Women more than men can strip war of its glamour and its out-of-date heroisms and patriotisms, and see it as a demon of destruction and hideous wrong — murder devastating home and happiness. Women are here to reaffirm their protest against war, to restate their unalterable faith in the righteousness of Peace, the practicality of mediation — a protest against the outrage upon the moral convictions of long developed social sentiments, and to offer their profound sympathy and compassion for the victims of the European war.

Our conference [Women's Congress in Bern] had two tasks to perform: to publicize the fact that in spite of the vetoes of their governments and the opposition of the labour leaders, women had met and worked together for peace and for Socialism; our second task was to formulate slogans for this struggle and to publish a leaflet for women to whom the reaction to the war marked a first approach to social problems, to explain the causes and consequences of the war and the manner in which they could be abolished. Our appeal to them began: "Where are your husbands, your brothers, your sons? Why must they destroy one another and all that they have created? Who benefits by this bloody nightmare? Only a minority of war profiteers...Since the men cannot speak, you must. Workingwomen of the warring countries, unite!" (page 131)

When the early Woman Suffragists took their stand for a redress of the wrongs of women, they used no vague or ambiguous language. As early as 1838 Angelina Grimké and Abby Kelley, who were the first women orators I ever heard, uttered their protest against the wrongs of woman, from an anti-slavery platform. They severely denounced the custom of society which closed the doors of remunerative industries against women, and thereby condemned large numbers to abject dependence and compulsory poverty. Ten years later, when the first Convention was held at Seneca Falls, New York, and occasion commemorated by this weeks’ International Conference, women reiterated the protest and the denunciation, and demanded political equality as a remedy for these wrongs. Two years later another Woman’s Convention was held in Worcester, Mass., and again there rang out the demand for equal political rights for men and women, equal educational opportunities, and “partnership in the labors and gains, risks and remunerations, of productive industry.” It is impossible to-day to describe the fierce outburst of ridicule with which the public received these demands. Press and pulpit, legislatures and courts, public men and private citizens, society and fashion, all hastened to wash their hands of these innovators, and to label them with the opprobrious epithets so lavishly affixed to those who inaugurate a reform.

Women have become at the forefront of these demonstrations and lines in protests — in the medical camps, in the security services, in the strategic planning for the revolution and the strategic planning for the civil democratic society after the revolution.

Well, it was women in the labour movement in the 1900s that gave us this day. They were calling for bread; they were calling for better working conditions and they were calling for peace. Guess what? We are calling for the same things today, in different ways. We are rededicating ourselves to the struggles of today. Today, for instance, we are calling for decent work because women continue to be at the bottom of the pyramid of economic activity and the work and the jobs that they do continue to be informal and to be low paid.

As it is now, we have sort of become a bit dependent on the situation and yet women of our country used to stand up and fight whatever was the problem and quite a number of times we succeeded.

Women are not just victims. We are thinkers, organizers, and activists. We are part of a worldwide women’s movement that has brought into every nation of the world, no matter how poor or oppressed, the message that women can work together to take control of our lives and to bring our collective experience, wisdom, and numbers into the areas where the policies and decisions are being made about the future of our planet.

For millennia women have dedicated themselves almost exclusively to the task of nurturing, protecting and caring for the young and the old, striving for the conditions of peace that favour life as a whole. To this can be added the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, no war was ever started by women. But it is women and children who have always suffered most in situations of conflict. Now that we are gaining control of the primary historical role imposed on us of sustaining life in the context of the home and family, it is time to apply in the arena of the world the wisdom and experience thus gained in activities of peace over so many thousands of years. The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.

The women were the backbone of that union.

We are also calling for women to be given equal pay for work of equal value, but also women still do a lot of unpaid work at home: caring for the aged, caring for children and that means that women cannot go out in the labour market and be part of the formal economy. So we are still, in a way, campaigning for the same thing. Women are campaigning for peace in countries where there is conflict. Women are campaigning against violence against women, which also means that where women have experienced domestic violence at home and outside the home they are not at peace with themselves.

There were many women who fought to make a revolution within the Revolution, since power is held by men and they won’t give it away by themselves.

What brought me to the women's movement was the women's health movement. The cultural elements of feminism didn't resonate with me, but abortion resonated with me. I became part of the women's movement in October 1970 at an international meeting on abortion rights attended by several thousand women and held at Barnard College in New York City.

Addressing the economic plight of women may ultimately be the feminist platform that draws a collective response. It may well become the place of collective organizing, the common ground, the issue that unites all women.

The final abolition of war and the establishment of permanent peace must depend upon the convictions of men and women, who are equally responsible as they must be in the final analysis for all measures affecting Society. But never before, during the time of any great conflict, have women been so organized or so self-conscious as now, and it is fitting that the world should ring with their outcry against this blasphemy upon all the things that they hold most sacred.