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The first edition of this book appeared in 1905. That edition is exhausted,—an evidence of the great present-day interest in the woman’s rights movement. This new edition takes into account the developments since 1905, contains the recent statistical data, and gives an account of the woman’s suffrage movement which has been especially characteristic of these later years. Wherever the statistical data have been left unchanged, either there have been no new censuses or the new results were not available.

The facts contained in this volume do not require of me any prefatory observations on the theoretical justification of the woman’s rights movement.[1] From the remotest time man has tried to rule her who ought to be comrade and colleague to him. By virtue of the law of might he generally succeeded. Every protest against this law of might was a “woman’s rights movement.”

History contains many such protests. The modern woman’s rights movement is the first organized and international protest of this kind. Therefore it is a movement full of success and promise. Leadership in this movement has fallen to the women of the Caucasian race, among whom the women of the United States have been foremost. At their instigation were formed the World’s Christian Temperance Union, the International Council of Women, and the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance.

In many lands, even in those inhabited by the white race, there are, however, only very feeble beginnings of the woman’s rights movement. In the Orient, the Far East, and in Africa, woman’s condition of bondage is still almost entirely unbroken. Nevertheless, in these regions of the world, too, woman’s day is dawning in such a way that we look for developments more confidently than ever before.

In all countries the woman’s rights movement originated with the middle classes. This is a purely historical fact which in itself in no way implies any antagonism between the woman’s rights movement and the workingwomen’s movement. There is no such antagonism either in Australia, or in England, or in the United States. On the contrary, the middle class and non-middle class movements are sharply separated in those countries whose social democracy uses class-hatred as propaganda. Whether the woman’s rights movement is also a workingwomen’s movement, or whether the workingwomen’s movement is also a woman’s rights movement or socialism, depends therefore in every particular case on national and historical circumstances.

The international organization of the woman’s rights movement is as follows: the International Council of Women consists of the presiding officers of the various National Councils of Women. Of these latter there are to-day twenty-seven; but the Servian League of Woman’s Clubs has not yet joined.[2] To a National Council may belong all those woman’s clubs of a country which unite in carrying out a certain general programme. The programmes as well as the organizations are national in their nature, but they all agree in their general characteristics, since the woman’s rights movement is indeed an international movement and arose in all countries from the same general conditions. The first National Council was organized in the United States in 1888. This was followed by organizations in Canada, Germany, Sweden, England, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia (with five councils), Switzerland, Italy, France, Austria, Norway, Hungary, etc.

As yet there are no statistics of the women represented in the International Council. Its membership is estimated at seven or eight millions. The National Council admits only clubs,—not individuals,—the chairmen of the various National Councils forming the International Council of Women solely in their capacity of presiding officers.

This International Council of Women is the permanent body promoting the organized international woman’s rights movement. It was organized in Washington in 1888.

The woman’s suffrage movement, a separate phase of the woman’s rights movement, has likewise organized itself internationally,—though independently. Woman’s suffrage is the most radical demand made by organized women, and is hence advocated in all countries by the “radical” woman’s rights advocates. The greater part of the membership of the National Councils have therefore not been able in all cases to insert woman’s suffrage in their programmes. The International Council did sanction this point, however, June 9, 1904, in Berlin.

A few days previously there had been organized as the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance, likewise in Berlin, woman’s suffrage leagues representing eight different countries. The leagues which joined the Alliance represented the United States, Victoria, England, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Since then the woman’s suffrage movement has been the most flourishing part of the woman’s rights movement. The International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance, which was pledged to hold a second congress only at the end of five years, has already held three congresses between 1905 and 1909 (1906, Copenhagen; 1908, Amsterdam; 1909, London), and has extended its membership to twenty-one countries (the United States, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Russia, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Servia, and Iceland). The first president is Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt.

The chief demands of the woman’s rights movement are the same in all countries. These demands are four in number.

1. In the field of education and instruction: to enjoy the same educational opportunities as those of man.

2. In the field of labor: freedom to choose any occupation, and equal pay for the same work.

3. In the field of civil law: the wife should be given the full status of a legal person before the law, and full civil ability. In criminal law: the repeal of all regulations discriminating against women. The legal responsibility of man in sexual matters. In public law: woman’s suffrage.

4. In the social field: recognition of the high value of woman’s domestic and social work, and the incompleteness, harshness, and one-sidedness of every circle of man’s activity (Männerwelt) from which woman is excluded.

A just and happy relationship of the sexes is dependent upon mutuality, coördination, and the complementary relations of man and woman,—not upon the subordination of woman and the predominance of man. Woman, in her peculiar sphere, is entirely the equal of man in his. The origin of the international woman’s rights movement is found in the world-wide disregard of this elementary truth.

The subject which I have treated in this book is a very broad one, the material much scattered and daily changing. It is therefore hardly possible that my statements should not have deficiencies on the one hand, and errors on the other. I shall indeed welcome any corrections and authoritative information of a supplementary nature.[3]

THE AUTHORESS.

PARIS, JUNE 3, 1909.