The Women's International Council of Socialist and Labour Organizations was a body established within the

Second International The Second International (1889–1916) was an organisation of socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second International continued th ...

to enable special conferences of the socialist and labour movements to be held. It was founded at the First International Conference of Socialist Women in Stuttgart, 1907.

National sections

The Council organised the Second International Women's Conference in Copenhagen in 1910, at which it was resolved to form national sections.

British Section

The British Section was formed with

Margaret Bondfield Margaret Grace Bondfield (17 March 1873 – 16 June 1953) was a British Labour Party politician, trade unionist and women's rights activist. She became the first female cabinet minister, and the first woman to be a privy counsellor in th ...

as chair, with Margaret McDonald as secretary. Both these women came from the

Women's Labour League The Women's Labour League (WLL) was a pressure organisation, founded in London in 1906, to promote the political representation of women in parliament and local bodies. The idea was first suggested by Mary Macpherson, a linguist and journalist wh ...

(WLL).

Ethel Bentham Ethel Bentham, (5 January 1861 – 19 January 1931) was a progressive doctor, a politician and a suffragist in the United Kingdom. She was born in London, educated at Alexandra School and College in Dublin, the London School of Medicine for W ...

, another prominent member of the WLL participated as the representative of the

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fa ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Women's International Council of Socialist and Labour Organizations Second International History of socialism