History of feminism

Feminism, as a construct, has probably existed as long as there have been women, and women who have recognised that patriarchy and patrilineage were problematic. The word 'feminism', did not come into common usage until the late nineteenth century, having appeared first in France in the 1880s, Great Britain in 1890, and the United States in 1910. Over time it has been called a number of other things, such as womanism. The History of Feminism has largely been portrayed as the recent history of the Feminist Movement, and thus criticised for ignoring women's voices over thousands of years.The new feminist literary history of the last few decades, although presaged by Virginia Woolf, has largely been a process of retrieval and recovery."What I find deplorable...is that nothing is known about women before the eighteenth century" Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own 1928.

Introduction

A broad understanding of feminism includes women acting, speaking and writing on women's issues and rights, identifying social injustice in the status quo and bringing their own unique perspective to bear on issues. Prior to the appearance of 'feminist' as a label for women involved in discussing or advancing women's issues, it is not uncommon to find the term 'protofeminist' used, although this defies a standardised definition as much as any other variety of feminist, and may not necessarily add value to the investigation of the history of feminism (For one attempt, see Botting and Houser, 2006 ), and potentially detracts from the importance of their contributions. Marie Urbanski refers to this as erasing women from history in her account of Margaret Fuller's life,therefore the term 'feminist' is used here universally.

The 'disappearing woman' has been a focus of attention of academic feminist scholarship. Research into women's history and literature reveals a rich heritage of neglected culture. One debate is whether women should be referred to by their birth names or by their married names, if they were subsequently married. Barbara Leigh Smith broke with tradition in England, by merely appending her husband's name, whereas Lucy Stone in America created a sensation when she refused to take her husband's name. An argument for using birth names is that it helps to prevent these women disappearing again.

Human events and ideas do not fit neatly into periods. This is particularly true in relation to women's history. Where periodicity schemes have been defined by a culture, in which some voices are silent, engaging those voices creates an awkward fit with other "communities of discourse".

Early origins

Assumptions of patriarchy

Till the mid nineteenth century, writers assumed that a patriarchal order was a natural order that had existed, as JS Mill wrote, since "the very earliest twilight of human society". This was not seriously challenged till the eighteenth century when Jesuit missionaries found matrilineality in native North American peoples.

Some feminist writers, and writers on feminism have yearned romantically for a utopian and mythical past that if not strictly matriarchal (gynocratic ), was at least matrilineal or at worst equilineal. In the seventeenth century, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes had observed the maternal-child bond was a primary relationship, compared to the child's relationship to the father. French utopian socialists of the 1830s, and 1840s challenged the "natural order" stating that in the Romantic tradition, the only natural order was the mother-child bond, paternity being a legal bond defined by civil law.

One of the best known accounts is that of Robert Graves, whose "The White Goddess" was first published in 1948, and is itself based on Fraser's "The Golden Bough" (1890-1922). Other writers include Charles Fourier in the early nineteenth century. While the debate over the origins of patriarchy has been long running, a seminal work was Johann Jakob Bachofen's "Mutterecht" (1861).This has generated vigorous debate, for instance Cynthia Eller criticises the work of Elizabeth Gould Davis, Marija Gimbutas and others in The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, and is in return refuted by Joan Marler. The ongoing debates on the origins of patriarchy can be dated to the appearance of Bachofen's work.

The classical world

Women's voices are often difficult to discern in the ancient world, but although classical Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato are sometimes claimed to be feminists, a role that is debated,.although their works have been one element shaping feminist and gender studies, even if only in rebuttal of inherent misogyny.

Judaeo-Christian patriarchy

In the Judaeo-Christian world women found themselves depicted in negative imagery by religious leaders who also set social norms. This extended from Genesis, with the Creation and the Fall, to the teachings of St. Paul in the New Testament. Certainly political and social patriarchal systems were firmly entrenched by the beginning of the Christian era.

While women's voices were few in relation to men, nevertheless we have records of a number of women who brought feminine perspectives to the interpretation of religion, and questioned patriarchal models. There are glimpses of feminist thinking in the Bible, but probably the first recorded activities go back to at least the 12th century, in which Hildegard of Bingen was writing on religion in a uniquely feminine way, describing the 'motherhood of God', and encroaching on a hitherto male profession, that of preaching.Secular women writers included the fourteenth century Italian-French Christine de Pizan who attacked misogyny in 'The City of Ladies' (1404).

