Sisters or citizens? The title of this book refers to the basic choice confronting working-class women and those who chose to identify themselves with them: would they fight for the rights of women or the rights of workers? Would they join together with other women, of whatever class, in the feminist movement, or with other workers, men as well as women, in the socialist movement? For the feminists, in theory, all women were sisters, whether rich or poor. In the words of a prominent French feminist at the turn of the century, they called upon ‘working women’ to join with their ‘bourgeois sisters’. For the socialists, also in theory, all those who joined the party were equal, whether women or men. They were all ‘citizens’, determined to work for the fulfilment in society of the promises of the great revolution. Indeed, ‘citizen’ was the term of address in the unified French socialist party, like ‘comrade’ in labour and communist parties today.

The question was which oppression was deemed in theory to be primary: sex or class. The answer to the question, however, was determined in practice, by the relations between feminists and socialists. Many women believed that they were oppressed both as women and as workers and that to emphasise one oppression over the other would distort the reality of their dual oppression. This proved to be the case. But all efforts to ally feminism and socialism failed.