Clara Zetkin and the Socialist Women’s International

Abstract

This article focuses on the political activities of women within German SocialDemocracy and the Socialist Women´s International. The leader of both organizations, ClaraZetkin, wrote texts that provided the theoretical foundations for the Marxist perspective on the“woman question” and paved the way for the incorporation of working women into the proletarianstruggle for socialism. Based on the proceedings and reports of the socialist women’s conferences,we reconstruct the main discussions and resolutions of these organisations until their dissolutionin 1915, such as the relationship with bourgeois feminists, protective legislation for femaleworkers, women´s suffrage, and International Women’s Day.