By the 15th century Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe were writing feminist religious literature. The Reformation allowed more women to add their voices in the 16th century, although it is argued that the closure of convents deprived women of one path to education. These include Jane Anger, Aemilia Lanyer, and Anna Trapnell. Giving voice in the secular context was more difficult, deprived of the rationale and protection of divine inspiration. Queen Elizabeth I demonstrated leadership amongst women, even if unsupportive of their causes, and was a role model for the education of women.

Seventeenth Century: Nonconformism, Protectorate and Restoration

The 17th century saw the development of many nonconformist sects which allowed more say to women than the established religions, especially the Quakers. Noted feminist writers on religion and spirituality included Rachel Speght, Katherine Evans, Sarah Chevers and Margaret Fell.

This increased participation of women was not without opposition, notably John Bunyan, leading to persecution, and emigration to the Netherlands and the Americas. Over this and preceding centuries women who expressed opinions on religion or preached were also in danger of being suspected of lunacy or witchcraft, and many like Anne Askew died "for their implicit or explicit challenge to the patriarchal order".

Burning of witches

In France as in England, feminist ideas were attributes of heterodoxy, such as the Waldensians and Catharists, than orthodoxy. Religious egalitarianism, such as embraced by the Levellers, carried over into gender equality, and therefore had political implications. Leveller women mounted large scale public demonstrations and petitions, although dismissed by the authorities of the day.

This century also saw more women writers emerging, such as Anne Bradstreet, Bathsua Makin, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Mary Roth, and Mary Astell, who depicted women's changing roles and made pleas for their education. However they encountered considerable hostility, as exemplified by the experiences of Cavendish, and Roth whose work was not published till the 20th century.

Astell is frequently described as the first feminist writer. However this depiction fails to recognise the intellectual debt she owed to Schurman, Makin and other women who preceded her. She was certainly one of the earliest feminist writers in English, whose analyses are as relevant to day as in her own time, and moved beyond earlier writers by instituting educational institutions for women. Astell and Behn together laid the groundwork for feminist theory in the seventeenth century. No woman would speak out as strongly again, for another century. In historical accounts she is often overshadowed by her younger and more colourful friend and correspondent Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

The liberalisation of social values and secularisation of the English Restoration provided new opportunities for women in the arts, an opportunity that women used to advance their cause. However female playwrights encountered similar hostility. These included Catherine Trotter, Mary Manley and Mary Pix. The most influential of all was Aphra Behn, the first Englishwoman to achieve the status of a professional writer. Critics of feminist writing included prominent men such as Alexander Pope.

In continental Europe, important feminist writers included Marguerite de Navarre, Marie de Gournay and Anne Marie van Schurmann (Anna Maria van Schurman) who mounted attacks on misogyny and promoted the education of women. In the New World the Mexican nun, Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695), was advancing the education of women particularly in her essay entitled "Reply to Sor Philotea". By the end of the seventeenth century women's voices were becoming increasingly heard, becoming almost a clamour, at least by educated women. The literature of the last decades of the century being sometimes referred to as the "Battle of the Sexes", and was often surprisingly polemic, such as Hannah Woolley's "The Gentlewoman's Companion". However women received mixed messages, for they also heard a strident backlash, and even self-deprecation by women writers in response. They were also subjected to conflicting social pressures, one of which was less opportunities for work outside the home, and education which sometimes reinforced the social order as much as inspire independent thinking.

Role of men

The British philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes asserted the primacy of mother-child bonding within the family relationships.

