Feminist Manifestos

A Global Documentary Reader

Penny A. Weiss

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781479894536
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A wide-reaching collection of groundbreaking feminist documents from around the world. Feminist Manifestos is an unprecedented collection of 150 documents from feminist organizations and gatherings in over 50 countries over the course of three centuries. In the first book of its kind, the manifestos are shown to contain feminist theory and recommend actions for change, and also to expand our very conceptions of feminist thought and activism. Covering issues from political participation, education, religion and work to reproduction, violence, racism, and environmentalism, the manifestos together challenge simplistic definitions of gender and feminist movements in exciting ways. In a wide-ranging introduction, Penny Weiss explores the value of these documents, especially how they speak with and to each other. In addition, an introduction to each individual document contextualizes and enhances our understanding of it. Weiss is particularly invested in how communities work together toward social change, which is demonstrated through her choice to include only collectively authored texts. By assembling these documents into an accessible volume, Weiss reveals new possibilities for social justice and ways to advocate for equality. A unique and inspirational collection, Feminist Manifestos expands and evolves our understanding of feminism through the self-described agendas of women from every ethnic group, religion, and region in the world.

Part I

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

1

Petition of the Gentlewomen and Tradesmen’s Wives

London, England

February 4, 1642

In the free enjoying of Christ in his own laws, and flourishing estate of the church and commonwealth, consisteth the happiness of women as well as men.1

The oldest collective document found so far, this pamphlet had three parts: a petition, a justification for it, and an account of its reception. It is a stretch to call this “feminist,” for the document states that the petitioners are not “seeking to equal ourselves with men, either in authority or wisdom.” Nonetheless, this early selection both speaks to certain fears of women in their traditional roles and presents a list of reasons for women speaking out in public that does not appeal to such roles. It is an early instance, of which many more will be seen, of recalling political and biblical examples of women acting publicly and on principle that the petitioners then follow.

The women who petitioned Parliament in early 1642 articulated new arguments about their rights as women. They point out that they are equal to men in God’s eyes and that they have suffered for their religious beliefs in the same ways that men have, making a kind of translation from the realm of the spirit to the temporal world of Newgate and Smithfield. Second, these women are claiming the right to speak in public.… It is difficult for us to recover just how shocking these women’s public actions were to their contemporaries. Silence was a virtue closely associated with the female sex in early modern England.… From fiction to embroidery patterns, from sermons to household guides, women were everywhere reminded that silence was to be their adornment.2

Indeed, the official response to the petition testifies to what women were up against. These are the words attributed to Mr. Pym, at the door of the Commons:

Good women, your petition and the reasons have been read in the house; and is very thankfully accepted of, and is come in a seasonable time: You shall (God willing) receive from us all the satisfaction which we can possibly give to your just and lawful desires. We entreat you to repair to your houses, and turn your petition which you have delivered here into prayers at home for us; for we have been, are and shall be (to our utmost power) ready to relieve you, your husbands, and children, and to perform the trust committed unto us towards God, our King and country, as becometh faithful Christians and loyal subjects.

This would hardly be the last time it would be suggested that women “repair to your houses” and leave these matters to men. Nor would it be the last time women ignored the suggestion. It is important to see how Pym’s

authoritative remark strives to reinforce a gendered segregation of social space and discursive activity across class hierarchies and to translate the register of women’s political engagement into the (patriarchally oriented and endorsed) language of devotion. It is no accident, therefore, that the vast majority of women’s printed petitions from the period spend some considerable time interrogating the assumptions that it is “strange and unbeseeming of our sex to shew ourselves by way of petition.”3

Petition of the Gentlewomen and Tradesmen’s Wives

The most humble Petition of the Gentlewomen, Tradesmen’s Wives,4 and many others of the female sex, all inhabitants of the city of London, and the suburbs thereto.

With lowest submission showing,

That we also with all thankful humility acknowledging the unwearied pains, care and great charge, besides hazard of health and life, which you the noble worthies of the honorable and renowned assembly have undergone, for the safety both of church and commonwealth, for a long time already past; for which not only we your humble petitioners, and all well affected in this kingdom, but also all other good Christians are bound now and at all times to acknowledge; yet notwithstanding that many worthy deeds have been done by you, great danger and fear do still attend us, and will, as long as Popish Lords and superstitious bishops are suffered to have their voice in the House of Peers, and that accursed and abominable Idol of the Mass suffered in the kingdom, and that archenemy of our prosperity and reformation lyeth in the Tower [Archbishop Laud], yet not receiving his deserved punishment.

All these under correction, gives us great cause to suspect, that God is angry with us, and to be the chief causes why your pious endeavors for a further reformation proceedeth not with that success as you desire, and is most earnestly prayed for of all that wish well to true religion, and the flourishing estate both of king and kingdom; the insolencies of the papists and their abbettors, raiseth a just fear and suspicion of sowing sedition, and breaking out into bloody persecution in this kingdom, as they have done in Ireland, the thoughts of which sad and barbarous events, maketh our tender hearts to melt within us, forcing us humbly to Petition to this honorable Assembly, to make safe provision for yourselves and us, before it be too late.

And whereas we, whose hearts have joined cheerfully with all those petitions which have been exhibited unto you in the behalf of the purity of religion, and the liberty of our husbands persons and estates, recounting our selves to have an interest in the common privileges with them, do with the same confidence assure ourselves to find the same gracious acceptance with you, for easing of those grievances, which in regard of our frail condition, do more nearly concern us, and do deeply terrify our souls: our domestical dangers with which this kingdom is so much distracted, especially growing on us from those treacherous and wicked attempts already are such, as we find ourselves to have as deep a share as any other.

We cannot but tremble at the very thoughts of the horrid and hideous facts which modesty forbids us now to name, occasioned by the bloody wars in Germany, his Majesty’s late Northern Army, how often did it affright our hearts, whilst their violence began to break out so furiously upon the persons of those, whose husbands or parents were not able to rescue: we wish we had no cause to speak of those insolencies, and savage usage and unheard of rapes, exercised upon our sex in Ireland, and have we not just cause to fear they will prove the forerunners of our ruin, except Almighty God by the wisdom and care of this Parliament be pleased to succor us, our husbands and children, which are as dear and tender unto us, as the lives and blood of our hearts, to see them murdered and mangled and cut in pieces before our eyes, to see our children dashed against the stones, and the mother’s milk mingled with the infants’ blood, running down the streets; to see our houses on flaming fire over our heads: oh how dreadful would this be! We thought it misery enough (though nothing to that we have just cause to fear) but few years since for some of our sex, by unjust divisions from their bosom comforts, to be rendered in a manner widows, and the children fatherless, husbands were imprisoned from the society of their wives, even against the laws of God and nature; and little Infants suffered in their fathers’ banishments: thousands of our dearest friends have been compelled to fly from Episcopal persecutions into desert places amongst wild Beasts, there finding more favor than in their native soil, and in the midst of all their sorrows, such hath the pity of the Prelates been, that our cries could never enter into their ears or hearts, nor yet through multitudes of obstructions could never have access or come nigh to those royal mercies of our most gracious Sovereign, which we confidently hope, would have relieved us: but after all these pressures ended, we humbly signify, that our present fears are, that unless the blood-thirsty faction of the Papists and Prelates be hindered in their designs, ourselves here in England as well as they in Ireland, shall be exposed to that misery which is more intolerable than that which is already past, as namely to the rage not of men alone, but of devils incarnate, (as we may so say) besides the thralldom of our souls and consciences in matters concerning God, which of all things are most dear unto us.

Now the remembrance of all these fearful accidents aforementioned, do strongly move us from the example of the woman of Tekoa (II Samuel 14.2–20) to fall submissively at the feet of his Majesty, our dread sovereign, and cry Help, oh King, help oh ye the noble Worthies now sitting in Parliament: And we humbly beseech you, that you will be a means to his Majesty and the House of Peers, that they will be pleased to take our heartbreaking grievances into timely consideration, and to add strength and encouragement to your noble endeavors, and further that you would move his Majesty with our humble requests, that he would be graciously pleased according to the example of the good King Asa, to purge both the court and kingdom of that great idolatrous service of the Mass, which is tolerated in the Queen’s court, this sin (as we conceive) is able to draw down a greater curse upon the whole kingdom than all your noble and pious endeavors can prevent, which was the cause that the good and pious King Asa would not suffer idolatry in his own mother, whose example if it shall please his Majesty’s gracious goodness to follow, in putting down Popery and Idolatry both in great and small, in court and in the kingdom throughout, to subdue the Papists and their abettors, and by taking away the power of the Prelates, whose government by long and woeful experience we have found to be against the liberty of our conscience and the freedom of the Gospel, and the sincere profession and practice thereof, then shall our fears be removed, and we may expect that God will pour down his blessings in abundance both upon his Majesty, and upon this Honorable Assembly, and upon the whole land.

For which your new petitioners shall pray affectionately.

The Reasons follow.

It may be thought strange, and unbeseeming our sex to show ourselves by way of petition to this Honorable Assembly: but the matter being rightly considered, of the right and interest we have in the common and public cause of the Church, it will, as we conceive (under correction) be found a duty commanded and required.

First, because Christ hath purchased us at as dear a rate as he hath done men, and therefore requireth the like obedience for the same mercy as of men.

Secondly, because in the free enjoying of Christ in his own laws, and a flourishing estate of the church and commonwealth, consisteth the happiness of women as well as men.

Thirdly, because women are sharers in the common calamities that accompany both church and commonwealth when oppression is exercised over the church or kingdom wherein they live; and an unlimited power have been given to Prelates to exercise authority over the consciences of women, as well as men, witness Newgate, Smithfield, and other places of persecution, wherein women as well as men have felt the smart of their fury.

Neither are we left without example in scripture, for when the state of the church, in the time of Ki...