The Second International Socialist Congress of Women in Copenhagen
International Women’s Day First published in Die Gleichheit, No25 (September 12 1910)
Monday 8 March 2021
The significance of the Second International Conference of Women Socialists should not be judged by its depiction in the press. There it was overshadowed by the larger, more significant event that it preceded - the International Socialist Congress - to such an extent that the essential features and significance of the women’s conference could not be clearly outlined.
Its importance and its achievements, however, will undoubtedly find expression in the activity of the women comrades of all countries who sent their representatives to the meeting. And this is what matters. If we examine the outcome of the proceedings in Copenhagen from this perspective, then the female comrades ought to be satisfied with it. The conference broadened and strengthened the relations between the socialist women of the various c
SUPPLEMENT: Women’s Day established
March 8 2021 marks 110 years since International Women’s Day was first commemorated by the working class movement. What follows is what we believe to be the first English translation of a report of the 1910 International Socialist Congress of Women in Copenhagen, which passed the resolution to establish the event as a regular feature in the international socialist calendar.
The unsigned article first appeared in
Die Gleichheit (
Equality), the fortnightly paper of German Social Democracy’s women’s movement.
Die Gleichheit regularly featured reports from its sister organisations around the world. Edited by Clara Zetkin - once branded by kaiser Wilhelm II as the “most dangerous witch” in the country - she insisted that women’s liberation presupposed working class political organisation. Zetkin was eventually removed as editor by the SPD leadership in 1917: the paper had been struggling against the pro-war ‘fortress peace’ po