Eighteenth Century: The Age of Enlightenment

First edition print of Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects

The Age of Enlightenment was characterised by secular intellectual reasoning, and a flowering of philosophical writing. The most important feminist writer of the time was Mary Wollstonecraft, often characterised as the first feminist philosopher. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), written in response to Gouges' "Declaration of the Rights of Women", is one of the first works that can unambiguously be called feminist, although by modern standards her comparison of women to the nobility, the elite of society, coddled, fragile, and in danger of intellectual and moral sloth, may seem dated at first, as a feminist argument. Wollestonecraft saw that it was the education and upbringing of women that created their limited expectations based on a self-image dictated by male gaze. Despite her perceived inconsistencies (Brody refers to the "Two Wollestoncrafts") reflective of problems that had no easy answers, this book remains a foundation stone of feminist thought. Wollstonecraft believed that both sexes contributed to the inequalities and took it for granted that women had considerable power over men, but that both would require education to ensure the necessary changes in social attitudes. Her legacy remains the need for women to speak out and tell their stories. Her own achievements speak to her own determination given her humble origins and scant eduction. As Pope attacked Astell and Montagu, so Wollstonecroft attracted the mockery of Samuel Johnson who described her and her ilk as 'Amazons of the pen'. Given his relationship with Hester Thrale it would appear that his problem was not with intelligent educated women, but that they should encroach onto a male territory of writing. Other important writers of the time included Catherine Macaulay.

The French Revolution focussed people's attention everywhere on the cry for "égalité", and hence by extension, but in a more limited way, inequity in the treatment of women. In 1791, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, elicited an immediate response from the writer Olympe de Gouges who amended it as the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, arguing that if women were accountable to the law they must also be given equal responsibility under the law. She also addressed marriage as a social contract between equals and attacked women's reliance on beauty and charm, as a form of slavery. The first scientific society for women was founded in Middelburg, a city in the south of the Dutch republic, in 1785. Journals for women which focused on issues like science became popular during this period as well.

Feminism in fiction

Meanwhile women novelists such as Fanny Burney and later, Jane Austen were addressing the dilemmas that women faced, often taking the form of melodrama, such as Ann Radcliffe, and Austen in Northanger Abbey (1818). Some male writers like Samuel Richardson also drew attention to these issues.

Role of men

The eighteenth century also saw male philosophers attracted to issues of human rights, and men such as the Marquis de Condorcet championed women's education, while liberals such as the utilitarian, Jeremy Bentham, demanded equal rights for women in every sense, as people increasingly came to believe that women were treated unfairly under the law. Missionaries first described matrilineality amongst the Iroquois in North America.

Early nineteenth century: “Womanliness” and social injustice

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, although individual women, and some men, were speaking out, it is doubtful how influential they were, other than to create awareness. There was little sign of change in the political or social order, nor any evidence of a recognizable women’s movement. By the end of the century the voices of concern were beginning to coalesce into something more tangible. This paralleled the emergence of a more rigid social model and code of conduct, that Marion Reid (and later John Stuart Mill) would refer to as a ”Womanliness” that admitted to “self-extinction”. While the increasing emphasis on feminine virtue partly stirred the call for a woman’s movement, the tensions that this role duality caused for women plagued many early nineteenth century feminists with doubt and worry.

In Britain, no statement, as eloquent as Wollestonecraft’s ‘’Vindication’’ would appear till Reid published her ‘’A plea for women’’ in 1843 and which set an agenda for the rest of the century, including votes for women.

Caroline Norton was a woman who became active in advocating rights for women, the absence of which upon entering into marriage she, had become painfully aware of. The publicity that she generated, including her appeal to Queen Victoria, helped establish one of the first women’s movements, Barbara Leigh Smith’s (Barbara Bodichon) Married Women’s Property Committee, which took up her cause.

While many women, including Norton, were wary of organized movements, their actions and words often motivated and inspired such movements. Amongst these was Florence Nightingale whose conviction that women had all the potential of men but none of the opportunities drove her to a career that would make her a national figure as a scientist and administrator even if the popular image of her at the time emphasized her feminine virtues more. The paradox of the gulf between the achievements which we recognize now, and how she was portrayed underline the plight that women of talent and determination faced at the time.

Women were not always supportive of each other’s efforts, and often distanced themselves from other feminists. Harriet Martineau and many others dismissed Wollstonecraft’s contributions as dangerous, and deplored Norton’s candidness, but seized on the abolition of slavery campaign she had witnessed in the United States, as one that should logically be applied to women. Her ‘’Society in America’’ was pivotal in that for the first time it caught the imagination of women who urged her to take up their cause.

Anna Wheeler had come under the influence of the Saint Simonian socialists while working in France, advocated suffrage and attracted the attention of Benjamin Disraeli, the Conservative leader, as a dangerous radical on a par with Bentham. Later she was to be the inspiration for William Thomson.

