Did the carnage of the Great War mean that life was no longer worth living? Did world war make conception and childbirth pointless?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
One hundred years ago this week the Australian Worker reported a speech by feminist Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence. Her speech echoed the action of Aristophanes' play Lysistrata (our blush-making picture is a poster for a modern production of it) in which women go on a sex strike to try to get their warring menfolk to negotiate a peace.
"SUGGESTED SEX STRIKE.
"
"Mrs. Lawrence was formerly affiliated with Mrs. Pankhurst and the English militant suffragists. She was imprisoned six times. Miss Jane Adams introduced, the speaker, who made a plea for a great woman movement that would end all war."
" 'If humanity is to be menaced by this vampire,' Mrs. Lawrence said, 'it isn't worthwhile to go on living. It isn't worthwhile for hundreds of thousands of women every year to go down into the shadow of death [pregnancy and childbirth] if their sons are to be killed and their daughters pillaged and outraged. We are only producing cannon food.
"It isn't worthwhile to continue social reform if improved conditions mean only better men and more wealth for the war [monster] to seize in his tentacles. In England we feel that our efforts for 25 years have been obliterated.' "
