Introducing Feminism

Chris Weedon.

“PATRIARCHAL REFERS TO POWER RELATIONS IN WHICH WOMEN’S INTERESTS ARE SUBORDINATED TO THE INTERESTS OF MEN.”
“THESE POWER RELATIONS TAKE ON MANY FORMS, FROM THE SEXUAL DIVISION OF LABOUR AND THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF PROCREATION TO THE INTERNALIZED NORMS OF FEMINITY BY WHICH WE LIVE.”
“PATRIARCHAL POWER RESTS ON SOCIAL GIVEN TO BIOLOGICAL SEXUAL DIFFERENCE

FEMINISM IS THE STRUGGLE TO END SEXIST OPPRESSION

Abigail Adams (1744–1818), wife of John Adams, the second President of the USA, was one of the most influential women of her day. During the American Revolution (1775–83), she and her husband lived apart by virtue of his politi

They were not particularly concerned with working-class women, and did not label themselves as feminists (a term coined in 1895). They were mostly concerned with injustices that they had experienced on a personal basis.

They were mostly concerned with injustices that they had experienced on a personal basis.

The ideas of the Enlightenment translated into yet another perspective. Harriet Martineau and John Stuart Mill (see here and here) are two thinkers who put great emphasis on the power of thought and education to release the individual from the ghost of tradition.

REASON CAN FREE US FROM SUPERSTITION.
“FREE ENQUIRY” IS THE SIMPLE PATH TO TRUTH.

a social planner, Wright stands apart from many of her contemporaries for being particularly concerned with the plight of the working class. She advocated abolition, universal education, birth control and equal rights for women.

Social Planners

One consequence of the Enlightenment’s emphasis on the rational is the impulse towards social planning. The social planners believed it to be their duty to plan and order the world around them. The Anglo-American social reformer Frances Wright (1795–1852) attempted to model this belief when she set up her own experimental community, Nashoba, dedicated to ensuring the emancipation of slaves.

The Society of Friend

MAN IS THE HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD ...
... JUST AS THE MONARCH IS THE HEAD OF STATE AND JESUS HEAD OF THE CHURCH.

Two essays, one on “The Enfranchisement of Women” (1851), the other “On the Subjection of Women” (1869), illustrate their commitment to write about sexual discrimination from an informed perspective. The fact that they agree on principles and disagree on the solutions further testifies to their personal engagement with these issues.

Taylor is thought to be the primary author of the essay on the enfranchisement of women.

Harriet Taylor Mill (1807–58) and John Stuart Mill (1806–73) are two key figures who endorsed Wollstonecraft’s liberal feminist ideas and expanded on them in the second half of the 19th century. They too led an unconventional private life.

WHAT I WRITE, IS WRITTEN IN NO SPIRIT OF REBELLION; IT PUTS FORWARD NO ABSURD CLAIM OF EQUALITY; IT IS SIMPLY AN APPEAL FOR PROTECTION.

“Our mercantile and uncertain speculation of ‘damages’, – the wonderful indecency of our diverce trials, – the incredible fact that the woman accused is allowed no direct defence, and cannot appear by counsel on such occasions, – the loth and reluctant admission of the right of a mother to her inhant children, – are alike odious and incomprehensible.”

Caroline Norton’s triumphs paved the way for more substantial reforms in the late 19th century. But the law remained mostly on the fathers’ side, retaining the principles of inequality between women and men.

ALTHOUGH WE WERE TRAVELLING WITH OUR HUSBANDS WHO WERE DELEGATES, WE WERE NOT ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CONFERENCE AND WERE FORCED TO SIT BEHIND A CURTAIN WHICH SEPARATED US FROM MALE AUDIENCE MEMBERS AND MALE SPEAKERS.

When they returned to New York, they decided to organize a convention to which they invited women suffragists and interested men. The aim was to discuss issues related to equality in education, marriage and property laws.

This was the text of the invitation:

Woman’s Rights Convention. – A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman, will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, at Seneca Falls, N. Y., on Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July, current; commencing at 10 o’clock am. During the first day the meeting will be exclusively for women, who are earnestly invited to attend. The public generally are invited to be present on the second day, when Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, and other ladies and gentlemen, will address the convention.

Although she had been against marriage by principle, Barbara decided to marry Eugene Bodichon, a former French army officer who held radical political views and supported her efforts for achieving women’s rights.

Like Martineau, she wrote extensively in favour of women doctors and opportunities for women in higher education. She campaigned with Caroline Norton for changing legislation with regard to divorce and the protection of property rights of divorced women.

The 1850s witnessed a resurgence of feminist activism in Britain, where a series of important legislations were introduced as a result of high-profile legal battles and in response to the growing number of single middle-class women who campaigned for economic independence. Among the key figures of this period were Harriet Martineau (1802–76) and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827–91).

Harriet Martineau was born to Unitarian parents who held progressive views on girls’ education.

Social reformists in England and the US attempted to make their voices heard by staging numerous public lectures, founding societies and writing extensively about the “woman question”. Most notably, the Anglo-American author Frances Wright, founder of the Nashoba commune, toured the US from 1818 to 1820 and reported her impressions in Views of Society and Manners in America (1821).

many suffragettes who feared that focus on dress reform, though necessary, could detract attention from more serious women’s rights issues