Earlier centuries had concentrated on women’s exclusion from education as the key to their being relegated to domestic roles and denied advancement. The education of women in the nineteenth century was no better, and Frances Power Cobbe was but one of many women who were calling for reform. But now many other issues were opening up as battlegrounds including marital and property rights, and domestic violence. Nevertheless women like Martineau and Cobbe in Britain, and Margaret Fuller in America, were achieving journalistic employment which placed them in a position to influence other women. If ‘feminism’ had not been invented, certainly women like Cobbe were referring to “Woman’s Rights”, not just in the abstract, but as an identifiable cause.

Feminism in fiction

Just as Jane Austen had addressed the restricted lives women faced in the early part of the century, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell and Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) depicted the limitations of a Victorian marriage like Caroline Norton’s and the different futures in store for brothers and sisters. Not only women appreciated such injustice, the novels of George Meredith and George Gissing and the plays of Henrik Ibsen also outlined the plight of women of the time, and Meredith’s ‘’Diana of the Crossways (1885) is an account of Caroline Norton’s life.

United States

Feminism in America took a slightly different course than that in Britain, and was slightly more advanced. The antislavery campaign of the 1830s provided a perfect cause for women to take up, identify with and learn political skills. Attempts to exclude women only fuelled their convictions further, and were instrumental in moving women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott firmly into the feminist camp, leading to the 1848 Seneca Falls (New York) women’s convention, where a declaration of independence for women ("A Declaration of Sentiments") was drafted. Barbara Leigh Smith describes her meeting with Mott there in her American Diary, one of many links between the movements on each side of the Atlantic. The Declaration of Sentiments became the focus for the organised women's rights movement in America. Sarah and Angelina Grimké were examples of other women who moved rapidly from the emancipation of slaves to the emancipation of women, while Sojourner Truth, a freed slave, pointed to the injustice of freeing slaves and then only giving the vote to black males. The most influential writer of the time was the colourful journalist Margaret Fuller whose Woman in the Nineteenth Century was published in 1845. Her dispatches from Europe for the New York Tribune also helped create a universality in the women's rights movement. Had she lived, she was expected to become the leader of the women's rights movement. Her involvement with prostitutes was the beginning of a long and at times difficult relationship between the women's movement and prostitution. Other notable feminists of this period include Lucy Stone.

Role of men

The Utilitarian movement continued to espouse equality for women, even if inconsistently. Admittedly John Stuart Mill gave credit to his wife Harriet Taylor for his commitment, as did William Thompson, the other major male champion of women’s rights. Yet Mill’s father James Mill argued against this in his Essay on Government, and it was this position that led Thompson to respond with his ‘’Appeal of one half of the human race’’ (1825). Although giving credit to his wife, the ‘’Appeal’’ is actually dedicated to Anna Wheeler in the intoduction, to whose radicalism he owed a considerable debt. Thompson’s (and Wheeler’s) radicalism is revealed in his unique criticism of Mary Wollstonecraft for being too timid.

Late nineteenth century: The Women's Movement, reform and campaigns

The emerging women’s movement

The Feminine ideal

Part of the rationale of nineteenth century feminists was not only a reaction to the injustices they saw but the increasingly suffocating Victorian image of the proper role of women and their "sphere". This was the "Feminine Ideal" as typified in Victorian "Conduct Books", notably those of Sarah Stickney Ellis. "The Angel in the House" (1854-1862) was a long poem by Coventry Patmore, whose image of wedded love in the title soon came to be the symbol of the Victorian feminine ideal.

The Ladies of Langham Place

Barbara Leigh Smith and her friends started to meet regularly during the 1850s in Langham Place in London to discuss the need for women to present a united voice to achieve reform. This earned them the name of the Ladies of Langham Place. They included Besssie Raynes Parker and Anna Jameson. Issues they took up focused on education, employment and marital law. One of the causes they vigorously pursued became the Married Women’s Property Committee of 1855. They collected thousands of signatures for petitions for legislative reform, some of which were successful. Smith had also attended the first women’s convention in Seneca Falls in America in 1848. Smith and Parker wrote many articles, both separately and together, on education and employment opportunities, and like Norton in the same year, Smith summarized the legal framework for injustice in 1854 in her “A Brief Summary of the Laws of England concerning Women”. Playing an important role in the “English Women's Journal”, she was able to reach large numbers of women, and the response of women to this journal led to their creation of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW). The Langham Ladies continued to provide inspiration, infrastructure and funding for much of the women’s movement for the remainder of the century.

