In 1910, the second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. At a time when women’s participation as working professionals was exceedingly rare, 100 women from 17 countries – representing unions, socialist parties, working women’s clubs – came together. One of them, Clara Zetkin, tabled the idea of an International Women's Day, which continues to be celebrated worldwide after more than a century. Her proposal aimed at amplifying collective efforts by designating one day annually, when women would make their demands for equality heard. It was approved unanimously at the conference. Zetkin’s call was followed by several other protests and movements in the beginning of the 20th century in the West, as part of what is known as the First Wave Feminism (from the mid-19th century to the 1920s). Here is how she played a role in advocating for the cause of women, even as socialism often trumped feminism in her worldview. On the need for women workers’ rights Born in 1857, Zetkin grew up when the effects of capitalism became visible in German society. In and around the region, the rapid increase in manufacturing meant the value of goods domestically produced by women was declining. This would prompt her to consider the position of women under capitalism. Zetkin completed secondary schooling but could not pursue university education as women were barred from it. Voting and other political rights were also restricted. She became exposed to socialist ideas through her brother and a schoolmate, according to an essay in the journal Feminist Studies (‘Clara Zetkin: A Socialist Approach to the Problem of Woman's Oppression’). She soon joined the German Social Democratic Party, often given limited tasks by the largely male leadership. Zetkin gradually improved her oratory and writing and went on to expound on socialism and why it mattered to women. “In former times, the man's wage along with the productive activity of his wife at home had sufficed to insure the existence of his family. Now it is hardly enough for the survival of a single worker.” This need for men and women to gain employment “freed women of their economic dependence upon men…” (Clara Zetkin: Selected Writings). However, she argued that this independence only helped the capitalists. “Due to their monopoly of the means of production (such as land and capital), the capitalists have usurped these new economic factors and made them work exclusively to their advantage. Women who had been liberated from the economic dependence upon their husbands merely changed masters and are now subjugated by the capitalists. The slave of the husband became the slave of the employer.” Still, women at least now had some avenues to achieve economic equality with men, she noted. Zetkin also argued that inequality in the relations of men and women within the family were attributable to capitalism alone and socialism would remove these differences, but did not illustrate how that would happen. On women as a political collective For many women leaders of Zetkin’s time, it was important to build a case for women’s quality and voting rights to the general public, and fellow women. She said, “Just like the man under equally hard conditions (and at times under even more difficult ones), she has to take up the fight for the vital necessities against a hostile environment. She needs for this, just like the man, her full political rights because such rights are weapons with which she can and must defend her interests.” “By a slow, painful developmental process, women are emerging from the narrowness of family life to the forum of political activity. They are demanding their full political equality as it is symbolized by suffrage as a vital social necessity and a social emancipation. The obtainment of suffrage is the necessary corollary to the economic independence of women,” she said. She was also critical of women from the capitalist and propertied classes. “One would assume that in view of this situation, the entire politically disenfranchised female sex would form one phalanx to fight for universal women's suffrage. But that is not the case at all. The bourgeois women do not even stand united and determined behind the principle of the full political equality of the Women's Right to Vote,” she said. This was due to the “inevitable consequence of the diverse social strata to which women belong”, where “we cannot expect bourgeois women to proceed against their very nature.” Ultimately, the struggle was against the propertied classes – whether they happened to be women or men. On women in the political sphere The essay in Feminist Studies noted how Zetkin’s views on women evolved, seeing them in terms of their gender rather than only class. She said while women were different from men, the two were equal. By organising and attending conferences, like the one that led to Women's Day's creation, she sought to build global solidarity among socialist women. Within her party too, she advocated the need for including women in leadership roles even as she was sidelined. She began editing a bi-weekly journal between 1892 and 1917, with contributions by women socialist writers. “Zetkin maintained a constant vigilance against discriminatory treatment of women within the socialist camp,” the essay said. She readily criticised “male chauvinism in public” and defended the women who spoke about prejudices held by men towards them within the socialist movement, “with the full weight of her influence and prestige”. German women won the right to vote in 1918. In her later years, Zetkin was elected to the German parliament or the Reichstag in 1932 – making her its oldest member. According to a report in The Guardian, “Tradition dictated she opened the parliamentary session. She did so with a 40 minute attack on Hitler and the Nazi party.”
