Evelyn Reed was an American communist and women’s rights activist.

In January 1940, she traveled to Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 to see the exiled Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

 and his wife Natalia Sedova

Natalia Sedova

Natalia Ivanovna Sedova is best known as the second wife of Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary. She was, however, also an active revolutionary in her own right and wrote on cultural matters pertaining to Marxism...

. There, at the house of Trotsky in Coyoacán

Coyoacán

Coyoacán refers to one of the sixteen boroughs of the Federal District of Mexico City as well as the former village which is now the borough’s “historic center.” The name comes from Nahuatl and most likely means “place of coyotes,” when the Aztecs named a pre-Hispanic village on the southern shore...

, Reed met the American Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon

James P. Cannon

James Patrick "Jim" Cannon was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.Born on February 11, 1890 in Rosedale, Kansas, he joined the Socialist Party of America in 1908 and the Industrial Workers of the World in 1911...

, leader of the Socialist Workers Party (United States)

Socialist Workers Party (United States)

The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...

. Reed became joined in the same year, and remained a leading party member until her death.

An active participant in the Women's liberation movement

Women's liberation movement

The Women's Liberation Movement was a political movement, born in the 1960s from Second-Wave Feminism.It generated mythology almost before it was born such as bra burning - and it was allegedly a matter of deep concern to those within it at the time that its history would allegedly be rewritten...

 of the 1960s and 1970s, Reed was a founding member of the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition in 1971. During these years she spoke and debated on women’s rights in cities throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Ireland, the United Kingdom and France.

Inspired by the works on women and the family by Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...

 and Alexandra Kollontai

Alexandra Kollontai

Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai was a Russian Communist revolutionary, first as a member of the Mensheviks, then from 1914 on as a Bolshevik. In 1919 she became the first female government minister in Europe...

, Reed is the author of many books on Marxist feminism

Marxist feminism

Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a way of liberating women. Marxist feminism states that private property, which gives rise to economic inequality, dependence, political confusion, and ultimately unhealthy social relations between...

 and the origin of the oppression of women and the fight for their emancipation. Some of the most notable works by Reed are: Problems of Women’s Liberation, Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family

Woman's Evolution

Woman's Evolution - From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family is a 1975 book by the American Communist Evelyn Reed. The book gives a Marxist view on the history of women and is considered to be a pioneer work of Marxist feminism. It has been translated into many languages...

, Is Biology Woman’s Destiny?, and Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitation of Women (with Joseph Hansen

Joseph Hansen (socialist)

Joseph Leroy Hansen , was an American Trotskyist and leading figure in the Socialist Workers Party.Born in Richfield, Utah, Joseph Hansen was the oldest of 15 children in a poor working class family, and he was the only one of them who could attend college. His father, Conrad J. Z...

 and Mary-Alice Waters

Mary-Alice Waters

Mary-Alice Waters is a socialist journalist and activist in the United States.Waters became involved in Trotskyist politics at a young age, and joined the Socialist Workers Party in the 1960s...

.)

She was nominated as a candidate for President of the United States for the Socialist Workers Party in the United States presidential election, 1972

United States presidential election, 1972

The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 7, 1972. The Democratic Party's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern, who ran an anti-war campaign against incumbent Republican President Richard...

. On the ballot in just Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

, New York, and Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

, Reed received a total of 13,878 votes. The main candidate for the Party was Linda Jenness

Linda Jenness

Linda Jenness was a Socialist Workers Party candidate for president of the United States in the 1972 election. She received 83,380 votes .In Arizona, Pima and Yavapai counties had a ballot malfunction that counted many votes for both a major party candidate and Linda Jenness. A court ordered that...

, who received 37,423 votes.

Quote

"The woman question can only be resolved through the lineup of working men and women against the ruling men and women. This means that the interests of the workers as a class are identical; and not the interests of all women as a sex.
Ruling-class women have exactly the same interest in upholding and perpetuating capitalist society as their men have. The bourgeois feminists fought, among other things, for the right of women as well as men to hold property in their own name. They won this right. Today, plutocratic

Plutocracy

Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth. The combination of both plutocracy and oligarchy is called plutarchy. The word plutocracy is derived from the Ancient Greek root ploutos, meaning wealth and kratos, meaning to rule or to govern.-Usage:The term plutocracy is generally...

 women hold fabulous wealth in their own names. They are completely in alliance with the plutocratic men to perpetuate the capitalist system. They are not in alliance with the working women, whose needs can only be served through the abolition of capitalism. Thus, the emancipation of working women will not be achieved in alliance with women of the enemy class, but just the opposite; in a struggle against them as part and parcel of the whole class struggle."
- Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitation of Women

External links

• Pathfinder Books, Publisher of the Socialist Workers Party and the works of Evelyn Reed
• The Lubitz TrotskyanaNet provides a bio-bibliographical sketch of Evelyn Reed
• Evelyn Reed Archive at Marxists.org