" What do we find, here in America, in the field of 'politics?'

We find first a party system which is the technical arrangement to carry on a fight. It is perfectly conceivable that a flourishing democratic government be carried on without any parties at all; public functionaries being elected on their merits, and each proposed measure judged on its merits; though this sounds impossible to the androcentric mind.

'There has never been a democracy without factions and parties!" is protested.

There has never been a democracy, so far--only an androcracy. "

― Charlotte Perkins Gilman , The Man-Made World