Frauenfrage und Sozialdemokratie

This volume consists of two speeches delivered by German feminist Lily Braun (Lily Braun-Gizycki) at the time of the International Women's Congress in Berlin in 1896. In her address to the International Congress for Women's Work (Internationalen Kongress für Frauenwerke und Frauenbestrebungen), Braun discussed the differences between the bourgeois women's movement and the Socialist women's movement. She noted that working-class representatives were invited to the Berlin congress but declined to participate. Working-class women saw women's rights as part of larger social issues addressed by the Social Democrats in parliament. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) and its 48 representatives stood for all women, according to Braun, and she encouraged the audience to attend two large Socialist public meetings where she, Clara Zetkin, Emma Ihrer, Martha Rohrlack, Marie (?) Griefenberg, and Ottilie Baader were scheduled to speak about German women workers' rights. The second speech is Braun's address to a Socialist public meeting (Volksversammlung) in the Martens Ballroom. Here Braun argued for cooperation between the Socialist and bourgeois women's movements. Citing examples from social and labor movements in England and Germany, Braun addressed the prejudices and misunderstandings between the bourgeois and socialist women's movements. She described the efforts of Social Democrats to address the problems of working-class families in detail, including long workdays, the lack of maternity benefits and poor nutrition, as a counterargument to bourgeois claims that Social Democrats aimed to destroy the family. In addition, she refuted bourgeois fears that Social Democrats would destroy religion. Braun asserted that the SPD was the only party that advocated equal rights through direct universal suffrage.