During the period of the Second International several International Socialist Women's Conferences were held by the representatives of the women organizations of the affiliated Socialist parties. The first two were held in conjunction with the main International Congresses of the Second International, while the third was held in Berne in 1915. The Conferences were notable for popularizing International Women's Day and were forerunners of groups like the Socialist International Women and the Women's International Democratic Federation.
Stuttgart 1907
The impetus for the first International Conference of Socialist Women came from a congress of German women in 1906, which suggested that a conference of Socialist women should be held in conjunction with the following year's International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart. On August 17, 1907 58 delegates from 15 countries met at the Liederhalle in Stuttgart.
Representatives were present from the Social Democratic Women of Germany, the Executive Committee of the Women of the Empire of Austria, the National Federation of Women Socialists of Belgium, the Social Democratic Women's Clubs of the Netherlands, the Sewing Women's Union of Amsterdam, the Federation of Swiss Workwomen's Societies, the Socialist Women's Committee of Paris, the Social Democratic Party of Finland, the Federation of Swedish Women Workers, the Women's National Progressive League of United States, and Socialist Woman periodical in the United States. Britain sent representatives from the Independent Labour Party, the National Federation of Women Workers, the Women's Labour League, and the Women's Committee of the Social Democratic Federation.
The conference set up the secretariat of the Women's International Council of Socialist and Labour Organizations at Stuttgart and Klara Zetkin's newspaper Die Gleichheit was adopted as the organ for common publication of the affiliates. Zetkin was appointed Secretary of the permanent organization.
Copenhagen 1910
The Second International Socialist Women's Conference was held on August 26–27, 1910 in Copenhagen, in conjunction with the 1910 Socialist Copenhagen World Congress. One hundred delegates attended from seventeen countries. Among the groups represented were the Social Democratic women of Germany, the Women's Labour League, Federation of Socialist Women's Clubs from the Netherlands and many others. Though conference addressed a number of issues including social legislation, education, public health and the Czar's attempt to erode the sovereignty of Finland, its most animated discussions were on women's suffrage. A debate evolved between the English delegates who favored working with "bourgeois" feminists in order to secure piecemeal expansion of the franchise and the Germans and the "lefts" who felt it was best to merge the proletarian woman's movement into a larger working class struggle to gain universal suffrage. The latter view predominated. This conference is also remembered for endorsing the idea of an international day of concerted action to protest for female suffrage, on the model of the annual May Day celebrations. This was eventually institutionalized as International Women's Day.
Berne 1915
The Third International Socialist Women's Conference was scheduled to be held in Vienna in August 1914, concurrently with the Vienna International Socialist Congress. After the outbreak of the war both events were cancelled. In November 1914 the editors of the Bolshevik women's paper Rabotnitsa contacted the International Secretariat at Stuttgart, suggesting an unofficial conference of left socialist women. Further efforts by the women of the socialist movement led to the convening of the Third International Socialist Women's Conference at Berne March 26–28, 1915.