quote Marx, 'stormed the first time i in history, downtrodden proletariat, power. At the centre of that revolt were the most exploited and working women of Paris. Headed by women that the bourgeois Camp, dismissed as 'sinister females'; 'keentongued shrews' who salamanders and elves, the women rose up against reaction.
They recognised the need more than anyone for sacrifice and heroism, and gave their all. They knew it was women who had least to lose and most to gain in the struggle against misery and degradato change the lives everyone, they saw the need to set up organisations that exclusively catered for women.
Before 1871, 62,500 of the workforce of 114,000 had been women, but right up to the siege of by the Prussians, IN 1871, the working people of Paris, to heavens'. For the the dispossessed, and reached out for oppressed of all the historian, Maxime were analogous to they had been unorganisignored by the overwhelming majority of male workers and even Proudhon, the French 'utosocialist' had even written a thesis claiming women were inferior.
The women leaders of the Commune Louise Michel, Nathalie Lemel, Victorine Brochon, Elizabeth Dmitreff and many others. attacked the men who had seen only the plight of the male working class, and had ignored all the other forms of social injustice in class society.
These knew that their cause lay the Commune. But they also knew that women had to prepared and encouraged to enter the male strongholds and to play a and equal part them. They Saw the the organisanons women, not as rivals to the male-dominated organisations, but as a complement to them. ana as a means ol strengthening Ine revolu tionary struggle of all workers.
In the Commune it was the women who that the revolutionary discussed women's their lack of civil and rights They raised the demand for equal wages, of the right to divorce, need for day-care and children's education.
Their clubs insisted on the duty of women to defend the barricades and to arms. Une Comdescribed the women's clubs ana com mittees 'stockpiles of and courage' The LIC women of the Commune showed both by their demanas, and by tell de tions, that not only could they fight against their oppression, but that they could fight the exploitation and oppression of all society. "Louise Michel in prison at Versailles 1871 By joining in the class struggle and fighting Ior their demands, as well as most active LIC Tion of the herman pation of the workers, women won a number of vital rights. However, the of the and the victory of reaction led to most of those gains being taken away.
It was almost 100 years La women's movement began to grow again in on the native soil Coll mune. , But the struggles of Michel her LOuIsC all mers or 1810 inspired mollis inspired the women of the Russian revolution and are an example and an inspiration to every woman today who wants to free herself from the yoke of capitalist oppression. reformer. They merely ex-
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'In rebellion alone woman is at ease, trampling upon both prejudice and suf- ferings.' Louise Michel, woman leader of the Commune of 1871.
tion. Because they iden- ti change the livesing