The Sex Question

In the writings of the 19th and early 20th century, the questions we associate with feminism were addressed under a variety of labels, one of the most economical of which was “the sex question,” which referred, in practice, to a wide range of question concerning sex, gender, sexuality, etc. The texts collected here cover a wide range of “women’s issues.” The current collection includes material previously contained in the following archives: La Frondeuse (Black and Red Feminist History), Anarchy and the Sex Question and A Beautiful Nihilist.

The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Relation of Sex in Humanity” (1894)

April 7, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third] RELATION OF SEX IN HUMANITY. By Voltairine de Cleyre. A Lecture Delivered before the Ladies Liberal League, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 12, ’93, in Reply to Professor Cope. Before proceeding to state my own position on the subject of the relation of sex, I will very briefly restate the principal points of Professor Cope’s argument. He viewed the question from the two standpoints of biology and sociology, beginning with the former which, he declared, furnishes the foundation facts from which sociological conclusions are to be drawn. And having done so, arrived at the conclusion that the natural position of woman […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre in “Lucifer the Light-bearer”

April 7, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
  [ A FIRST LETTER TO “LUCIFER” ] Phila., March 5, ’90. Dear Sir: I have for some time contemplated sending you a line, to let you know that I, at least, do not belong to that ultra-fine class of reformers who are afraid of facts. Certainly I do not make the sex question the prime issue, for the reason that I believe sexual freedom to be impossible short of economic independence; nevertheless I honor you for your fearlessness in fighting the battle which you believe to be most necessary; and certainly any one who takes the slightest pains to […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Gates of Freedom” (1891)

April 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third] The Gates of Freedom [Address delivered before the Liberal Convention at Topeka, Kan., March 15, `89`.] “They have rights who dare maintain them.” This is my text. And the purpose of my lecture is threefold. First to state the facts concerning the actual status of woman in relation to society as a whole—what position she really holds in human economy. Not, mind you, what classes of men regard her, not how “she is considered by the law,” not what she herself imagines, but the bald fact of what she is. Second—to show upon what ground we demand certain “rights” […]
progress reports

Dyer D. Lum, “To Hell with Her” (1891)

April 5, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third] “To Hell With Her.” I know a woman (in the profane, rather than in the sacred sense of that verb). She was born in far Norseland, and the bloom on her cheeks vied with the aurora borealis, the one dazzling young fishermen by day as the other did by night. Radiant in beauty and health, an eidelweiss on the bleak snow-covered scenery, the natural instincts which burn even in polar regions had their way: she married early. She gave birth to six children. She is now thirty and in this land of liberty. Free, or a deserted wife to […]
Featured articles

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Courting” (1890)

April 4, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third] COURTING Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 15, ’90. A friend and myself undertook that serious affair the other day, and the results being peculiar I want to take the public into my confidence. People usually prefer privacy on such occasions, but we got into a roomful all intent on the same errand. Specified, the errand was this: The famous “Kreutzer Sonata” was to be tried. Tolstoi, voice by Robert Arundel, was to justify himself before Judge Arnold; the prosecuting attorney, over the heads of a few poor itinerant booksellers, was to tear the asceticism of Galilee in rags, and the public […]
poetry

Charles Keller, “Their Poor Reasons”

December 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] LEURS PAUVRES RAISONS A Madame André Léo. Ce n’est pas sans bonnes raisons Qu’ils trottinent tous vers l’église, Chaque dimanche, comme oisons Que le Bon Pasteur mobilise! * * * Leurs raisons? — Interrogez-les. Ils n’en ont point, ou n’en ont guère : — Leurs ancêtres y sont allés; C’est la coutume séculaire. — Il faut de la religion, Disent les bonnes paysannes; La messe et la communion Ne sont pas faites pour les ânes. — Et pourquoi, grondent les anciens, Les gens qui travaillent la terre Vivraient-ils comme des païens ? Ils ont déjà tant de […]
The Sex Question

Lucien Descaves, “A Friend of Varlin” (Nathalie Le Mel)

December 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
Nathalie Le Mel [tag feed]   A Friend of Varlin Last week there died, at the hospice of Ivry, at 95 years of age, an old revolutionary that I have known well and to whom I owe one of my greatest joys as a man of letters. One day when I was questioning Martelet, the former member of the Commune, about his colleague Varlin, the finest figure of a worker from those heroic times, Martelet said to me: “You have, practically next door, a woman who fought the good fight beside him in the last years of the Empire. She […]
The Sex Question

Welcome to “Anarchy and the Sex Question”

December 17, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
PROJECT LINKS: Purchase Anarchy and the Sex Question Emma Goldman page Emma Goldman [tag feed] Voltairine de Cleyre page Lizzie M. Holmes page Louise Michel page The Sex Question category feed WORKING TRANSLATIONS: Jenny P. d’Hericourt, A Letter from America Jenny P. d’Hericourt, “The Valain Family” (1847) Jeanne Deroin, Letter to P.-J. Proudhon (January 28, 1849) Jeanne Deroin, Letter to the Associations on the Organization of Credit (1851) Jeanne Deroin, “The Mission of Women in the Present and in the Future” (first article) (1849) Jeanne Deroin, “Prospectus” of l’Opinion des Femmes (1848) Jeanne Deroin, “To the members of the commission […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine De Cleyre, “Mary Wollstonecraft—The Apostle of Woman’s Freedom” (1893)

August 24, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
For the Boston Investigator. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT—THE APOSTLE OF WOMAN’S FREEDOM. — AN ADDRESS Delivered at the International Congress of Freethinkers at Chicago. — By Voltairine de Cleyre. — “Quietly does the clear light, shining day after day, refute the ignorant surmise, or malicious tale, which has thrown dirt on a pure character.”—[Mary Wolstonecraft’s “Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” p. 143, Humboldt Library Edition. — To touch with the commanding fire of the resurrection the crumbling bones of one who rots these hundred years; to call from our her grave in Bournmouth churchyard the form stricken from the passion and […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine De Cleyre, “Mary Wollstonecraft” (1894)

August 20, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
For the Boston Investigator. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT. Mr. Editor:—Yourself and readers will be interested to learn that the plan of establishing a “female saint’s day” among freethinkers, by commemorating the birth of Mary Wollstonecraft, proposed by myself at the international congress of freethinkers, last October, has taken practical form in this city. The Ladies’ Liberal League, of Philadelphia, (which is not, by the way, an auxiliary of the Friendship Liberal League, as state by Mr. Charlesworth in a communication last fall, and I correct the error in the interest of both societies, the former being a much more radical group than […]