Introducing Feminism: A Graphic Guide (Graphic Guides)

by Cathia Jenainati

The term “feminism” came into English usage around the 1890s, but women’s conscious struggle to resist discrimination and sexist oppression goes much further back.

Early thinking about the difference between women and men was based on essentialist ideas about gender which maintained that women’s and men’s differences are a result of biology.

Essentialism sees men as able to think logically, abstractly and analytically, while women are mainly emotional, compassionate and nurturing creatures.

Essentialist thinking had repercussions on women’s private and public lives. In private, essentialist ideas were translated into rule sof conduct for the woman as wife, mother and daughter. In public, it was believed that women’s participation should be limited and strictly controlled by a masculine representative of authority such as husband, father, the clergy, the law.

Early Modern feminist activity aimed at challenging the prevalent social view that women are weak and irrational creatures who should be controlled by men. There were a number of political events which supported such efforts, in particular Queen Elizabeth I’s accession to the throne in 1558 and her long and successful reign as a single female.

In 1589, Jane Anger’s Her Protection for Women reinterpreted Genesis.

Rachel Speght’s A Muzzle for Melastomus (1617) questioned the story of Adam’s fall from the Garden of Eden, taking issue with the underlying assumption that Adam had been seduced by Eve to eat the apple: “If Adam has not approved of that deed which Eve has done, and been willing to tread the steps which she had gone, he being her head would have reproved her.”

Within the family, Quakers did not differentiate between the social roles of men and women. As a result, many female Friends were highly educated and played prominent roles in politics and education. Quaker women would travel unaccompanied, contribute to Church administration and preach to mixed audiences. Consequently it is believed that in the 19th century “Quaker women comprised 40 per cent of female abolitionists, 19 per cent of feminists born before 1830, and 15 per cent of suffragists born before 1830”. (Mary Maples)

During the 18th and 19th centuries, many notable female figures were outspoken about the need to challenge women’s subordinate social position. Their writings express, to a great extent, the legacy of the Age of Enlightenment by insisting that we must use reason as opposed to faith to discover any truth about our existence. Finding things out individually rather than unquestioningly following tradition was the Enlightenment’s practice of free enquiry.

The relational perspective proposed a vision of an egalitarian society based on non-hierarchical gender difference with the male-female couple as its basic unit.

We think of first wave feminism as referring to the organized feminist activity which evolved in Britain and the USA in the second half of the 19th century.

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.

The major achievements of the first wave feminists were: the opening of higher education to women and the reform of secondary education for girls; and the enactment of the Married Women’s Property Act, 1870. They remained active until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, which put a stop to suffrage campaigns. First wave feminist activism failed to secure the vote.

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 political commitments. She wrote to him regularly and urged him to “remember to think about the Ladies” while drafting the Declaration of Independence. Her letters were compiled and published posthumously by her grandson.

In addition to demanding equal representation for women within the law, Adams also warned against depriving women of access to education and social equality.

Abigail Adams was not the only female voice warning against the dangers of perpetuating social and legal discrimination against women. In 1792, the English writer Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97), who was influenced by the ideas of the American and French Revolutions, called for the full participation of women in the rights and duties of citizenship.

The publication of Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is generally thought to be the first conscious attempt at engaging polemically with issues of gender discrimination.

Wollstonecraft convinced Godwin to get married in order to save her reputation. She died ten days after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein).

Wollstonecraft wrote Vindication in response to the Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), whose book Emile claimed that women were sentimental and frivolous, and that in marriage they could occupy only a subordinate position as companions to their husbands.

As a liberal feminist, Wollstonecraft believed that it was the state’s responsibility to protect civil liberties such as the right to vote, the right to own property and freedom of speech.

Hence, when society denies women the chance to develop their rational powers, to become moral persons who are involved in social commitments, it also denies them basic civil liberties.

Rational and independent women however, develop moral capacities which enable them to become “observant daughters”, “affectionate sisters”, “reasonable mothers” and “faithful wives”.

The strength of Wollstonecraft’s analysis is that it argues for the necessity of educating women to enable them to achieve economic independence. However, her arguments which privilege traits traditionally associated with males, and invite women to adopt them, are limited in scope and nowadays seen as controversial. Wollstonecraft does not resolve the problem of women’s lack of access to the public domain and her aspirations for women remain theoretical.

Angelina Grimké (1805–79), a lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society and a public speaker on women’s rights, found herself the focus of attention as one of the first women to speak out in the USA.

