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, “They Who Marry Do Ill” (1908)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
THEY WHO MARRY DO ILL By VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE. (A lecture presenting the negative side of the question, whose positive was argued under the heading “They Who Marry Do Well,” by Dr. Henrietta P. Westbrook; both lectures delivered before the Radical Liberal League, Philadelphia, April 28, 1907.) LET me make myself understood on two points, now, so that when discussion arises later, words may not be wasted in considering things not in question: First—How shall we measure doing well or doing ill; Second—What I mean by marriage. So much as T have been able to put together the pieces of […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “November 11, Twenty Years Ago” (1907)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
A PEACEABLE MEETING of protest against a murderous attack of the police on strikers, a meeting already half dispersed because of an approaching storm; an unprovoked attack by two hundred police upon the remnant of the meeting; a sullen glow in the air, a dull and angry roar, wounded and dying police and citizens, terror and consternation, bewildered faces and flying feet, a panic-stricken city full of the savagery of fright! So passed the 4th of May, 1886, into history. A wild and insane spirit of revenge, a determination to hang somebody, as many as possible, a crystallization of that […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “McKinley’s Assassination from the Anarchist Standpoint” (1907)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
SIX years have passed since William McKinley met his doom at Buffalo and the return stroke of justice took the life of his slayer, Leon Czolgosz. The wild rage that stormed through the brains of the people, following that revolver shot, turning them into temporary madmen, incapable of seeing, hearing, or thinking correctly, has spent itself. Figures are beginning to appear in their true relative proportions, and there is some likelihood that sane words will be sanely listened to. Instead of the wild and savage threats, “Brand the Anarchists with hot iron,” “Boil in oil,” “Hang to the first lamp-post,” […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Hugh O. Pentecost” (1907)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
EIGHTEEN or nineteen years ago, away out in a sleepy little Michigan town, there fell into my hands a tiny bit of a paper “no bigger than a man’s hand”; there were only four sheets of it, but every word was vibrant with life and power. It was written by Hugh O. Pentecost and T. B. McCready, and at this hour I feel my eyes opening wide again as they did that morning with the light and the movement in the swinging lines. They were Single-Taxers then, but with an alarming freedom in their handling of it that must have […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Events are the True Schoolmasters” (1907)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
I count it as one of the best fortunes of my life that in my early days as an anarchist it was my privilege to know Dyer D. Lum. These thirteen years he is in his grave, and yet whenever editors and contributors of anarchist journals fall to denouncing the actions of the unwise, the ebullitions of the mass, I hear his voice, as yesterday, saying in his short, brusque way: “Events are the true schoolmasters.” There was in his day, as there is now, a certain percentage of propagandists who think that they possess the truth, the whole truth, […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Review—The Curse of Race Prejudice” (1906)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
REVIEWS—THE CURSE OF RACE PREJUDICE. By Voltairine De Cleyre. LIKE all the writings of Jas. F. Morton, his “Curse of Race Prejudice” is conceived in a spirit of fairness—fair even to laboriousness at times. One might occasionally wish for a little more ginger to spice it! For if ever warmth was justified, it surely is when one is characterizing the unspeakable acts of Negrophobiacs and Jew torturers. Nevertheless the average reader will undoubtedly in the end be more deeply impressed by Morton’s quiet and even speech than by the gall that bites and the vinegar that eats. The substance of […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, et al, “James’s Vindication of Anarchism” (1906)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
JAMES’S VINDICATION OF ANARCHISM. AN APPEAL. Comrades and Friends:— It has been the earnest desire of many of the former readers of Free Society to see the work entitled, “Vindication of Anarchism,” by C. L. James, issued in book form. The comrades of Philadelphia, whose original suggestion was in a measure the occasion which called forth the work, have steadily kept this purpose in view ever since its serial appearance in Free Society, regarding it as one of the serious contributions to a fundamental literature of Anarchism. The creation of such a literature is, in our opinion, the most definite […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “An Open Letter to Maxim Gorky” (1906)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
AN OPEN LETTER. Philadelphia, Pa., Aug., 1906. Maxim Gorky, New York City. My right to address you is that I have felt the best that your soul has felt, and loved you for your voice that cried out of the deeps; and that not less have I felt the shame and degradation of your conduct as a weak and shambling creeper, since you have been in America. Hedged about like the Russian Czar by those that have used you and fooled you; seeker for the gifts of those who have spit in your face; insulter of those to whom you […]
fiction

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Triumph of Youth” (1906)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Triumph of Youth THE afternoon blazed and glittered along the motionless tree-tops and down into the yellow dust of the road. Under the shadows of the trees, among the powdered grass and bushes, sat a woman and a man. The man was young and handsome in a way, with a lean eager face and burning eyes, a forehead in the old poetic mould crowned by loose dark waves of hair; his chin was long, his lips parted devouringly and his glances seemed to eat his companion’s face. It was not a pretty face, not even ordinarily good looking,—sallow, not […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Kristofer Hansteen” (1906)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
“OF the earth, unearthly—” The sentence remained unfinished as I had written it two years and a half ago when Disease laid its hand on me, and all my MSS. ended in a dash. It was a description of Kristofer Hansteen, an explanation of his work in Norway. And now that I am ready to pick up the thread of life again, I read that he is dead—of the earth no more, he who hardly ever belonged to it. At this moment the most insistent memory I have of that delicate, half-aërial personality are the words: “When the doctors told […]