Audiobook

Modern Woman's Rights Movement

Käthe Schirmacher

A history of the international woman’s rights movements originally published in 1905 and updated in 1909; English translation published in 1912. A lot has been written about the woman’s suffrage movements in the United States and England, but this book is unique in that it includes, in addition, chapters on the international woman's rights efforts in countries across North American, Europe, Africa and Asia.

"The facts contained in this volume do not require of me any prefatory observations on the theoretical justification of the woman’s rights movement. From the remotest time man has tried to rule her who ought to be comrade and colleague to him. By virtue of the law of might he generally succeeded. Every protest against this law of might was a “woman’s rights movement.”

"A just and happy relationship of the sexes is dependent upon mutuality, coördination, and the complementary relations of man and woman,—not upon the subordination of woman and the predominance of man. Woman, in her peculiar sphere, is entirely the equal of man in his. The origin of the international woman’s rights movement is found in the world-wide disregard of this elementary truth." (Summary by J. M. Smallheer with quotes from the preface)