Františka Plamínková wrote in the conclusion of her speech:

      Working on this lecture, I tried very much to be impersonal. I was pained to find in the works of outstanding men, if they wrote about democracy, remarks about women and the picture those renowned authorities portrayed about the relation of woman to democracy.

      I stepped aside to become an on-looker. For I am much too engaged not to see my own personal engagement in my personal conclusions, and not to think that the ideas are more rose or more black in my eyes than in reality. For this reason, I, in my work use many quotations, since they are a more minimally objective measure.

      She started her lecture with explanation of what democracy is.

      "Professor Masaryk, the leader of our independence, said clearly on many occasions before the war, "Democracy is a new way seeing the world and new way of life." Another time he said, "Democracy is a pain for a new life" and "Democracy is a pain for rights over violence." In the end, he said quite simply, "The true democrat will feel and act only democratically everywhere, not only in parliament, but also in the community, in the party, in his circle of friends, in his family."

      "I think everybody will agree in theory with Masaryk's ideas. [But he] will find them more difficult to fulfill in real life. The most difficult problem for many men will to be a democrat to women to his own wife, to his female-colleague, to women in politic life. He can be more to women maybe than a democrat – but many time much less."p. 4-5 (...)

      After this, she continued with short excursion in Czech history and followed with a summary of the situation in Czechoslovakia 5 years after Independence.

      "The development is about the decline of women's position in the most important place of a political democracy, the participation of women in the government, in post-Independence Czechoslovakia. After Independence, women had full and equal participation in Czechoslovak political life.

      But immediately upon Independence when equality for women was incorporated into [electoral and constitutional] law, men's fear of being outnumbered by the women of this nation was awakened. Our democrats forgot that democracy allows legislative bodies to express a proportionate amount of powers in the state and that it as a measure of citizens who elect them. Law must only give them the possibility of a free choice.

      In the committee, humiliating suggestions were proposed by some lawyers: the exclusion of women from the mayor's office in municipal elections and vice mayor's office throughout the country and the restrictions forbidding women from being elected to more than half of the total number of municipal offices. The men who made such proposals are known as bad men by their peers; they are the same type of men who worked for centuries in the anti-democratic Austrian- German mold, which feared of each liberty! Today, when they see the results of the elections [practically no women elected], [men who are true to democracy] should stand in defense of the rights of women.

      These suggestions failed. The law expresses the will of the people as it was during the revolutionary time. The Constitution in Section 106 says privileges of family, sex and employment are not recognized. Suffrage is expressly granted to "all citizens regardless sex" under the same conditions.

      Parliamentary elections after 1920 show a decline in the democratic sense, an inconsistency of theory and action. Thirteen female delegates for 304 seats and 3 female senators for 150 seats, not a Czech among them, were elected. Were there no able women? Trained women? I reject such a notion. How many new, untrained men were elected - and they worked in more or less. It is a fact that as one accomplishes tasks one's abilities to perform grows. Women are never given a chance to work in. We demand that women demonstrate their abilities prior [to being given a task], how and where they are to learn is a guess. It is not possible even to see greater ability of women to understand, to think, to decide in the serious moment. For example, J. S. Mill says that it was seen "The capacity indeed which women show for doing their thinking in circumstances and at times which almost any man would make an excuse to himself for not attempting it." A woman, even a green horn, would work in the same measure as a man.

      It was necessary to take women into full cooperation just for the moment at the beginning of our independence because we knew our task was to build up a republican and democratic system of laws. How different it was in small Finland when women were given the vote in 1907. For 150 seats, 19 women were elected in the next election, 25 in the second, and 21 in the third. Finland also has the best social system of law concerning the family and children.

      A decline of women's participation in democracy is growing. We do not have the general statistics from the second municipal election in 1923 (In the first, 3 mayors and 3 vice-mayors were elected). In the Greater Prague elections, in 1919, 12.8 % of the offices went to women, while in 1923 only 7.9% went to women. In 1919, in the Inner Prague elections, 4 women were elected to the town council, in other municipalities women became towns councilors, and in Košíře and Kobylisy [parts of Prague] women were elected vice mayor. After the second election, no women at all were elected in the whole of Greater Prague to any town council!

