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.

poetry

Walt Whitman, “A Woman Waits for Me” (“Poem of Procreation”)

May 15, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Among the references in Emma Goldman’s writings on sex, Walt Whitman is undoubtedly key. His poem, “A Woman Waits for Me,” is referenced at the end of “The Element of Sex in Life.”] A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking. Sex contains all, bodies, souls, Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk, All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, All the governments, judges, […]
drama

Nelly Roussel, “By Rebellion!” (1904)

January 2, 2015
To all women, my sisters. To the Eternal Creatress, aching and unknown. By Rebellion! A SYMBOLIC SCENE  By NELLY ROUSSEL (Mme. Godet)    SCENE I. EVE, sorrowfully. Oh! My bruised wrists hurt me!… For so long they have borne chains!… My poor eyes, drowning in tears, will go blind!… For so many centuries they have cried!…           Gazing at her chains and lifting them painfully.  Ah! Alas! Alas! In my slavery and my abandonment, where will I find a drop of water to quench my thirst, manna to comfort my hunger, rest to relieve my exhausted flesh, and consoling words […]
biography

Mary Putnam-Jacobi, obituary for Susan J. Dimock (1847-1875)

January 1, 2015
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] [It should come as no surprise that women who were rebels in other aspects of life would have connections to the anarchist movement. This was certainly true among the pioneering women physicians in the United States. The following obituary was written by Mary Putnam-Jacobi, who boarded with the Reclus family while studying in Paris, for Susan Dimock, whose medical training was partially supported by the family of William B. Greene. Greene’s daughter Bessie was traveling with Dimock when they both died in the shipwreck of the Schiller in 1875. I’ll be […]
The Sex Question

Nelly Roussel, “What is ‘Feminism’?” (1906)

January 1, 2015 anarchisms_w4l2ii
WHAT IS “FEMINISM”? No French word is more often badly understood and falsely interpreted than the one that designates the ensemble of our demands. And I do not fear to affirm that some men, and men women, are “feminists” without knowing it, all while rejecting the title. Some—despite the evidence—persist in seeing in “feminism” only a masculinization of woman, a servile and grotesque copy of the male by his envious companion. Others believe they have discovered there a disturbing tendency to invert the roles, to replace masculine domination with an equally unjust, equally abusive feminine domination, and to reduce the […]
biography

Suzanne Voilquin, “Suicide of Claire Démar and Perret Desessarts” (1855)

January 1, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
SUICIDE of Claire Démar and Perret Desessarts. My soul painfully gripped by the dismal drama that has just played out before our eyes, I can, today, only deplore the loss of these two victims of the social and religious anarchy of the century, and share the reflections that this sad event has engendered in me. But, above all, I must seek to destroy a calumny that all the newspapers have been pleased to repeat. All have made known, coldly citing the event, that intimate relations existed between Claire and Desessarts. For those who have sounded the depths of the human […]
biography

Amilcare Cipriani, “A Woman” (1902)

April 27, 2014
A WOMAN Nature had been kind in bestowing her gifts on her; beauty, goodness, strength, will and energy, she possessed all these in the highest degree. She might have been happy, she chose instead to embrace and devote herself, to the “cause” which spreads fear amongst cowards and governments. Life had just commenced to smile on her, when the Italian war of Independence broke out. Three of her brothers took up arms to deliver their enslaved motherland. She had already been asked in marriage, but refused. “I cannot think of marriage,” said she, “while my brothers are risking their lives […]
The Sex Question

Pauline Roland, “Have Women the Right to Labor?” (1851)

March 31, 2014 anarchisms_w4l2ii
  A Letter from Pauline Roland We extract from the Espérance a letter of a courageous and intelligent woman, a martyr of modern times, a heroine of Socialism, dead fighting for Progress and for Humanity. Pauline Roland is no more—and yet she still fights among us, with the drops of her blood as with the pearls of her thought, she shakes the scourge at the heads of the reactionaries, revolution in the faces of the civilized? Have Women the Right to Labor? [1] A Simple Question Addressed by a captive to the citizen Emile de Girardin, editor of the Bien-Etre […]
fiction

André Léo, “The Young Girl and the Bird” (1850)

February 8, 2014 anarchisms_w4l2ii
It’s certainly no surprise to find work by André Léo in Pierre Leroux’s journal La Revue Sociale. The prolific writer, whose real name was Victoire Léodile Béra, was married to the editor, Grégoire Champseix. But much of her literary output was later, after Champseix’s death, and despite all the very interesting material that I have pulled from La Revue Sociale, I’ll admit that I have never been able to steal the time to give the journal all the attention I’m sure it deserves. So it was nice to find that members of L’Association André Léo have identified a number of […]
correspondence

Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “A letter from America” (1868)

January 17, 2014
[I’ve been working on the remaining untranslated portions of Jenny d’Héricourt’s Woman Affranchised, which has included a number of pleasant surprises, including some borrowings from her adversary Proudhon that suggest she was a close and careful reader of much of his work. I also made another search through the online archives for material I hadn’t seen and ran across this letter to La Solidarité: journal des principes, a journal published by Charles Fauvety, who was both a friend of Héricourt and an old collaborator of Proudhon’s. Fauvety was also indirectly connected, through association with Alphonse-Louis Constant, aka Eliphas Lévi, with […]
biography

Olga Liubatovitch and other women from the Russian nihilist movement

August 23, 2013
As a companion to the Frondeuse series, I’ve assembled a collection featuring Stepniak’s “A Female Nihilist,” an account of the life of Olga Liubatovitch, together with a selection of poems and popular journalism relating to other women involved in the struggles against the Czars and their government. The popular accounts naturally made the most of the apparent contrasts between the beauty and education of those women, and the violence of their acts.