labour Party should make clear its position towards so prominent and so confused a movement in society. Socialism stands for social freedom for all, and therefore it must very definitely stand for the emancipation of the greatest sufferers from social bondage—namely, the women. In the sense that the feminist movement also professes to be a movement towards the emancipation of women, it has a very special significance for the Socialist Labour Party. And it is all the more urgent that prominence should be given to the true Socialist position because the bourgeois feminists have received great support in their campaign from many reformists calling themselves Socialists, who, pretending to serve the cause of women, serve that of the enemy instead.