Feminism and Industrialism

[lpetrich]

 Feminism,  History of feminism,  Protofeminism

One can split the feminism issue into two main parts: feminist theorizing and feminist activism.

Feminist theorizing goes as far back as Plato, who proposed for his Republic (Book V) that both sexes have the same "original nature", and that both ought to be educated the same and do the same jobs to within their respective physical strengths. Jobs including the work of the Guardian ruling class. However, he didn't follow it up very well.

Plato wrote his book Republic around 380 BCE, about 2400 years ago, thus giving feminist theorizing that long a history. Over the centuries, various people of both sexes would argue that women deserve a better deal than what they had typically been getting.

-

As far as I can tell, organized feminist movements did not get started until the mid to late 19th century, and only in nations that were relatively industrialized, like the United States and the United Kingdom.

The  Seneca Falls Convention is, I think, a good marker event for the start of activist feminism. It was held in Seneca Falls NY on July 19-20, 1848, and its participants issued a  Declaration of Sentiments. Written in the style of the US Declaration of Independence, and copying some of its wording, it criticized some of the very sexist laws of the time, laws which made married women legally dependent on their husbands. It ended with

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-third the people of this country, their social and religious degradation—in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

In short, let's get started with feminist activism.

Its locale, Seneca Falls NY, is a small town in upstate New York, but it is on the Erie Canal, and it is in one of the more industrialized states of its day.

So if industrialism enabled the emergence of activist feminism, one might ask how it did so. By women getting employed on the same terms as men?

-

It must be noted that this wave of feminist activism lasted roughly until 1920 in the US and the UK. That's when women got the vote. Then feminism went into eclipse, even though women gradually moved into various jobs and careers. In the US, it got restarted in the early 1960's, and it has continued ever since. Recent feminists have named the original ones the first wave, and they have split the recent wave into second and third waves, with a possible fourth wave emerging.

So in the US, at least, there was a sort of "feminism gap" between 1920 and 1960.

It would be interesting to see what goes on in other countries, but it's hard for me to get much on that. Is there also a correlation between feminist activism and industrialism elsewhere in the world?

 

[rousseau]

When people are educated they're better at recognizing when they're getting a bum deal, and when they live in a society which protects them they have more power to speak out against indignities. I guess you could say women are becoming more and more empowered.