      It is time to consider the reasons for this decline which is showing up in practically all communities. Ask men [about this issue] and you most often hear, "Women do not want to be candidates." But only a few admit that, instead of being supported, women, are met with disbelief, bad will, obstacles, mocking etc. and especially those with the ability and energy to act. For me these facts are symptoms of the crisis in our democratic political life, especially in the political parties." p. 15- 39

      The second important component of state power is the power of the courts.

      In a jury, individuals untrained in the law have influence, and, according to the law, women must cooperate. In the lists read for the drawing of lots for jurists, 1/3 of the jury pool must be women.

      There is an organized resistance against women there. A Prague jury composed of 5 man and 7 women released a political killer. At the same time, in Lausanne, Switzerland, a jury composed of only men released a political killer, too. We immediately concluded, without all reviewing if the presented was enough for pronouncing of sentence, that women proved themselves unable to competently fulfill their tasks as jurors.

      At Brno, for some time, all women who were drawn [for jury] were rejected by the prosecutor, by the defense attorney, or, sometimes, by both. In the last big, arousing court session, the press reported that there are no women in the jury pool . Is this healthy for the state?

      Distasteful officials in the judicial branch is so arrogant that they reject extremely well-qualified doctors of law, if they apply to become judges, judges which are in dangerously short supply. When, in the end, one was accepted, she served without pay (no man today serves in that way) and without any claim for final acceptance. [Note: Under the first republic, one served in state service for some years as "čekatel" while waiting for a permenant position to become available. After several years, "after acceptance" to this permanent position, one was given position on a permanent basis.] Is it possible in this way to understand a democracy?

      The third component of democratic government is administrative. Masaryk wrote that democracy is more administration by the people than government by the people. In this important component, in the junior clerk position, there are practically no women. It is necessary to find the causes why excellently qualified women are not accepted in the central offices; I think that the central offices should specifically search out qualified women to complete our government offices by incorporating their wisdom based on their different experiences in life. In the current state of affairs which has been created in Parliament and in the high offices, a democratic co-government of women is only an empty slogan. And, yet, we need such a government. Each day, we are solving questions in which women are interested, not only as citizens, but, more especially, as mothers. As such, it is, often, as much about of all existence of women as it is about the drawing lots in ministerial commissions and personal departments. For example, the December 1922 law affected the mostly mothers - public employees. While male government employees are still given additional pay for children and for a wife, for a concubine, or, even, in some cases, for a house servant, who would replace them, women are not given this allowance, it was taken away from them. The government claims that all state female employees are simply unmarried [and without dependents], of course, only when considering their salary. Does the child of a widow need less care than a child of widower?

      In the last months, one of our central offices fired all married women, even those with 20 years of impeccable service (some pretext was found in each case according to an informant), fired without pensions, without severance pay, saying that the women are well cared for by their husbands (a husband who has 900 K?, 1200 K? not even only 500 K? for a month). Only with great effort was the situation remedied for a while.

      I did not accentuate nor such absolute willfulness, which was shown in a branch so typically Austrian, [nor].the legal insecurity caused the dissolution of these employees' families - the interest of [government] service demands a calm [workplace] for women. There are rich men employed by the state, men who could easily live off of their personal wealth. No one reproaches them for their employment, but employment is taken away from poor women without hesitation.

      Here we speak not about a single principle, but at once about two principles. Is it possible to make a decision about women without their consent? If it is about decreasing the salary of public employees, the issue is about negotiating with trade unions; if it is about a collective agreement, the state eventually intervenes between employers and employees. In the law regarding the protection of broaders, the government negotiated even with the builders and the boarding house owners. But with women, whose entire existence was taken away, the government did not negotiate. Nor did the government negotiate with the trade unions on women's behalf. Democracy demands an end to all secretiveness, let us negotiate in the light of day. If men allow the government to treat women this way today, a year or two from now, the government will act in the same way toward them.

