Therese Schlesinger was born in Vienna, capital of the Austrian Empire, on 6 June 1863 to an upper middle-class Jewish family.

The birth was very hard on Schlesinger with her right leg being partially disabled enough to force her into a wheelchair for several years.

[1] Beginning in 1894, Schlesinger became involved in the Austrian feminist movement, joining the General Austrian Women's Association (German: Allgemeiner Österreichischer Frauenverein (AÖFV) and participated in the 1894 Enquéte on the Condition of Female Viennese Wage-Workers (German: Enquęte zur Lage der Wiener Lohnarbeiterinnen).

At the end of 1897, she left the AÖFV and joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (German: Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs.

Furthermore, if a new kind of solidarity were to be developed between people within the framework of a socialist project, it was first of all necessary to treat cultural questions pertaining to ‘everyday’ life and consciousness as political concerns.