*THE WORKER*
BRISBANE, NOVEMBER 2, 1895.
Women’s Rights.
“Woman’s Rights! What a lot is said about them; but what woman in this everyday world knows anything about them. Woman’s Rights! What are they when our souls and bodies are not our own?
The speaker, a woman of medium intelligence betokened the possession of a refined, sensitive nature, was addressing a person evidently much her superior in social status.
“I agree with you, madam, women should have the franchise, but not for the sole reason of being on an equality with men. That magical bit of paper - the elector’s right - will perhaps meet the requirements of a section of the suffragists, but what will it do for the majority of women workers?”
“It will give them the right of choosing a candidate to represent them, and every woman will have as much weight in the community as her male relatives; she will be respected and sought after because her vote will mean power.”
“True, madam; but the average working man, do you know the sum total of his weight in the community?”
“He has, I suppose, in most instances, a wife and family, and a certain position to maintain; he has a fair amount of freedom, and a good opportunity to study politics; his union teaches him a good deal in this way, though I often think he is misguided by the union officials, and “ ---this very triumphantly--- “ he has his vote which gives him as much political power as any gentleman in the land.”
“Pardon me, madam, if I say you do not understand the actual position of the worker; at present it is this: he has a wife and family, but how few men can support their families decently? The mother must sew, or wash, or go out cleaning; children of tender years must go into factories at most unsuitable, uncongenial toil to supplement their father’s earnings; the girls frequently go out to service, and are away from their parents when it is most necessary they should have parental love and control. The unions - well they may not always be right, but they have always a great principal at stake in which the liberty and welfare of the members are involved; and though their struggles are often hopeless it helps to teach men that by combination alone can any material alteration take place in their condition. The note! - surely the last elections was sufficient proof that immense numbers of working men were disfranchised.”
“Oh, I don’t think you are right about all these things, the working men, you know, are careless about a lot of things and may have neglected to take out their elector’s rights.”
“Some, I admit, may have done so, but the majority were disfranchised because their need in many instances compelled them to change their residence; the men their former votes put into power allowed this to be done.”
“I suppose there was a mistake, or perhaps they thought that the settled population had the best right to elect men to take charge of their country’s interest; of course is naturally follows they are the most respectable and thorough people.”
“This surprises me, madam. There was no mistake whatever; the men who have ruled us all along with an iron hand are selfish, grasping autocrats with whom power, position, and the gew-gaws procured through the exploitation of the labour of others is far more than the advancement of their country, or the masses of unfortunately situated people, and I would like to ask you a question, Mrs. Welloff: What makes the tramp and loafer? What fills our cities with able-bodied men glad to work for rations; with men of all ages and varying intelligence and attainments from the doctor to the wharf-labourer amongst them? What sends our stalwart boys and fine men from our sides to tramp the country, to become beggars and thieves or dependants on another’s bounty? Do not talk to me of respectable and thorough people. We could be that if we had the opportunity.”
“My dear Mrs. Workhard I fear we have gone away from the subject of Woman’s Rights. What have all these things to do with them!”
“Everything, madam. These same laws that degrade and debase our male population act with even greater severity upon our women. We are forced into a most unequal competition with men. This is not enough, but our children are dragged into the vortex also; this deathless struggle that only yields the most meagre livelihood in return makes bitter enmity between the sexes, and whilst we are fighting desperately over the scanty bone thrown to us for our labour, the politicians, the monopolists, the usurers are holding carnival out of our debasement.”
“Pray, Mrs. Workhard, what would you have us do? We suffragists, you know, must be very careful; we are only supposed to try and move public opinion so as to get the franchise ceded to us. The things you speak of are really beyond our province. I have like to see brought forward at our meetings, but of course I recognise that anything but the advocacy of the suffrage at present would jeopardise our chances.”
“That is just what I find fault with, Mrs. Welloff. The Franchise Leagues are too fearful to do aught but the one thing; they are missing the glorious opportunity of repairing a great: wrong done to women; the suffragists are agreed they want the franchise, then why not show their practical sympathy with the people who suffer most from unjust laws?”
“I fear I do not quite understand you.”
“Why not espouse the cause of the workers fearlessly and openly?”
“Advocate class legislation do you mean?”
“Well, no; what I propose to do is to advocate the abolition of class legislation.”
“How, pray? I fear, Mrs. Workhard, you have strange ideas for a woman suffragist.”
“Possibly, madam, they may appear strange to some; but I’ll explain: Let the suffragists who, as a rule, are intelligent, sympathetic, high-minded, and filled with a love of humanity, espouse the cause of the weakest; those who are made weak through class legislation; if they are really imbued with a desire to reform the condition of the working classes should engage their immediate and earnest attention, for any system of government that allows its people to be enslaved as the Australian working classes undoubtedly are enslaved by the monopolists-that is the men who hold a lien over our land preventing people from putting it to productive use, thereby controlling the entire labour and wage system-this unjust form of government, I say, cannot possibly be expected to grant full rights and liberty to its women.”
“Oh, my dear Mrs. Workhard, I am afraid you have inextricably mixed up women’s rights and some kind of political economy. You really shouldn’t, you know; they are entirely separate questions.”
“I must disagree with you, madam. These things I speak of are indissolubly bound up with the Woman’s Rights question, and every woman in the reform movement should advocate Womanhood Suffrage, not on the grounds of the implied equality with men which it would yield, but because it is the desire of the thinking portion of our sex to see the reign of justice in place of the dread rule of gold.”
“Ah! Mrs. Hardwork, you must not give expression to these ideas in public, or I’m afraid we’ll never get the franchise. We would be stigmatised asagitators.”
“My dear Mrs. Workhard I’m sorry to hear you say that. These little things of our own have no business to obtrude themselves as a great question like the suffrage.”
“In conclusion, as I see we can’t agree Mrs. Welloff, let me say this. Whilst the majority of women remain in ignorance of their true value to the community-an ignorance we suffragists could remedy in part if we only had the stamina and courage-so long as men are a helpless drug in the Labour market; so long as politicians of every shade of thought can spring ‘little things of their own’ on an ignorant and helpless community, women will never possess any rights. Time will tell show who is right. Good afternoon Mrs. Kindly give a little consideration to what you were pleased to call ‘a little thing of my own.'”
Have things changed all that much since 1895?
The Worker
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