Their task was not made easier by the reluctance of even those women who had themselves been outspoken, to unconditionally embrace such a radical idea, and who in their own words reveal the conflict of competing emotions. These included Evans, Gaskell and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who herself used the phrase "women’s rights" in Aurora Leigh, in addition to Caroline Norton.

Harriet Taylor published her ‘’Enfranchisement’’ in 1851, and wrote about the inequities of family law. In 1853 she married John Stuart Mill, providing him with much of the subject material for ‘’The Subjection of Women”. Taylor’s relatively low profile after her marriage has been a subject of speculation, but Mill was perhaps in a better position to translate theory into action.

Emily Davies was another woman who would encounter the Langham group, and with Elizabeth Garrett would help create branches of SPEW outside of London. While obtaining education remained largely a privilege rather than a right, the small group of women who were able to do so, were then able to campaign for women as a whole, realizing it was not just a portal to employment and financial self sufficiency but that the denial of education was tied to women’s expectations and their self image of their potential and worth.

Education reform

The interrelated themes of barriers to education and employment continued to form the backbone of feminist thought in the nineteenth century, as described, for instance by Harriet Martineau in her 1859 article “Female Industry” in the Edinburgh Journal. The economy was changing but women’s lot was not. Martineau, however, remained a moderate, for practical reasons, and unlike Cobbe, did not support the emerging call for the vote.

Slowly the efforts of women like Davies and the Langham group started to make inroads. Queen’s (1848) and Bedford Colleges (1849) in London were starting to offer some education to women from 1848, and by 1862 Davies was establishing a committee to persuade the universities to allow women to sit for the recently established (1858) Local Examinations, with partial success (1865). A year later she published “The Higher Education of Women”. She and Leigh Smith founded the first higher educational institution for women, with 5 students, which became Girton College, Cambridge in 1873, followed by Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford in 1879. Bedford had started awarding degrees the previous year. Despite these measurable advances, few could take advantage of them and life for women students was very difficult.

As part of the continuing dialogue between British and American feminists, Elizabeth Blackwell, one of the first women in the US to graduate in medicine (1849) lectured in Britain with Langham support, and they also supported Elizabeth Garrett’s attempts to assail the walls of British medical education against virulent opposition, eventually taking her degree in France. Garrett’s very successful campaign to run for office on the London School Board in 1870 is another example of a how a small band of very determined women were starting to reach positions of influence at the level of local government and public bodies.

Women’s campaigns

Campaigns gave women the opportunity to test their new political skills, for disparate elements to come together, and for them to join forces with other social reform groups. One had been the campaign for the Married Women’s Property Act, eventually passed in 1882. Next was the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 186 and 1869, which brought together women’s groups and utilitarian liberals such as John Stuart Mill. Women in general were outraged by the inherent inequity and misogyny of the legislation and for the first time women in large numbers took up the rights of prostitutes. Prominent critics included, Blackwell, Nightingale, Martineau and Elizabeth Wolstenholme. Elizabeth Garrett did not support the campaign, though her sister Millicent did. Later she admitted the campaign had done good. However Josephine Butler, already experienced in prostitution issues, a charismatic leader and a seasoned campaigner, emerged as the natural leaderof what became the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (1869). This demonstrated the potential power of an organised lobby group. The association successfully argued that the Acts not only demeaned prostitutes, but all women and men too, containing a blatant double sexual standard. Butler's activities resulted in the radicalisation of many moderate women. The Acts were repealed in 1886.

On a smaller scale was Annie Besant's campaign for the rights of match girls and against the apalling conditions under which they worked demonstrated how to raise public concern over social issues.

Suffrage

The fight for suffrage represents one of the most fundamental struggles of women, because explicitly denying them representation in the legislature gave a very clear message of second class citizenship. No campaign has embedded itself in popular imagination than that of suffrage over 250 years.

France

In France, following the fall of the conservative Louis-Philippe in 1848, feminist sentiment exploded throughout Paris, including several newspapers and organizations; the largest of which was the Voix des Femmes, or the Women's Voice. However because of the emergence of a new, more conservative government in 1852, Feminism in France would have to wait until the Third French Republic.