      The second principle is this: does a women have the same right to work as man in spite of the fact that she is married? Again Masaryk answers me: behind the criticism for concurrence "is the old-fashioned [idea] that a women should be for a man. But she must live for herself just as a man [lives for himself] and if a man and a woman are allied for life, and if their ties are authentic, then they belong each to one another and they know how to regulate not only family life but public life, too." And in another place he says, "If a woman is employed outside the home, it means that she is independent spiritually, and the man must be different to her, since she is more equal to him, he must respect her and acknowledge that maybe she can excel. So we men are still not disposed to grant equality [to women] or, [perhaps, we do not believe] that a woman should be permitted to excel in this or that." It is obvious that Masaryk considered women to have a right to work, even if she is married. Even our constitution, by repealing sex privileges, has certainly given an equal right to all citizens, regardless of sex, to work in state offices. Since the adoption of our constitution, not even once, have lawyers expressed the principle that our constitution is not binding with regard to our laws. But I want to believe that the principles of our constitution are fundamental articles for our actions. I do not believe that Czechoslovakian democracy can play with words as did the old Austria.

      And if a woman has a right to a job under the same conditions [as a man], how is it possible that doctors of law, extremely-well qualified, are not accepted for some state services? They are rejected, not only by the judicial branch, but also by the administrative branch; and slowly the few women who were accepted in the first moment of independence are disappearing into the libraries, where they have no influence on official policy. How is it possible that a food expert was not left as a assistant in technical university only because she is a woman? These are shames of democracy. It is not only about the material side of things, but it is also about all the power that has made it impossible for women to reach wider horizons and to add a personal touch to common work. In a real democracy, such things will not be.

      In America, women did not have suffrage, but Miss Lathtrop has been the head of the "Children's Office" in the department for social care for a number of years and Miss Anderon [note probably meant Anderson] has been the director of the women institute in the same department. Must I cite Rumania, said Orient, where women are University professors, where the chief of police of medicinal services is a women doctor, where a women is a professor in the Academy of Art? If reasons exist for which women can not be accepted into some public service, let those reasons be clearly stated, out front where they can be seen by the eyes of all applicants or women's organization. Then, we will discuss them. This is democracy. But we must most resolutely reject this secret alchemist kitchen by a democratic government. The government must believe in all of its citizens, that is in women too, in the same degree as in men, until it is convinced that they [women] are not dignified enough for it. Women would not accept this judgment en mass and passively; before they examine its correctness. We do not generalize about men so we must not generalize about women. Democracy educates persons, respects persons so that it respects person of man in the same measure as the person of woman. It would again be healthy to remember Masaryk, "There are yet whole books written about the difference in reasoning between men and women and result is still the same – there is in fact no difference." Some people are afraid that women are too sensitive for work in an office - but even there Masaryk said his words, that women do not differ from men in sensibility of them and he calls arguments [such as], a women lives more by sensibility and man by sense, tales even if they are repeated in scholarly works. As to the rest, here we will speak weightly [in the future] of a special science -- psychology.

      For me, the arbitrariness with regard to women in the offices of today is due to the offices' helplessness which flows out of our lack of elastic thinking. [Office managers] do not know and they cannot at all imagine how an office could function in a different manner, a manner which respects a healthy life and changes timetables to accommodate a mother according her children's needs. Why can't she work in a big office for half of the working time for half of the salary? I understand that, for the unmovable bureaucrat, things are all nicely arranged. So simple since 8 to 2 or 8 to 2. Then, all at once, woman came along, women with her motherhood, and not only with her motherhood. Life came -- a democrat will count with live and he will find a place for it in our organization of work. -- And we, women, have not as much respect for paper traditions, were men are always viewed only an official acts. We think that with kindness, willingness, absolute loyalty and cooperation in the serious questions of life, [the democratic state] could gain vitality, immediateness and lose much of its clumsiness and conservatism. For these reasons, I believe that acceptance of women in junior clerk positions in the offices will be progressive and necessary. (...)

      So how things remain, you understand, women are excluded from junior clerk position in services abroad; neither they are sent as advisers to conferences of International work organizations -- even when it [the conference] is about problems touching eminently upon women (trade with women and children, night work of women, emigration, etc.). Nor are they sent to the League of Nations, where seemly less democratic states have female experts. And, yet, we have a row of specialist for all questions, which are discussed. We do not know if this is so because women are not trusted or if it is simply an old custom. But we know that this fact aroused the interest of female delegates from other states, and that many of them, who had gotten to know us during their visits to us, who learned in this way of our intelligence and the working ability of our women, made no secret of their surprise over contempt to women from own government.

