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The Traffic in Women and Other Essays on Feminism
Traffic in Women and Other Essays on Feminism
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1917
About the author
Emma Goldman
396 books1,058 followersEmma Goldman was a feminist anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.
Born in Kovno in the Russian Empire (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania), Goldman emigrated to the US in 1885 and lived in New York City, where she joined the burgeoning anarchist movement.Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands.
She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Although Frick survived the attempt on his life, Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.
In 1917, Goldman and Berkman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiring to "induce persons not to register" for the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia.
Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Goldman quickly voiced her opposition to the Soviet use of violence and the repression of independent voices. In 1923, she wrote a book about her experiences, My Disillusionment in Russia. While living in England, Canada, and France, she wrote an autobiography called Living My Life. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she traveled to Spain to support the anarchist revolution there. She died in Toronto on May 14, 1940, aged 70.
During her life, Goldman was lionized as a free-thinking "rebel woman" by admirers, and derided by critics as an advocate of politically motivated murder and violent revolution.Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, marriage, free love, and homosexuality. Although she distanced herself from first-wave feminism and its efforts toward women's suffrage, she developed new ways of incorporating gender politics into anarchism. After decades of obscurity, Goldman's iconic status was revived in the 1970s, when feminist and anarchist scholars rekindled popular interest in her life.
Born in Kovno in the Russian Empire (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania), Goldman emigrated to the US in 1885 and lived in New York City, where she joined the burgeoning anarchist movement.Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands.
She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Although Frick survived the attempt on his life, Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.
In 1917, Goldman and Berkman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiring to "induce persons not to register" for the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia.
Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Goldman quickly voiced her opposition to the Soviet use of violence and the repression of independent voices. In 1923, she wrote a book about her experiences, My Disillusionment in Russia. While living in England, Canada, and France, she wrote an autobiography called Living My Life. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she traveled to Spain to support the anarchist revolution there. She died in Toronto on May 14, 1940, aged 70.
During her life, Goldman was lionized as a free-thinking "rebel woman" by admirers, and derided by critics as an advocate of politically motivated murder and violent revolution.Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, marriage, free love, and homosexuality. Although she distanced herself from first-wave feminism and its efforts toward women's suffrage, she developed new ways of incorporating gender politics into anarchism. After decades of obscurity, Goldman's iconic status was revived in the 1970s, when feminist and anarchist scholars rekindled popular interest in her life.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 16, 2008
"Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstacy; love, the defier of all laws of all conventions: love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?"
April 10, 2026
Ten Aphorisms for Emma Goldman’s Ghost
1. Marriage is the cage where capitalism keeps its favorite pet: obedience.
Love becomes labor, devotion becomes duty. Goldman saw marriage not as romance but contract — dependency sold as virtue.
2. The vote is a leash if you’re still on your knees.
Ballots change faces, not systems. Suffrage means nothing if the economy still owns you.
3. When morality is law, love becomes a crime.
The state punishes what it can’t comprehend: pleasure without permission.
4. A system that sells women in parlors and brothels only differs by the wallpaper.
One deal wears lace, the other stigma — both trade autonomy for survival.
5. Freedom isn’t granted by the state; it begins the moment you stop asking.
Anarchism starts where obedience ends.
6. The church blesses your shackles, the state forges them, the family hides the bruises.
Goldman’s holy trinity of domination — moral, legal, domestic.
7. Sex work is sin when it’s sold cheaply, but virtue when sealed with a ring.
Same transaction, different marketing.
8. To be radical isn’t to add women to power, but to subtract power from domination.
Goldman didn’t want a female tyrant — she wanted no tyrants at all.
9. ‘Virtue’ is just the dress code of the enslaved.
Purity, modesty, obedience — fashion statements for captivity.
10. The most revolutionary act is to love without ownership and live without masters.
That’s the heartbeat of Goldman’s anarchism: no gods, no husbands, no bosses.
1. Marriage is the cage where capitalism keeps its favorite pet: obedience.
Love becomes labor, devotion becomes duty. Goldman saw marriage not as romance but contract — dependency sold as virtue.
2. The vote is a leash if you’re still on your knees.
Ballots change faces, not systems. Suffrage means nothing if the economy still owns you.
3. When morality is law, love becomes a crime.
The state punishes what it can’t comprehend: pleasure without permission.
4. A system that sells women in parlors and brothels only differs by the wallpaper.
One deal wears lace, the other stigma — both trade autonomy for survival.
5. Freedom isn’t granted by the state; it begins the moment you stop asking.
Anarchism starts where obedience ends.
6. The church blesses your shackles, the state forges them, the family hides the bruises.
Goldman’s holy trinity of domination — moral, legal, domestic.
7. Sex work is sin when it’s sold cheaply, but virtue when sealed with a ring.
Same transaction, different marketing.
8. To be radical isn’t to add women to power, but to subtract power from domination.
Goldman didn’t want a female tyrant — she wanted no tyrants at all.
9. ‘Virtue’ is just the dress code of the enslaved.
Purity, modesty, obedience — fashion statements for captivity.
10. The most revolutionary act is to love without ownership and live without masters.
That’s the heartbeat of Goldman’s anarchism: no gods, no husbands, no bosses.
October 12, 2014
What can I say? Goldman is an essential read for any feminist or rebel. I may not agree with every idea she raises, but I have a great deal of respect for Goldman. Here you have speeches and essays by Goldman, that will get your critical thinking ticking - and that is one of the most important functions of your brain.
January 17, 2008
Emma Goldman helped me create a foundation of independence.
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March 27, 2009Marriage, as antiquated as it is, has changed drastically in the past 100 years. I'm hoping that as it continues to evolve, more couples have the opportunity to experience the joys and heartaches in legal matrimony.
June 20, 2007
Not sure if these essays are as relevant today as they were when Goldman wrote them, but fans of Red Emma should check them out anyway.
May 6, 2023
"Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested – for a while at least. The people are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day."
"Exploitation, of course; the merciless Moloch of capitalism that fattens on underpaid labor, thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution."
"Those who sit in a glass house do wrong to throw stones about them; besides, the American glass house is rather thin, it will break easily, and the interior is anything but a gainly sight."
"Exploitation, of course; the merciless Moloch of capitalism that fattens on underpaid labor, thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution."
"Those who sit in a glass house do wrong to throw stones about them; besides, the American glass house is rather thin, it will break easily, and the interior is anything but a gainly sight."
July 28, 2022
Emma Goldman en este libro de 3 ensayos: "Tráfico de Mujeres", "Matrimonio y amor" y "El sufragio femenino", enmarca discusiones sobre la equidad de género que aún hoy creo muy vigentes y cuyas propuestas no han sido escuchadas. Sus reflexiones sobre el amor son profundas y hermosas, me gusta su aproximación al feminismo y me ha generado un interés particular por el anarquismo que busca tumbar el mundo machista en el que vivimos. Un libro esplendido y actual.
August 31, 2022
"Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely...Love needs no protection; it is its own protection. So long as love begets life no child is deserted, or hungry, or famished for the want of affection."
September 20, 2017
Fascinating yet horrifying to note that the same issues Goldman discusses in her essays are being debated today, probably 100 years later.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews