Feminism

June Hannam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317861072
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mondiale

The sheer number of publications on Feminism make it difficult for students who approach the subject for the first time to gain a sense of what the main issues and interpretations are. This book addresses this by offering students an overview of feminism and its history across several countries and time periods, along with an annotated guide to direct them in their further reading.

Feminism by June Hannam provides comprehensive coverage right from how feminists began to write the history of their movement as early as the late nineteenth century to the impact feminism has had on higher education. The text also looks in depth at propaganda and the cult of the heroine in suffrage campaigning and how 'first wave' feminists constructed their own history which then affected future generations of historians, and activists.

Part 1 Analysis and Assessment

1 The Problem

DOI: 10.4324/9781315833170-1

Turning the World Upside Down

Millicent Fawcett, a leader of the British campaign for women’s suffrage, claimed in 1913 that the women’s movement was one of the ‘biggest things that has ever taken place in the history of the world’.

Other movements towards freedom have aimed at raising the status of a comparatively small group or class. But the women’s movement aims at nothing less than raising the status of an entire sex – half the human race – to lift it up to the freedom and value of womanhood. It affects more people than any former reform movement, for it spreads over the whole world. It is more deep-seated, for it enters into the home and modifies the personal character.

(Fawcett, 1913: xii)

Fawcett’s words remind us of why feminism, both as an ideology and as a political practice, has been such an important and controversial issue in most countries of the world since at least the eighteenth century. At many different times and places individuals and organized groups have demanded reforms that would improve women’s lives. Feminism, however, has always had the potential of doing more than that – of quite simply ‘turning the world upside down’. Feminism is a cultural as well as a political movement. It changes the way women think and feel and affects how women and men live their lives and interpret the world. For this reason it has provoked lively debates and fierce antagonisms that have continued to the present day. Contemporary feminism and its concerns, therefore, are rooted in a history stretching over at least two centuries.

The mid-eighteenth century is used here as the starting point for a history of feminism. In earlier centuries individual women did debate women’s social position. The most well known of these are Hildegard of Bingen, founder of a vibrant convent in the twelfth century, and the fourteenth-century poet and writer, Christine de Pizan. Through their writings and actions they challenged contemporary views about a woman’s place and sought greater equality for women, in particular in education. In the period in which they were writing, however, their ideas had little impact beyond a small, educated elite. It was not until the eighteenth century that there was a marked shift in the extent and nature of the development of feminism. The number of texts dealing with women’s emancipation increased and the audience for them began to grow. Women were excited by the new ideas of the Enlightenment and the upheavals of the French Revolution. They began to imagine alternative social and gender relations and came together in various forms of association to challenge male domination and to reject contemporary definitions of what it meant to be female. By the mid-nineteenth century women in Europe, North America and the white-settler colonies of Canada, New Zealand and Australia began to organize together for the first time in societies and groups whose sole purpose was to achieve changes and improvements in the social, political and economic lives of women.

French Revolution (1789–99): A period of radical social and political upheaval in which the monarchy was overthrown and a republic established on the basis of citizenship and inalienable rights.

Enlightenment: A series of philosophical and political debates in the eighteenth century that criticized the monarchy and the established church and was optimistic about the poten tial of human reason to reshape the political order on the basis of an understanding of the natural world.

Histories of Feminism

This organized movement takes centre stage in most histories of feminism. The educated, articulate women who led the movement were aware that they were making history. They wanted their achievements to be recognized by future generations and to tell their own story. So they wrote autobiographies, memoirs and histories that have helped to shape the way in which we view the characteristics and aims of early feminism. This close relationship between feminist politics and the development of a history of feminism continued with the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 70s. Activists were keen to trace the origins of their movement and constructed and reconstructed their own history and traditions in line with their contemporary preoccupations. This has had important implications for the ways in which the history of organized feminism has been understood and for the framework within which the story has been told. Thus some ideas, individuals and campaigns have been privileged over others. The suffrage movement, in particular, has held a central place in histories of feminism, especially in Britain and the United States where it was a strong and highly visible campaign. A focus on suffrage, however, can be a distorting lens through which to view feminism as a whole. Many women had other priorities, in particular if they were involved in nationalist, anti-colonial and revolutionary struggles, and we need to make sure that their attempts to pursue women’s social, economic and political rights are not lost from view.

A focus on well-organized women’s movements has led to the development of a common narrative in histories of feminism that identifies two key periods of activism – ‘first wave’ feminism, c. 1860s to 1920 and ‘second wave’ feminism in the 1960s and 70s. This has been adapted slightly to fit the context of some other European countries. In Denmark, for example, three waves have been identified. The first in the late nineteenth century, before demands were made for the suffrage, the second, suffrage phase, just before and during the First World War and the third wave in the 1970s. In Norway there was a long first wave, going up to the end of the Second World War and then a second wave from the 1960s to the 1980s, but with two ‘crests’ in the 1880s and 1970s. The use of waves as a metaphor can, however, be problematic. A focus on ‘ebbs and flows’ draws attention away from continuities and lines of tradition and reinforces the assumption that in periods of ‘ebb’ little feminist activity took place. This means that we can miss the variety of ways in which feminists continued to press for change in a hostile political climate, for example in the inter-war years (Legates, 2001: 282). The ‘two wave’ model, drawn from the experiences of Britain and the United States, provides a chronological framework that is mis leading when applied to other countries. It assumes that the main gains for women’s suffrage had been won by 1920, after which the movement fragmented, and yet in South America the inter-war years proved far more significant, while in the 1940s over half the female population of the world still did not have the vote.

These are important reminders that we need to take care that the metaphors that we use, such as ‘waves’, illuminate rather than constrain our understand ing of feminist activities. Thus women’s attempts to challenge aspects of their social role in ‘quieter’ periods need to be rescued from obscurity and seen as a key part of the history of feminism. At the same time we should not underestimate the impact of high-profile, public campaigns which raised ‘feminist consciousness’ in an explicit way. The suffrage campaign and the Women’s Liberation Movement, for instance, generated widespread publicity, influenced contemporary politics and affected the ways in which women and men thought about themselves and their place in the world. Historians have therefore searched for other ways to describe ‘phases’ in feminist history that can differentiate between periods of intense activity, while at the same time not ignoring that there were continuities in feminist campaigns or privileging one chronological framework over another.

Women’s Liberation Movement: Name given to a series of campaigns on diverse issues such as abortion rights, domestic violence and equal pay in the 1970s that challenged discrimination against women. It was characterized by grass-roots consciousness raising groups and the slogan ‘the personal is political’.

An important and influential American historian of feminism, Karen Offen, prefers a metaphor derived from the study of volcanoes. Her comparative study of European feminisms has led her to suggest that feminism is a ‘rather fluid form of discontent that repeatedly presses against … weak spots in the sedimented layers of a patriarchal crust’, with the task of the historian, like that of the geologist, to ‘map and measure the terrain, to locate the fissures, to analyse the context in which they open … and to evaluate the shifting patterns of activity over time’ (2000: 25–6). A senior scholar with the Institute for research on Women and Gender at Stanford University, Offen is also a founder and past secretary-treasurer of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History. Her comparative work raises many issues that are examined in the course of this book which will explore the history of feminism in a range of countries spanning several continents.

Comparative studies are only possible because of the growing number of histories of feminism that have been produced in recent years for countries outside Western Europe and North America. A broad, comparative approach highlights the varieties of feminism and the different political and social contexts in which they developed across the world. Too often the priorities of white, middle-class Western women, in particular, the achievement of the vote and equal rights, are used as a lens through which to view feminism as a whole. The concerns of women in other parts of the world – for clean water, decent food and access to health care – are then either marginalized or seen as somehow ‘less feminist’. Comparative work draws attention to the ethnocentrism and racism of Western feminism and questions the notion of a ‘universal sisterhood’. Comparisons between countries put national peculiarities to the test and highlight cross-cultural similarities and differences. They also shift the focus away from a definition of feminism that is based on an Anglo-American model (Blom, 1998). Comparative studies have contributed to an understanding of the complexity of feminism as a theory and as a political practice. Rather than identifying distinctive strands within feminism, such as an emphasis on equality or sexual difference, or between socialist feminism and radical feminism, historians are now more likely to suggest that there was a shifting and complicated interrelationship between various ideas and that these could change over time.

Although feminist campaigns were usually targeted at specific governments, there was a strong international dimension to the movement. The development of industrial capitalism, imperialism and colonialism from the late nineteenth century onwards ensured that women’s lives would be woven together on a global scale, while feminists actively sought to make links with each other across national boundaries. It was commonly thought that feminists in Western Europe and North America took the lead in this process, and that there was ‘a simple one way move from imperial center to periphery and colony’ (DuBois and Oliviero, 2009: 2). Recent studies, however, have shown that the flow of ideas and organizational practice was far more fluid than this might imply. The imperialist nations of Britain, the United States and The Netherlands did not present a monolithic view, but differed amongst themselves, while feminist ideas could also originate outside of these areas. In the inter-war years this was expressed in the growth of international organizations that had their focus outside of Europe and North America.

Definitions of Feminism

What do we mean by feminism? Does ‘feminism’ exist today or are the differences among feminists so great that we should speak of ‘feminisms’? In fact, such differences are nothing new; the movement has always encompassed a wide range of attitudes, concerns and strategies. This raises the question, therefore, of whether it is possible to come up with a working definition that can be applied to a variety of contexts and periods of time. Feminists themselves, and commentators on their campaigns, are bound to emphasize different issues as lying at the heart of ‘modern feminism’. For some it is the demand for women’s rights or the quest for female autonomy, whereas for others it is the emphasis on the common bonds uniting women in a critique of male supremacy. It is rare to find any political label that is not controversial, but to jettison labels ‘would leave one without any signposts in a sea of chaos’ (Caine, 1997: 7).

In this book the term feminism will be used to describe a set of ideas that recognize in an explicit way that women are subordinate to men and seek to address imbalances of power between the sexes. Central to feminism is the view that women’s condition is socially constructed, and therefore open to change. At its heart is the belief that women’s voices should be heard – that they should represent themselves, put forward their own view of the world and achieve autonomy in their lives.

Feminism: A recognition of an imbalance of power between the sexes with women in a subordinate role to men and a belief that women’s condition is socially constructed and can therefore be changed. Emphasis is placed on female autonomy.

The word féminisme, meaning women’s emancipation, was initially used in political debates in late nineteenth-century France and the first woman to proclaim herself a féministe was the French women’s suffrage advocate, Hubertine Auclert. Earlier in the nineteenth century it was common to refer to the ‘woman movement’, the ‘women’s movement’ or to ‘women’s rights’. Even after 1900 when the word feminism was in more general use in Europe women might still prefer to describe themselves as suffragists rather than as feminists. In some cases, as in the United States after 1910, feminism was used by those who wanted to distinguish themselves from the ‘woman movement’ with its emphasis on suffrage and equal rights. The term feminism was preferred because it implied a more far-reaching revolution in relationships between the sexes, in particular, within the family. How appropriate is it, therefore, to use the word feminist when contemporaries did not describe themselves in that way? It is obviously important to take account of the language used by women themselves in specific historical periods since it helps us to understand their aims and objectives. On the other hand, the term feminist does provide a useful shorthand to convey a set of meanings that are instantly recognizable, in particular, if feminism is defined as broadly as possible. It will, therefore, be used throughout this book to refer to individual women and to social movements that challenged gender inequalities.

Women’s rights, women’s emancipation and the women’s or woman movement were all used by feminists at different times and places to describe their movements and goals. These labels had complex meanings which could change over time. Women’s rights campaigners demanded that women should have formal equality with men in the law, politics and in civil society. In the course of making these demands, however, some began to question whether women should simply be seeking to enter a world that was defined by men and shaped by male values. Instead they argued that women were different from men and that ‘feminine’ qualities should be valued in the public as well as in the private sphere. This tension between equality and difference has been present in feminist debates since the late eighteenth century and will be a persistent theme in this book.

Women’s emancipation implies that broader change was needed once formal equality had been achieved. Women were unlikely to be able to take advantage of equal rights while other aspects of their social position remained the same, for example their responsibility for child care. For socialist women full emancipation could only be achieved once women were liberated from economic and class oppression. It was imperative therefore to work for the overthrow of capitalism. During the twentieth century terms such as the women’s movement or women’s groups took on a different meaning from the one that was common in nineteenth-century Europe. In the earlier period the women’s movement was used as a term to refer to those women who acted together to challenge women’s subordination. In Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s, however, the term women’s movement was used to distinguish groups that made demands on behalf of the community, or who sought to uphold the status quo, from feminist movements that sought to challenge gender roles and inequalities. We need to be careful, therefore, to be clear about what particular groups and movements aimed to achieve.

Themes

In a book of this size it is not possible to provide a detailed account of the development of feminism in individual countries. Emphasis is placed, therefore, on identifying broad trends and changes over time and on introducing recent interpretations and approaches. There are a number of key themes. Firstly, the challenge made by feminists to prevailing ideas about a ‘woman’s place’. From the late eighteenth century onwards it was assumed that there was a separation between public and private space. Women’s identification with the family and domesticity, or the private sphere, was then used to justify their exclusion from the public world of work and politics. For feminists it was important to contest these ideas and to dispute their exclusion from public life, in particular from the exercise of citizenship. In doing so they challenged contemporary definitions of masculinity and femininity, re-defined what it meant to be female, and used imagination to look forward to a society in which gender relations would be transformed (Yeo, 1997: Introduction).

Feminists did not develop their ideas in a vacuum but had to engage with an existing framework of social and political thought – this in turn helped to shape the characteristics of feminism at different times and places. The complex relationship between equality and difference, a second theme in the book, provides a good example. Feminists did not necessarily challenge the view that women had different qualities and characteristics from men, but used this to their own advantage. They argued that because women were different then they needed to exert an influence for good in the world beyond the family and so they needed equal rights in politics, employment and the law. There could be tensions, however, in bringing these perspectives together and also between the demand for personal autonomy and collective responsibility towards others. These tensions were then worked out in different ways by individual feminists and by the movements of which they were a part.

A further theme will focus on sisterhood. Feminists attempted to develop a politics based on women’s solidarity with each other at both a national and at an international level. ‘Sisterhood is powerful’ was one of the key slogans of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 70s. And yet differences of class, race, nation and sexual orientation constantly threatened to undermine this solidarity. Separate women’s organizations played a key role in developing a sense of collective identity and a ‘feminist consciousness’, but did not provide the only space in which women could make their demands. Many feminists sought to achieve their goals through mixed-sex political parties and viewed their feminist causes as inextricably linked to a broader...