      So this is the position of woman in a democratic state five years after enthusiastic, and it would be seem, natural acceptance of women into public life. A long time before the war, when we lived our lives under the heavy breath of Austrian absolutism, Masaryk, a creator of our independence wrote, "I think that a women is entitled to take part in all public life, the economy, politics, and everything else. We men, by living publicly, have many sources of pleasure which are unknown to women. A man can satisfy an ambition, he has an honorable position, but a woman who holds no public position is not permitted to have these impulses at all. In this way, some part of women's spiritual abilities get dwarfed; separating women out of public life eliminates many and the best feelings of many women and yet, we are still saying that a women is a sensitive being etc. In a way no different does Prof. Ganet of the Sorbona appreciate political freedom and its actions, saying, "Political freedom is valued first, above all others, for itself. It gives noble exercise to one's abilities of reason and heart, makes character stronger and develops a spirit of independence and a feeling of responsibility. It is same for the nation as it is for an individual's freedom of expression,“ and, a little later, "Political freedom is the protector of all other freedoms". (. . . )

      It provide a noble exercise to one's abilities of reason and heart, develops stronger character, and promotes a spirit of independence and a feeling of responsibility. It means for the nation the sane as for an individual means freedom of opinion." And next "Political freedom is the protector of all other freedoms."

      It is obvious that women must not be satisfied with seeming of political freedom - they must uncompromisingly demand participation in all of its components in life praxes. While we are a long away from ideal. I do not want to judge if it is consequence of everywhere showing reaction or thoughtlessness. Both causes present a danger for the healthy development of a young state. Nobody let err ]in believing] that the thing is less serious because it is about women. It is about principles, about citizenship. It is necessary in a true democracy to measure them against the same standards.

      Let us turn to the next components of democratic establishments.

      My speech had to be in fact the last on the program. Because, for a Democrat the special spheres of life men and women do not exist. The problems of democracy, in economic life and in cultural life, and difficulties of democracy touch upon women as well as men. Maybe only after discussing all of the problems I was able to add some remarks. If the organizers [of this session] found it necessary to speak separately about women in democracy, then they probably knew that to include women in a democratic system would be more difficult than to include men; we feel all, that the restraints upon the liberty of women have deeper roots than the unfreedom of men. Each group: workers, employees, clerks or poor invalids is not free when they come in contact with the world outside of their family or class. In family or in class all men are free and equal. But woman is unfree as a member of said economically and culturally oppressed classes and ]additionally] because she is a woman. For this reason, there is an eternal struggle of women for their emancipation.

      Democrats should be able to understand what it is, the fight for own personality.

      They are some women, who at great risk of them, going against the current, in spite of all, and by great sacrifice in the time and energy, have saved themselves. Others were saved by the love of a man or their family. But the system was this: to place woman aside as on-looker for each magnificent pain for transcendental values, to rid her of her own will, to find her content in service which she, by accident, sometimes from inertia, sometimes from force, practically never from free will, was ordered. Civilization which so much admirably liberated gainful work, was not at all interested in the liberation of women, the home Cinderella, by its inventions, and, in this way, to liberate her spiritual side. Instead it counted on human vanity, woman became a subject of pleasure and an "ornament" of men's lives, weaving her in the net of luxury and outsiderness. And so it knows still other women; the poor bricklayer's mate, a helper for the most difficult and most mechanical works.

      The entire system wanted to created from woman a person who has no right for spiritual and physical development. She was to be a product of men's needs and his civilization -- not a person in her own right

      How far is the state from needs of democracy, who is based ambition and responsible beings.

      The said system carried in itself difficult moral errors. It educated dependent women, and, for gainful employment, unused or profligate women. On the lee side of the family probably succeeded in protecting them. But when a fate mercilessly tackled with similar unfortunate – how far were prostitution? Decent, well-paid, gainful work was left to women only rarely.

      It seemed during and after the Independence, that this pushing women away from jobs had ended. Said process of state offices - by failing women, by not accepting them in government service, a policy which was copied in private enterprises, proves only that women were only tolerated while her powers were needed, but, even under our democracy, she has not the right to gain in her own rights. This is a mistaken and dangerous principal. Honest, decent, proper work is a demand of democracy. Respect for work is a sign of a democrat. (In America, it is a shame not to work.) A woman in a democracy must work. And it must be her given freedom to work freely or not to work according her choice -- even when she is married.

