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.
Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define the "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival".
By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. For "totalitarian" is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests.
In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run (and so far, human history has consisted only of short runs), the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims.
Contemporary industrial society is now characterised more than ever by "the need for stupefying work where it is no longer a real necessity."
If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.
Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them.
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