{"id":1660,"date":"2019-08-01T08:38:10","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T08:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/?page_id=1660"},"modified":"2019-08-01T08:38:10","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T08:38:10","slug":"lucy-parsons-on-women-and-revolutionary-socialism-1905","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/16-capital-and-labor\/lucy-parsons-on-women-and-revolutionary-socialism-1905\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucy Parsons on Women and Revolutionary Socialism (1905)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lucy Parsons was born\ninto slavery in Texas, married a white radical, Albert Parsons, and moved to\nChicago where they both worked on behalf of radical causes. After Albert\nParsons was executed for conspiracy in the aftermath of the Haymarket bombing, Lucy\nParsons emerged as a major American radical and vocal advocate of anarchism. In\n1905, she spoke before the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the\nWorld (IWW). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish to\nstate to you that I have taken the floor because no other woman has responded,\nand I feel that it would not be out of place for me to say in my poor way a few\nwords about this movement. We, the women of this country, have no ballot even\nif we wished to use it, and the only way that we can be represented is to take\na man to represent us. You men have made such a mess of it in representing us\nthat we have not much confidence in asking you; and I for one feel very\nbackward in asking the men to represent me. We have no ballot, but we have our\nlabor. I think it is August Bebel, in his Woman\nin the Past, Present and Future<\/em>\u2014a book that should be read by every woman\nthat works for wages\u2014Bebel says that men have been slaves throughout all the\nages, but that woman\u2019s condition has been worse, for she has been the slave of\na slave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was\nnever a greater truth uttered. We are the slaves of the slaves. We are\nexploited more ruthlessly than men. Wherever wages are to be reduced the\ncapitalist class use women to reduce them \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 It is a\nbread and butter question, an economic issue, upon which the fight must be\nmade. Now, what do we mean when we say revolutionary Socialist? We mean that\nthe land shall belong to the landless, the tools to the toiler, and the\nproducts to the producers. Now, let us analyze that for just a moment, before\nyou applaud me. First, the land belongs to the landless. Is there a single land\nowner in this country who owns his land by the constitutional rights given by\nthe constitution of the United States who will allow you to vote it away from\nhim? I am not such a fool as to believe it. We say, \u201cThe tools belong to the\ntoiler.\u201d They are owned by the capitalist class. Do you believe they will allow\nyou to go into the halls of the legislature and simply say, \u201cBe it enacted that\non and after a certain day the capitalist shall no longer own the tools and the\nfactories and the places of industry, the ships that plow the ocean and our\nlakes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you\nbelieve that they will submit? I do not. We say, \u201cThe product belongs to the\nproducers.\u201d It belongs to the capitalist class as their legal property. Do you\nthink that they will allow you to vote them away from them by passing a law and\nsaying, \u201cBe it enacted that on and after a certain day Mr. Capitalist shall be\ndispossessed?\u201d You may, but I do not believe it. Hence, when you roll under\nyour tongue the expression that you are revolutionists, remember what that word\nmeans. It means a revolution that shall turn all these things over where they\nbelong\u2014to the wealth producers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, how\nshall the wealth-producers come into possession of them? I believe that if\nevery man and every woman who works, or who toils in the mines, the mills, the\nworkshops, the fields, the factories and the farms in our broad America should\ndecide in their minds that they shall have that which of right belongs to them,\nand that no idler shall live upon their toil, and when your new organization,\nyour economic organization, shall declare as man to man and woman to woman, as\nbrothers and sisters, that you are determined that you will possess these\nthings, then there is no army that is large enough to overcome you, for you\nyourselves constitute the army. Now, when you have decided that you will take\npossession of these things, there will not need to be one gun fired or one\nscaffold erected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will\nsimply come into your own, by your own independence and your own manhood, and\nby asserting your own individuality, and not sending any man to any legislature\nin any State of the American Union to enact a law that you shall have what is\nyour own; yours by nature and by your manhood and by your very presence upon\nthis Earth. Nature has been lavish to her children. She has placed in this\nEarth all the material of wealth that is necessary to make men and women happy.\nShe has given us brains to go into her storehouse and bring from its recesses\nall that is necessary. She has given us these two hands and these brains to manufacture\nthem on a parallel with all other civilizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 Now, I\nthank you for the time that I have taken up of yours. I hope that we will meet\nagain some time, you and I, in some hall where we can meet and organize the\nwage workers of America, the men and women, so that the children may not go\ninto the factories, nor the women into the factories, unless they go under\nproper conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope even\nnow to live to see the day when the first dawn of the new era will have arisen,\nwhen capitalism will be a thing of the past, and the new industrial republic,\nthe commonwealth of labor, shall be in operation. I thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source:International Workers of the World, Proceedings of The First Convention of the\nIndustrial Workers of the World <\/em>(New York: New York Labor News Company,\n1905), 167-172. Available online via Google Books (https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=ifRQAQAAMAAJ<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lucy Parsons was born into slavery in Texas, married a white radical, Albert Parsons, and moved to Chicago where they both worked on behalf of radical causes. After Albert Parsons was executed for conspiracy in the aftermath of the Haymarket bombing, Lucy Parsons emerged as a major American radical and vocal advocate of anarchism. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":366,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1660","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1661,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1660\/revisions\/1661"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}