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Title: To Woman Author: Ricardo Flores MagĂłn Date: September 24, 1910 Language: en Topics: Regeneracion, women, anarcha-feminism, letter Source: Retrieved on 4th August 2020 from http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/magon/works/regen/mujer.html
Compañeras:
Revolution approaches! With angered eyes, and flaming hair, her
trembling hands knock anxiously on the doors of our nation. Let us
welcome her with serenity, for although she carries death in her breast,
she is the announcement of life, the herald of hope. She will destroy
and create at the same time; she will raze and build. Her fists are the
invincible fists of a people in rebellion. She does not offer roses or
caresses; she offers an axe and a torch.
Interrupting the millennial feast of the content, sedition raises her
head, and the prophecy of Balthasar has with time become a clenched fist
hanging over the heads of the so-called ruling class. Revolution
approaches! Her mission will ignite the flames in which privilege and
injustice will burn. Compañeras, do not fear the revolution. You
constitute one-half of the human species and what affects humanity
affects you as an integral part of it. If men are slaves, you are too.
Bondage does not recognize sex; the infamy that degrades men equally
degrades you. You cannot escape the shame of oppression. The same forces
which conquer men strangle you.
We must stand in solidarity in the grand conquest for freedom and
happiness. Are you mothers? Are you wives? Are you sisters? Are you
daughters? Your duty is to help man; to be there to encourage him when
he vacillates; stand by his side when he suffers; to lighten his sorrow;
to laugh and to sing with him when victory smiles. You don’t understand
politics? This is not a question of politics; this is a matter of life
or death. Man’s bondage is yours and perhaps yours is more sorrowful,
more sinister, and more infamous.
Are you a worker? Because you are a woman you are paid less than men,
and made to work harder. You must suffer the impertinence of the foreman
or proprietor; and if you are attractive, the bosses will make advances.
Should you weaken, they would rob you of your virtue in the same
cowardly manner as you are robbed of the product of your labor.
Under this regime of social injustice which corrupts humanity, the
existence of women wavers in the wretchedness of a destiny which fades
away either in the blackness of fatigue and hunger or in the obscurity
of marriage and prostitution.
In order to fully appreciate women’s part in universal suffering, it is
necessary to study page by page this somber book called Life, which like
so many thorns strips away the flesh of humanity.
So ancient is women’s misfortune that its origins are lost in the
obscurity of legend. In the infancy of mankind, the birth of a female
child was considered a disgrace to the tribe. Women toiled the land,
carried firewood from the forest and water from the stream, tended the
livestock, constructed shelters, wove cloth, cooked food, and cared for
the sick and the young. The filthiest work was done by women. Should an
ox die of fatigue, the women took its place pulling the plow, and when
war broke out between rivaling tribes, the women merely changed masters,
and continued under the lash of the new owners, carrying out their tasks
as beasts of burden.
Later, under the influence of Greek civilization, women were elevated
one step in the esteem of men. No longer were they beasts of burden as
in the primitive clan, nor did they lead secluded lives as in oriental
societies. If they belonged to a free class, their role was one of
procreators of citizens for the state; if they were slaves, they
provided workers for the fields.
Christianity aggravated the situation of women with its contempt for the
flesh. The founding fathers of the Church vented their outbursts of rage
against feminine qualities. St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and other saints,
before whose statues women now kneel, referred to women as daughters of
the devil, vessels of impurity, and condemned them to the tortures of
hell.
Women’s position in this century varies according to their social
stature; but in spite of the refinements of customs and the progress of
philosophy, women continue subordinated to men by tradition and laws.
Women are perpetually treated as minors when the law places the wife
under the custody of the husband. She cannot vote or be elected, and to
enter into civil contracts she must own a sizeable fortune.
Throughout history women have been considered inferior to men, not only
by law but also by custom. From this erroneous and unjust concept
derives the misfortune which she has suffered since humanity
differentiated itself from lower animal forms by the use of fire and
tools.
Humiliated, degraded, bound by chains of tradition to an irrational
inferiority, indoctrinated in the affairs of heaven by clerics, but
totally ignorant of world problems, she is suddenly caught in the
whirlwind of industrial production which above all requires cheap labor
to sustain the competition created by the voracious “princes of capital”
who exploit her circumstances. She is not as prepared as men for the
industrial struggle, nor is she organized with the women of her class to
fight alongside her brother workers against the rapacity of capitalism.
For this reason, though women work more than men, they are paid less,
and misery, mistreatment, and insult are today as yesterday the bitter
harvest for a whole existence of sacrifice. So meager are women’s
salaries that frequently they must prostitute themselves to meet their
families’ basic needs, especially when in the marketplace of marriage
they do not find a husband. When it is motivated by economic security
instead of love, marriage is but another form of prostitution,
sanctioned by the law and authorized by public officials. That is, a
wife sells her body for food exactly as does a prostitute; this occurs
in the majority of marriages. And what could be said of the vast army of
women who do not succeed in finding a husband? The increasing cost of
life’s basic necessities; the displacement of human labor by the
perfection of machinery; the ever-decreasing price of human labor—all
contribute to the burden of supporting a family. The compulsory draft
tears strong and healthy young men from the bosom of a society and
lessens the number eligible for marriage. Migration of workers, caused
by economic and political phenomena, also reduces the number of men
capable of marriage. Alcoholism, gambling and other ills of society
further reduce the number of available men. Consequently, the number of
single women grows alarmingly. Since their situation is so precarious,
they swell the ranks of prostitution, accelerating the degeneration of
the human race by this debasement of body and spirit.
Compañeras: This is the frightful picture offered by modern society. In
it you see men and women alike suffering the tyranny of a political and
social environment in complete discord with the progress of civilization
and the advances of philosophy. In times of anguish, however, do not
look up to the heavens for solutions and explanations because in that
lies the greatest contribution to your eternal bondage. The solution is
here on earth! That solution is rebellion.
Demand that your husbands, brothers, fathers, sons and friends pick up
the gun. Spit in the face of those who refuse to pick up a weapon
against oppression.
Revolution approaches! Jimenez and Acayucan, Palomas, Viesca, Las
Vacuous and Valladolid are the first gust of the inevitable wind. A
tragic paradox: freedom, which is life, is gained by imparting death!