Social-Democracy and Woman Suffrage A Paper Read by Clara Zetkin to the Conference of Women Belonging to the Social-Democratic Party Held at Mannheim, Before the Opening of the Annual Congress of the German Social-Democracy

In this compelling address delivered to a gathering of Social‑Democratic women in early twentieth‑century Germany, the speaker lays out why the fight for women’s voting rights can no longer wait. Framed as a practical, urgent demand rather than a theoretical exercise, the speech situates suffrage within the broader struggle for workers’ emancipation. It calls on comrades to clarify their tactics and to present the issue as a concrete, mass‑based political campaign.

What sets this text apart is its sharp critique of middle‑class suffragist rhetoric that leans on abstract notions of “natural rights.” Instead, the author argues that women’s enfranchisement must be understood as a social right emerging from the contradictions of capitalist production and the material misery of the majority of women workers. By linking economic analysis, historical experience, and revolutionary urgency, the pamphlet urges a unified, class‑conscious movement that can bring the demand for suffrage to the public arena.