      Yet fussy watchers of women's happiness will say, "But well she will neglect her household, her family!"

      If a woman will be independent, she will resolve this problem herself without susceptible care.

      Masaryk, the real democrat, stresses that today, the family it is not about the mother, but about the father. By this he means that mothers can fulfill their duties without pressure, but the same deal of duties in family belongs to men. But while a man "will still speak about family life", he runs away from it. He pronounced judgment on women in the household, too, that we have old-fashioned ideas about what a household means.. From the perspective of men it is often speculation about the purely economic household matters, but about some more noble way of looking, it can be no discussion. The household is not as a place where a woman is only a cook and a servant. "I neither believe that a household in which a women had employment outside a home would suffer nor that a man and a woman would not have a good relationship if food was not cooked in the home. It is a question of money, they are old prejudices…" “Yes, it will be a household and will be something about which we have not a trace, when a man and a woman will be absolutely equal; a household it will be only when a man bears equally to his wife so that she may be as independent as he."

      And if you start, wherever you want, either from an economic question or from a cultural one, the end will be the same -- that women and healthy family relationships need women [who are] free and, in all respects, equal to men and, that such mutually equal persons will solve all questions of their life well -- only when all the world, their kinsmen, and their friends, friends and enemies, law etc. will not continue to give power and law into the hands of men to preach obedience to women.

      J. S. Mill in chapter 4 of his "On the Subjugation of Women" showed in detail all forms of marriage based on inequality. You cannot remain unmoved while reading that work, since, above the margin in the book, you see a row of hidden, but, by that more bitter, unhappiness. " Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house." Can this world hold out before the principle of democracy?

      Our law givers' assemblies feel this contradiction. For they start to revise our civic law. But how is it prepared? Again, in secret sittings of specialists without negotiation with women. Herben said, "Democracy claims to remove all of the secretiveness of life." I think this civic law has not been principally changed at all! How parliamentary praxis was created today, I do not hope that such an immense work would be submitted to detailed discussion in the Diet. And even if it should be done that way, is it possible that work which under the Austria government claimed 30 years of parliamentary action could be revised during one summer-long discussion?

      The question of motherhood was, and still is for many, a purely private question. This is not an opinion of a democrat. The mother is doing by motherhood a social service, and for doing this work she must be protected and supported. With this [claim in mind, we propose] maternity insurance for all mothers, maternity rent for as a support for the proper education of a child, and rent for invalid mothers, whose ability to work was damaged by motherhood. Naturally, in return, society will gain the right to supervise the child and its education.(...)

      From what has been said about democratic education, it follows that democracy allows free educational development for girls, as well as, for boys.[The aim is] to open all educational path to all, to gives the possibility of education in all areas as desired by our life's actions. Our republic economizes on education. That is its pity for it damages the republic. Democracy without education is as the government of the blind.

      The next consequence of the democratization of education is the democratization of working possibilities. It is undemocratic to say about work "You may this or that" or "You must not this." No "higher" rational must be given for a special mission for women. Life itself will regulate their aims (...). But it is becoming more and more clear that democracy requires women to work at jobs which are always the most difficult, mechanical, subordinate ones, service in its own sense, in order to make lighter work for men. When a woman does take on a leading role -- she is not spoken about, so as to give the impression that her work is not creative work. This is undemocratic and damaging. We do not use women's best abilities (...) Further, we reward women, in general, in a way that no man would allowed to be rewarded for the same job. Yet, our democratic consciousness is calm.

      Women's power is wasted, especially in the household. The house is kept in the same way as in the time of our grandmothers. American technical science, industry, and commerce, the whole [of American] civilization is solving and has solved the problems [of housework], liberating women's power from the household. America did not do it for love of women, but, rather, America needed her power for paid labor. We never welcomed a woman in the workplace, we did not appreciate her power, we were not pained to liberate her.

