Part 10: Chapter X: Socialism, Feminism, and Imperialism? 1895-1900.
Chapter X: Socialism, Feminism, and Imperialism? 1895-1900.
The third annual Women's Parliament of Munich will come to order! Ladies, as the 20th century dawns it is more of a disgrace than ever that Eduard Bernstein and the Socialist Workers Party, despite their avowed commitment to increasing the ability of all who toil to take part in government, refuse to let us participate. Do we not toil? Are our bodies not mangled by the mills and do we not come home, ghostlike, from our 14 hour shifts on the lines? Do we not leave positions where lecherous overseers poke and prod us to go home to be beaten by an animalistic drunken husband, desperate to assert himself after losing yet another job? The Socialists say they speak for the workingman, well, let them listen to the working woman!
Our government issues predatory loans to countries that cannot possibly pay, then attempts to control them when they inevitably don't pay.
Our government sends over ten thousand of our sons and husbands to a grave in pagan India shooting at rebels to preserve Ludwig's folly.
Then it promptly surrenders vast tracks of India to foreign princelings to avoid a real fight.
Our government turns its back on Greece when its workers had enough.
Allowing the Turks to reconquer the proud workers of Greece.
Our government condemned the people of Haiti for overthrowing a corrupt king because that king had been installed with SGF money.
Our government turns a blind eye as its social-democratic ally, the Netherlands, embarks on a blatantly imperialist adventure.
What have the ladies of SGF been up to?
Training Czech gymnasts...
Who took the gold at the Athens games (I was there, right there in the heart of the Workers Revolution!).
Do the women of SGF not toil in the small restaurants and storefronts?
In the small industries?
In the great publicly traded factories?
Do they not have to suffer the indignity of competing for positions with migrants who will work for nothing?
Yet Eduard ignores our cause and even his own! Rather than sending money to old age pensions so our mothers can live the rest of their lives in dignity, he seeks the North Pole!
No wonder so many of us are moving to Canada.
Or New Zealand.
Are you tired of the social scientists ready to examine your "hysteria?"
Who attribute our righteous anger at our lack of say in public life to our biology?
Who contemptuously roll their eyes when we dare suggest that the trouble is not with ourselves, but with society?
It was Engels who suggested that the first class war was the subjugation of women by men. Until that primordial evil is rectified, how can one hope to address the myriad other social problems in the world?
Women aren't afraid of a little mud on our dresses!
And Mr. Bernstein is so afraid of being put to shame by our hunger strikers that he lets them go!
He kicks our ladies out of classes because they say "If you, sir, is upset" instead of "are,"
So we have to teach our sisters ourselves!
He ignores the op-ed in Forward! encouraging women's suffrage.
He ignores the voters overwhelmingly preferring parties that favor our right to participate and chooses to remain in power.
Instead, he devotes his attention to his navy.
What is it with men and turrets, anyway?
Men get nervous that other men just might have a larger "turret" then they do. And they claim such a ridiculous breed is the dominant sex?
Now that the NGF has turned its attention to naval affairs, Eduard will have to settle for having the second-largest turret in Germany.
Imperialism? Just a turret-measuring contest.
The Dutch fear the Tsar too much to follow through with what they believe is right...do they fear the colossal turrets on the Tsar's naval vessels?
Egypt and Tunisia claim to be modern, but they're no better on women's issues than the rest of the world.
Egypt buries its dead men in a solid gold sarcophagus. No such luck for the ladies!
Other nations reject even the pretense of social progress and retreat into reactionary cuccoons.
Women can handle heavy industry just as well as men, and can even conduct trains, if we were given a chance!
Imperialism dressed up as Socialist hypocrisy is the same whether it comes from Amsterdam, Paris, or Munich.
Men are the same worldwide, greedy warmongering pigs.
Well, the men of Portugal aren't particularly good at being greedy warmongering pigs. They still use wooden ships, have you noticed the tiny turrets on those Portuguese frigates?
Sisters, the time to end the folly of men is here. Even Portugal has banned slavery, leaving Brazil and Colombia as the world's last two holdouts on this front. Women have been leaders in the Abolitionist movement since it was founded, let us take it home!
Have you ever noticed that sometimes Socialist unions are the most macho and misogynist of all?
And now our husbands get to vote in two houses that Bernstein will ignore instead of one.
The French Pacifists wouldn't lead the struggle against us, leaving the negotiations in the hands of the Spaniards. Bernstein pretends to love peace, but he clearly relished in the opportunity to humiliate these powers.
The victories had high-profile coverage, the defeats ignored.
So much for "we'll be in Rome by Christmas." It took Sicilian soldiers marching into Rome after its defenders inexplicably left to bring down the Italians.
Did any of your husbands come home from the war flexing and boasting of slaughtering the French? The ill-trained conscripts, scared teenagers sent against our hardened soldier class? Men and their boasting.
Even America is scared of the Tsar.
Is there anything more pathetic than Spain's vast oversized yet decades-out-of-date army which seems to exist solely to crush revolts in the Philippines?
So much for "peace without annexations or indemnities."
Bernstein's just as much of an imperialist as the rest.
What? We have controlled Alsace for literally two weeks and it's already pacified? It felt like years.
The fact remains that Eduard Bernstein, despite his Socialist pretensions, runs the most backwards and reactionary regime west of Russia. Men cannot change that, but we can, sisters! The 20th century shall be remembered as the women's century.
SGF's Economy
Demographics (Check out Ideology! The Socialists are not popular at all)
Great Power Rankings
Technology
The World, 1900