The role of men

John Stuart Mill who wrote “The Subjection of Women” in 1869 had presented a women’s petition to parliament in 1866, supported an amendment to the 1867 Reform Bill and joined the Contagious Diseases Act campaign. Criticisms of Mill include his ignorance of the creative and intellectual contributions of women in previous centuries, but this may also be seen as an accurate reflection of the times. Although his efforts were concentrated on the problems of married women, this is a realistic acknowledgement that marriage for Victorian women was a sacrifice of liberty, rights and property. His involvement in the women's movement stemmed from his long standing friendship with Harriet Taylor, who he eventually married. The British legal historian, Sir Henry Maine criticised the inevitability of patriarchy in his Ancient Law (1861), and the Swiss legal scholar Johann Jakob Bachofen first indicated the posibility of a primal matrilineality in 1854.

Twentieth century

Suffrage

Suffrage parade in New York City on May 6, 1912

Emmeline Pankhurst one of the founders of the suffragette movement and aimed to reveal the institutional sexism in British society, forming the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). for forms of activism that broke the law, particularly property destruction, inspired members to go on hunger strikes. Their jailors then often force-fed these women by nasogastric tubes, which caused many to become sick. This treatment and their injuries served to draw attention to the brutality of the legal system at the time and to further their cause, but apparently in an attempt to prevent these women from serious injury, the government introduce a bill called the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913 that became known as the Cat and Mouse Act, which allowed women to be released when their illness or injury became dangerously acute, but officers were then not prevented from arresting and charging these women again once they were well.

Many countries began to grant women the vote in the early years of the 20th century, especially in the final years of the First World War and the first years after the war. The reasons for this varied, but included a desire to recognize the contributions of women during the war, and were also influenced by rhetoric used by both sides at the time to justify their war efforts. For example, since Wilson's Fourteen Points recognised self determination as a vital component of society, the hypocrisy of denying half the population of modern nations the vote became difficult for men to ignore. (See: Women's suffrage)

The 1920s were an important time for women, who, in addition to gaining the vote also gained legal recognition in many countries. However, in many countries, women lost the jobs they had gained during the war. In fact, women who had held jobs prior to the war were sometimes compelled to give up their jobs to returning soldiers, partly due to a conservative backlash, and partially through societal pressure to reward the soldiers. Many women continued to work in blue collar jobs, on farms, and traditionally female occupations. Women did make strides in some fields such as nursing.

In both World Wars, manpower shortages brought women into traditionally male occupations, ranging from munitions manufacturing and mechanical work to a female baseball league. By demonstrating that women could do "men's work", and highlighting society's dependence on their labour, this shift encouraged women to strive for equality. In World War II, the popular icon Rosie the Riveter became a symbol for a generation of working women.

File:Kitchen slavery.jpg

Down with the Kitchen Slavery! Yes New Life!, a Soviet poster from 1931.

The rise of socialism and communism advanced the rights of women to economic parity with men in some countries. Women were often encouraged to take their place as equals in these societies, although they rarely enjoyed the same level of political power as men, and still often faced very different social expectations. The revolutions occurring in Latin America saw changes in women's status in countries like Nicaragua where Feminist Ideology During the Sandinista Revolution was largely responsible for the significant improvements to the quality of life for women but still fell short of achieving a true social ideological change.

Cover of The Suffragette April 25 1913. Artist unknown. (After Delacroix's 'Liberty leading the people, 1830)

In some areas, regimes actively discouraged feminism and women's liberations. In Nazi Germany, a very hierarchical society was idealized where women maintained a position largely subordinate to men. Women's activism was very difficult there, and in other societies that deliberately set out to restrict women's, and men's, gender roles, such as Italy, and much later Afghanistan.

Early feminists and primary feminist movements are often called the first wave and feminists after about 1960 the second wave. Second wave feminists were concerned with gaining full social and economic equality, having already gained almost full legal equality in many western nations. One of the main fields of interest to these women was in gaining the right to contraception and birth control, which were almost universally restricted until the 1960s. With the development of the birth control pill feminists hoped to make it as available as possible. Many hoped that this would free women from the perceived burden of mothering children they did not want; they felt that control of reproduction was necessary for full economic independence from men. Access to abortion was also widely demanded, but this was much more difficult to secure because of the deep societal divisions that existed over the issue. To this day, abortion remains controversial in many parts of the world.

