Chapter I concerning the argument that women wanted to be subjected.

No class ever voluntarily accepts subjection; but when it has been subjected by one means or another, the ignorance that its subjection breeds may cause it to become passively acquiescent in the injustice of its position. It is worth noting that so long as the _idea_ of slavery is tolerated, slaves may accept their position with a certain fatalism, much as the vanquished force in war accepts its defeat.

[39] It is not to be understood that all male workers, individually or in union, take this attitude; but that it does exist among them I have already shown.

[40] This is not to be taken as contradicting the earlier statement that women would not renounce without a struggle the rights they have gained. The world can not move toward freedom without carrying women along; they would not tolerate a dual movement, towards freedom for men and slavery for themselves. But when the general movement is away from freedom, as the movement of political government is at present, the rights of women are endangered along with those of men.