It is out of the question that the task of socialist women's activity should be to alienate proletarian women from duties as wives and mothers; on the contrary, it must operate so this task is fulfilled better than before, precisely in the interests of the proletariat.
Interpretation
Socialist women's activities should enhance, not diminish, the roles of women in family and society.
Clara Zetkin emphasizes that the objective of socialist women's engagement in politics and social issues should not be to detach proletarian women from their traditional roles as wives and mothers. Instead, their efforts should aim to improve these roles, thereby benefiting both women and the working class as a whole. This reflects a belief that women's empowerment can be achieved without sacrificing familial responsibilities.
In practice
During a women's rights conference, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of balancing women's societal roles with their responsibilities at home.
In individual industries where female labour pays an important role, any movement advocating better wages, shorter working hours, etc., would not be doomed from the start because of the attitude of those women workers who are not organized.
When the men are silent, it is our duty to raise our voices in behalf of our ideals.
For reforms ameliorate the situation of the working class, they lighten the weight of the chains labour is burdened with by capitalism, but they are not sufficient to crush capitalism and to emancipate the workers from their tyranny.
When the men kill, it is up to us women to fight for the preservation of life.
Each reform, therefore, improving the economical and political situation of the workers proves to be an arm that increases the energy with which the proletarian struggle of classes is fought.
The socialist parties of all countries are duty bound to fight energetically for the implementation of universal women's suffrage which is to be vigorously advocated both by agitation and by parliamentary means. When a battle for suffrage is conducted, it should only be conducted according to socialist principles, and therefore with the demand of universal suffrage for women and men.
True patriotism is better than the wrong kind of piety.
It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless.
Liberty without discipline cannot survive. Without order and authority in the spirit of man the free way of life leads through weakness, disorganization, self-indulgence, and moral indifference to the destruction of freedom itself. The tragic ordeal through which the Western world is passing was prepared in the long period of easy liberty during which men forgot the elementary truths of human existence. They forgot that their freedom was achieved by heroic sacrifice.
A small grove massacred to the last ash, _x000D_ _x000D_ An oak with heart-rot, give away the show: _x000D_ _x000D_ This great society is going to smash; _x000D_ _x000D_ They cannot fool us with how fast they go, _x000D_ _x000D_ How much they cost each other and the gods. _x000D_ _x000D_ A culture is no better than its woods.
They were painfully clean. But inwardly they stank. Never once had they opened the door which leads to the soul; never once did they dream of taking a blind leap into the dark.
There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.
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