What made women's labour particularly attractive to the capitalists was not only its lower price but also the greater submissiveness of women.
From Clara Zetkin
When the men are silent, it is our duty to raise our voices in behalf of our ideals.
We would, however, perform an injustice to the bourgeois women's rights movement if we would regard it as solely motivated by economics. No, this movement also contains a more profound spiritual and moral aspect.
The proletarian woman fights hand in hand with the man of her class against capitalist society.
The most disastrous phenomenon of the current situation is the factor that imperialism is employing for its own ends all the powers of the proletariat, all of its institutions and weapons, which its fighting vanguard has created for its war of liberation.
These interests of the workers, as the exploited and oppressed, class of society, are the same in all countries.
The workers have nothing to gain from this war, but they stand to lose everything that is dear to them.
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.
The capitalists speculate on the two following factors: the female worker must be paid as poorly as possible and the competition of female labour must be employed to lower the wages of male workers as much as possible.
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.
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