Women As Sex Vendors Or, Why Women Are Conservative (Being a View of the Economic Status of Woman) — Key Ideas to Explore

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In Category - Political Philosophy

Authors: Tobias, R. B. (Roscoe Burdette), 1880-, Marcy, Mary, 1877-1922 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2009 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Women -- Social and moral questions; Family; Sexual ethics Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 10,625

Reading time 47 min

Text sections 2

The catalog record for Women As Sex Vendors Or, Why Women Are Conservative (Being a View of the Economic Status of Woman) — Key Ideas to Explore provides practical reading context through 10,625 words, 47 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

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Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Women -- Social and moral questions,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #28050

This 1918 polemic argues that women's economic dependence on selling sexual access makes them politically conservative, using Marxist and anthropological sources to challenge assumptions about female progressivism.

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[Transcriber's Note: I have not modernized spelling that appears consistent within this book.]

WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE

(Being a View of the Economic Status of Woman)

R. B. TOBIAS and MARY E. MARCY

CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY

By CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY

PAGE WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE 9 YOUTH AND MAID 30 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY 40 THE FUTURE 54

WHY WOMEN ARE CONSERVATIVE

We have often heard discussions of the reason we do not find women, as a sex, in the vanguard of world affairs; why the great educators, strong figures in progressive or revolutionary movements, are men rather than women; why these movements, themselves, are made up almost entirely of men rather than women. People have asked over and over again why, in the fields of the arts, the sciences, in the world of "practical affairs," men, rather than women, generally excel.

We believe the answer lies in the fact that women, as a sex, are the owners of a commodity vitally necessary to the health and well-being of man. Women occupy a more fortunate biologic, and in many countries, a more fortunate economic position, in the increasingly intensified struggle for existence. And the preferred class, the biologically and economically favored class, or sex, has rarely been efficient-to-do, has never been revolutionary to attack a social system that accords advantage to it.

As a sex, women have rarely been rebels or revolutionists. We do not see how they can ever be as long as there exists any system of exploitation to revolt against. Revolt comes from the submerged, never from the group occupying a favored place. Today the revolutionist is he who has nothing to sell but his labor power.

The skilled trade union group is least revolutionary among the workers. The best paid unions are not the most militant in acts calculated to improve the conditions of even their own group, and are least aggressive in conduct for improving the conditions of the whole working class. So long as they occupy a more favorable position in the industrial world, the trade unions will have something to conserve. They become conservative.

We see the small, struggling farmers, who have probably very little to lose in this world save their debts and their mortgages, counting themselves in a class of possible property owners and small exploiters, and generally throwing their support into movements promising petty reforms, when nothing but the abolition, or downfall of the system of private ownership in the means of production and distribution, can possibly help them.

The petty shop-keepers rail more against the "outrageously" high wages and the short hours of the skilled workers than against the large business organizations, like the packing interests, or the great monopolies, that hold them constantly on the edge of failure. Desperately and consistently, as they behold their competitors forced out in the irresistible march of centralization, they cling to their sinking ships, their small deceits and petty ideology in the hope of one day winning out against the terrific odds opposed to them, and landing high and dry in the capitalist class.

No shoe dealer in the darkest side street of the smallest village but hopes some day to leave his dingy shop behind and to climb into the class economically above him. He counts himself a man of business, and thinks and acts and goes down to failure, individualistically. He hates and fears his competitors, ascribes most of his wrongs to them or to the highly paid skilled workers, and apes and envies the men whom he sees rising to wealth in the economic conflict.

As a sex, women occupy a position similar to the petty shop-keeper, because they possess a commodity to sell or to barter. Men, as a sex, are buyers of, or barterers for, this commodity. The general attitude on this question of sex may be, and in fact usually is, wholly unconscious; but the fact remains that men and women meet each other, in the capitalist system, as buyers and sellers of, or barterers for, a commodity.

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Published in 1918 by Charles H. Kerr & Company, a socialist press, this pamphlet by R. B. Tobias and Mary E. Marcy opens with a blunt economic thesis: women are conservative because they occupy a privileged position as owners of a commodity—sexual access—that men vitally need. The authors explicitly reject biological or psychological explanations, instead grounding their argument in the material conditions of women's lives. Drawing on Engels and Bachofen, they trace the evolution of the family from group marriage to monogamy, arguing that each form reflects the prevailing economic system. The excerpts show a text that is relentlessly analytical, using class-based reasoning to explain why women have rarely been revolutionaries.

The Economic Basis of Conservatism

The opening chapter, “Why Women Are Conservative,” establishes the central analogy: women, as a sex, are like skilled trade unionists or small farmers—groups that have something to conserve. The authors argue that women’s biological and economic position as “sex vendors” makes them a favored class, and the favored class never revolts. They write that “revolt comes from the submerged, never from the group occupying a favored place.” This framing is notable for its directness: women are not portrayed as victims but as rational actors within a system of exploitation. The argument relies on a Marxist class analysis applied to gender, with women occupying a role analogous to the labor aristocracy. The text does not entertain alternative explanations, such as legal or educational barriers, focusing instead on economic self-interest as the key to political behavior.

Anthropological Evidence and the Family

The excerpts include substantial material from Engels’s Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and from Bachofen, used to argue that early human societies were matriarchal and that women held high status. The authors quote Arthur Wright’s description of Iroquois long houses, where “the female part generally ruled the house” and could expel a lazy husband. This evidence is deployed to counter the notion that women have always been subordinate. The pamphlet then traces how the shift to private property and slavery led to monogamy and the subordination of women. The argument is historical materialist: changes in economic organization drive changes in family structure. The excerpts do not, however, show the authors applying this framework to contemporary 1918 conditions, leaving the reader to infer how the historical analysis supports their opening thesis.

The Limits of the Excerpted Argument

The available text is incomplete, containing only the first chapter and part of a later chapter on the evolution of the family. The pamphlet’s full argument—including the sections “Youth and Maid” and “The Future”—is not present. Based on the excerpts, the authors rely heavily on secondary sources (Engels, Bachofen) rather than original research. The tone is polemical and assured, with no acknowledgment of counterarguments. The catalog subjects list “Sexual ethics” and “Family,” but the excerpts focus on economic determinism rather than moral or ethical questions. Readers should note that the pamphlet’s title, Women As Sex Vendors, is more provocative than the excerpts’ actual content, which is a dry Marxist analysis. The text assumes a reader familiar with socialist terminology and does not define terms like “surplus value” or “means of production.”

This pamphlet is best approached as a period piece of socialist feminist thought, not as a comprehensive study of women’s status. Its value lies in its clear articulation of an economic determinist view of gender conservatism, a position that was radical in 1918 and remains provocative. Readers interested in the history of feminist economics or early twentieth-century American socialism will find it a concise primary source. Those seeking empirical data or nuanced treatment of women’s diverse experiences will need to look elsewhere.

Sometimes I think of that 1918 pamphlet about women selling access to survive, its stark title still sharp. It makes me recall another old book, quieter in its way, about drink and other social questions. That one sat on a shelf, its pages yellowed, holding similar worries about chains we choose or endure. The warmth of remembering them together feels like finding old friends. The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions; Or, Joints In Our Social Armour — Reading Notes carries that same patient ache.