      But our wish to forget women in household has deplorable consequence for us. Many women grow up from willingness to self-sacrifice for small things, to an apartment which is not possible to clean up and to work which is tormenting and endless. So they do not it [the house cleaning]. And, then, all lament negligent housewives. So there went our civilization's progress, even through our housework, if it was lessened, would be done with pleasure and correctly.

      Many thought that, with modernization, the calm and poetry of households, which are so necessary to a modern man, would be lost. Even woman, and, especially, children, need such poetry. Today's household, with overloaded and disgusted women, does not provide this present. Just for calmness and poetry in the home it is necessary to find another way. It will be before all the spiritual waking of both spouses. (...)

      Women have always been creators of society, of course, only free and unrestrained women. To an outstanding degree, such is woman in America. A friend wrote to me, "If Lincoln said about the government of the North United States that it is a government for people and by the people, it is possible to say about American society that it is a government of the women, for the women, and by the women."

      The character of this democratic society which was created by women is this: simplicity, trustfulness, and straightforwardness. In American society, nobody is appreciated according to their riches, birth, or connections. (...) The railroads have only one class, clubs are open to all, etc. Everybody is judged according his personal qualities and an important quality is a willingness to work hard. (...) Titles play no role in American society. (...)

      Each time, the ability of American women to negotiate as women, to make the consequences of social problems known, and, then, to solve the problem, amazed me. They did not have the right to vote, but that did not enable them, for they were democrats, to stand idly by in cases of social need. Their goal was to understand American society as a whole. For this reason a great number of American women's clubs, a very rich fund for social goals, were created. Typically, in almost every school, there are women's clubs and school clubs, where parents and teachers meet together to care for the good of the school.

      But democracy has to have such discussions.

      Wilson wrote about such so-called neighborhood meetings where Americans of all classes meet together to discuss important questions of the day. He names these meetings "cleaning shops of absolutely democratic opinion" and proves nothing cleanses the air like an open debate.

      Our men have plenty of opportunity to discuss the issues, though I presume, that those American debates, which are held in school houses without alcohol and cigarettes, will be more fruitful. But women! You do not get them into clubs, it seems like lost time to them. And still less into discussion.

      Our women must leave their households. They must attend to the cleaning shops of democratic opinions, must strive to understand minimally the interest of the entire society around them. If they act otherwise, they will be parasites of democracy. Today it seems to me, the majority are sleeping. Still, how many women are passive and egotistic and how many are really helping to create new life in a new state? I know that many are overloaded by their house work and by paid gainful employment. But how many are there who do not do as much as they could? How many are enclosed by family egoism and all the rest of world means nothing to them! Wilson said, "All stability of a democratic public consist in the fact that each interest is the interest of everyone. And so the small social, cultural, and economic work which is left undone, each social illness which was let grow by our absence, they threaten us and our families.

      I often refer to American democracy as a example of a democracy which adheres to one abiding to one principle. The roots of American democracy are different from the roots of our democracy, and so evaluation of our democracy must be different. While America went to democracy through economic considerations, we went to it through moral reasons. (...)

      To [Masaryk], a moral base was the starting point for all personal and national aims. We read in his writing, "In no other way, other than on moral grounds, it is possible to justify political aims. If it is power enough – if power gets true and right, then politics will be part of zoology, and no more of it!

      "No national, political, or social program can exist without a moral program. Morality means here, a humanity and humanity is for us effective work for liberating the enslaved majority of our fellow-brothers, and this enslavement has one great source, if it is not directly only source, in enslavement of a women and it means also enslavement of a man, who as suffering under a yoke of lust and sensuality. (...)" (T.G. Masaryk, Our Today Crisis, 1895)

      (...) But it will be morality and democracy or will it be no democracy at all. How is it possible for someone to call himself a democrat when he is buying another, who bribed another, and, even, only by giving presents? And can one be the other equal who allows himself to be bought?(...)

      For a democrat there is a categorical order: To give to each women who wants to support herself by work, work Look for it, support women in it. Today's system of drawing away women from honest work is directly against the highest interests of the liberty of the nation. (...)

      It is time to shake off our smallness and subordinate all our life unconditionally to democracy. We have paragons, Hus, his followers, the Moravian brothers, Masaryk. In this way, we will find unrestricted, free, but, also, responsible women.

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last updated February 1999