Many feminists also fought to change perceptions of female sexual behaviour. Since it was often considered more acceptable for men to have multiple sexual partners, many feminists encouraged women into "sexual liberation" and having sex for pleasure with multiple partners. (See: Sexual revolution)

These developments in sexual behavior have not gone without criticism by some feminists. They see the sexual revolution primarily as a tool used by men to gain easy access to sex without the obligations entailed by marriage and traditional social norms. They see the relaxation of social attitudes towards sex in general, and the increased availability of pornography without stigma, as leading towards greater sexual objectification of women by men. Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin gained notoriety in the 1980s by attempting to classify pornography as a violation of women's civil rights.

There is a so called third wave, but feminists disagree as to its necessity, its benefits, and its ideas. Often also called "Post-Feminist," it can possibly be considered to be the advancement of a female discourse in a world where the equality of women is something that can be assumed—rather than fought for.

Recent activities

In many areas of the world women are still paid less than men for equivalent work, hold much less political and economic power, and are often the subject of intense social pressure to conform to relatively traditional gender expectations. Feminists continue to fight these conditions. The most high profile work is done in the field of pay-equity, reproductive rights, and encouraging women to become engaged in politics, both as candidates and as voters. In some areas feminists also fight for legislation guaranteeing equitable divorce laws and protections against rape and sexual harassment. Radical feminism was a significant development in second wave feminism, viewing women's oppression as a fundamental element in human society and seeks to challenge that standard by broadly inverting perceived gender roles along with promoting lesbian and gay rights.

In the Arab and Islamic world, feminist movements face very different challenges. In Morocco and Iran, for example, it is the application of Islamic personal status laws that are the target of feminist activity. According to Islamic law, for example, a woman who remarries may lose custody over her children; divorce is an unqualified male privilege; in certain countries polygamy is still legal. While not attacking Islamic law itself, these women and men in different Islamic countries offer modern, feminist, egalitarian readings of religious texts. In Egypt feminist gynecologist Nawal al-Sa'dawi centers her critique on the still-prevalent custom of female genital mutilation. Feminist groups in other African countries have targeted the practice as well.

One problem feminists have encountered in the late 20th century is a strong backlash against perceived zealotry on their part. This backlash may be due to the large amount of radical feminist activism that has been perceived as representing the feminist movement as a whole. Many women, and some men, have become reluctant to be identified as feminists for this reason. Outside of the West, feminism is often associated with Western colonialism and Western cultural influence, and is therefore often delegitimized. Feminist groups therefore often prefer to refer to themselves as "women's organizations" and refrain from labeling themselves feminists.

Islamic feminism

The Feminist movement in the Muslim world saw Egyptian jurist Qasim Amin, the author of the 1899 pioneering book Women's Liberation (Tahrir al-Mar'a), as the father of the Egyptian Feminist Movement. In his work, Amin criticized some of the practices prevalent in his society at the time, such as polygamy, the veil, and women's segregation. He condemned them as un-Islamic and contradictory to the true spirit of Islam. His work had an enormous influence on women's political movements throughout the Islamic and Arab world, and is read and cited today. Less known, however, are the women who preceded Amin in their feminist critique of their societies. The women's press in Egypt started voicing such concerns since its very first issues in 1892. Egyptian, Turkish, Iranian, Syrian and Lebanese women and men had been reading European feminist magazines even a decade earlier, and discussed their relevance to the Middle East in the general press.

Historical feminists of note

For a more complete list, see: List of notable feminists

• Abigail Adams
• Susan B. Anthony
• Gloria E. Anzaldúa
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Angela Davis
• Betty Friedan
• Fatima Mernissi
• Gloria Steinem
• Harriet Tubman
• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Virginia Woolf
• Emma Goldman
• Dame Ethel Mary Smyth
• Margaret Sanger
• Concepción Arenal Started and led the "Spanish Feminist Movement" in the Iberian Peninsula (1820-1893)

See also

• Feminist history in the United States
• Feminist history in the United Kingdom
• Feminist history in Latin America
• List of feminism topics
• List of notable feminists
• List of notable feminist literature
• Women's Music
• Feme covert
• Bluestocking

Other sources

Books

For a chronological list of historically important individual books see: List of notable feminist literature

