Dear Dr. Marx: A Letter from a Socialist Feminist

Abstract

Dear Dr Marx, I am woefully behind the times. I plead revolution, exile, the laundry of the Wisconsin Phalanx, an American women's rights convention and two young children. Philosophy has been quite swept away and I have only just read your rousing Manifesto. I chanced upon it in the most extraordinary circumstances - you will, I am sure, agree that the 'frightful hobgoblin' made its most unusual entry yet when I tell you my tale... I intend to raise the cry for women's rights in Toronto and to set about securing the social rights which I believe would enable the women of the working classes to make their own choices about their lives. Our defeats have been hard to bear but we have the courage to confront them and ideas and proposals to contribute to future generations. Our cause truly is international. I take heart from the letter of Pauline Roland and Jeanne Deroin to the American women's convention last summer: 'Sisters of America! your socialist sisters of France are united with you in the vindication of the right of women to civil and political equality. We have, moreover, the profound conviction that only by the power of association based on solidarity - by the union of the working-classes of both sexes to organise labor - can be acquired, completely and pacifically, the civil and political equality of women, and the social right of all.'