General

• Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.
• Cott, Nancy F. The Grounding of Modern Feminism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
• Ezell, Margaret J M. Writing Women's Literary History. Johns Hopkins University 2006 216 pp. ISBN: 080185508X
• Freedman, Estelle No Turning Back : The History of Feminism and the Future of Women, Ballantine Books, 2002, ISBN B0001FZGQC
• Jacob, Margaret C. The Enlightenment: A Brief History With Documents, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001, ISBN 0-312-17997-9
• Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Feminist Consciousness From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-seventy. Oxford University Press, 1993
• Mill, John Stuart. The subjection of women. Okin, Susan M (ed.) Yale, Newhaven CT 1985
• Rossi, Alice S. The feminist papers: from Adams to Beauvoir. Northeastern University, Boston. 1973 ISBN 1-55553-028-1
• Scott, Joan Wallach Feminism and History (Oxford Readings in Feminism), Oxford University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-19-875169-9
• Smith, Bonnie G. Global Feminisms: A Survey of Issues and Controversies (Rewriting Histories), Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-18490-8
• Spender, Dale (ed.) Feminist theorists: Three centuries of key women thinkers, Pantheon 1983, ISBN 0-394-53438-7

Europe

• Anderson, Bonnie S. and Judith P. Zinsser A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present, Oxford University Press, 1999 (revised edition), ISBN 0-19-512839-7
• Offen, Karen M. European Feminisms, 1700–1950: A Political History. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2000

Great Britain

• Craik, Elizabeth M.(ed.) 'Women and Marriage in Victorian England', in Marriage and Property. Aberdeen University 1984
• Fraser, Antonia. The weaker vessel. Vintage, N.Y. 1985 ISBN 0-394-73251-0
• Phillips, Melanie. The Ascent of Woman - A History of the Suffragette Movement and the ideas behind it, Time Warner Book Group London, 2003, ISBN 0-349-11660-1
• Pugh, Martin. Women and the women's movement in Britain, 1914 -1999 , Basingstoke [etc.] : St. Martin's Press , 2000
• Walters, Margaret. Feminism: A very short introduction. Oxford 2005 (ISBN 0-19-280510-X)

Italy

• Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, liberazione della donna. feminism in italy, Wesleyan University Press 1986

India

• Feminism in India, ed. by Maitrayee Chaudhuri, London [etc.] : Zed Books, 2005

Japan

• Vera MacKie, Feminism in Modern Japan: Citizenship, Embodiment and Sexuality, Paperback Edition, Cambridge University Press 2003, ISBN 0-521-52719-8

Latin America

• Nancy Sternbach, Feminism in Latin America : from Bogota to San Bernardo in: SIGNS, Winter 1992, pp.393-434

USA

• Brownmiller, Susan. In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution, Dial Books 1999
• Cott, Nancy and Elizabeth Pleck, eds., A Heritage of Her Own; Toward a New Social History of American Women New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979
• Echols, Alice. Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975, University of Minnesota Press 1990
• Flexner, Eleanor. Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, Paperback Edition, Belknap Press 1996
• Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth., "Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life": How Today's Feminist Elite Has Lost Touch With the Real Concerns of Women, Doubleday 1996
• Keetley, Dawn (ed.) Public Women, Public Words: A Documentary History of American Feminism.3 vls.:
  • Vol. 1: Beginnings to 1900, Madison, Wis. : Madison House, 1997
  • Vol. 2: 1900 to 1960, Lanham, Md. [etc.] : Rowman & Littlefield, 2002
  • Vol. 3: 1960 to the present , Lanham, Md. [etc.] : Rowman & Littlefield, 2002
• Messer-Davidow, Ellen : Disciplining feminism : from social activism to academic discourse, Durham, NC [etc.] : Duke University Press, 2002
• O'Neill, William L. Everyone was brave: A history of feminism in America. Chicago 1971
• Roth, Benita. Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America's Second Wave, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004

Journal articles

• Cott, Nancy F. Feminist Politics in the 1920s: The National Woman’s Party. Journal of American History 71 (June 1984): 43–68.
• Cott, Nancy F. What’s In a Name? The Limits of ‘Social Feminism’; or, Expanding the Vocabulary of Women’s History. Journal of American History 76 (December 1989): 809–829.

External links

• Timeline of feminist history in the USA