Her sister Sarah Grimké (1792–1873) was also a spokesperson for the abolitionist cause and for women’s rights. The sisters’ repeated public appearances defied accepted standards of the time and caused outrage in social circles. Their affirmation that men and women are created equal and that women should be allowed the same social and civil liberties as men created a general public uproar. They were criticised by clergy members for behaving like men.

The years 1820–80 were still largely dominated by publications which depicted stereotypical representations of women. Advice manuals, literature books and public sermons contributed to the perpetuation of a cult of domesticity which ascribed to women a strictly private function and to men a public role.

J.S. Mill’s essay on the subjection of women established a correlation between the degree of civilization of a people and the social position of its women. He argued against essentialism.

Lady Caroline Norton (1808–77) was a novelist and poet who became a spokesperson for women’s rights after her husband divorced her. Her battles for custody and property in 1839 were crucial controversies which highlighted the plight of mothers trapped in unhappy marriages.

This high-profile legal case resulted in the passing of the Infant Custody Act in 1839, allowing mothers of “irreproachable character” custody of children under the age of seven and regular access to older children.

While living on her own, Caroline Norton supported herself by writing. Yet, as femme covert, her earnings legally belonged to her husband.

This, along with a petition signed by 25,000 women in favour of married women’s property ownership, resulted in the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, the precursor of the 1870 act which allowed married women control over their financial earnings and inherited property.

Catherine Helen Spence (1825–1910) was a Scottish-born Australian feminist who started her public career as a fiction writer. She also wrote literary criticism for the South Australian Register in 1872. As a social reformer, Spence campaigned for girls’ education, divorce law reform and women’s suffrage.

Meanwhile, in the US the fight for abolishing slavery was gaining momentum, and activists for women’s suffrage were still allying their cause to that of the abolitionists. American suffragettes were also looking to establish links with their “sisters” in Europe. In 1840 Lucretia Mott (1793–1880) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) travelled to London to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention. 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.

At the close of the convention, a “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” was read out. Its style imitated and parodied the US Declaration of Independence, beginning with “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal”.

Many historians cite Seneca Falls as the beginning of the first wave of feminist activity in the US, the main aim of which was to achieve suffrage for women; for with the vote women would be able to challenge unjust laws and participate in the implementations of new laws which guaranteed their rights.

Anthony was a liberal Quaker and a dedicated radical reformer. Her involvement in women’s rights began in 1851 when she met Stanton. Together they organized the National Woman Suffrage Association and published a newspaper, Revolution, which made public various injustices suffered by women.

Anthony continued to speak at conventions until late in her life. In 1979, the US Mint honoured her work by issuing the Susan B. Anthony silver dollar coin.

In 1866 she formed the Women’s Suffrage Committee. Its members penned a suffrage petition, signed by 1,500 women, which J.S. Mill agreed to present to the House of Commons on their behalf. On 7 June the committee chose Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett to carry the large roll of parchment into Westminster. Bodichon is mostly remembered for her efforts in raising funds for the first women’s college in Cambridge. Girton College was opened in 1873, although its female students were not allowed full participation in the university until 1948.

In 1865, the first women’s suffrage society was formed in Manchester, and the movement spread to London, Birmingham and Bristol. In 1889 the Women’s Franchise League was formed. Among the most prominent members of the league was Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928).

She married a barrister who advocated equality for women, and in 1903 she founded the Woman’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), an organization dedicated to obtaining the vote for women in Britain. She held public meetings in London and led protest marches to the House of Commons.

By 1911, suffrage had still not been achieved. The suffragettes became more violent and committed arson, cut telephone wires and burned phone boxes, slashed paintings in public galleries and threw bombs at commercial buildings. Jailed for the first time in 1908, Pankhurst continued her protest through a hunger strike. She undertook ten hunger strikes during subsequent arrests, and was released and then rearrested depending on her health.

By the 1980s, women could vote almost anywhere around the world except for a few Muslim countries.

Once the vote was won in Britain and the US, few feminists remained active. Those who did fought for contraceptive rights, abortion law reform and the chance to be admitted to certain professions. What must be noted here is that the fight to achieve suffrage was often accompanied by similar protest against it. One notable example from 1913 is that of Grace Duffield Goodwin.

Feminist activity at the beginning of the 20th century caused serious controversy which translated into a number of outspoken and vehement publications attacking “feminists” for being immoral, bad mothers and lesbians.

In 1927, Dr E.F.W. Eberhard in Germany argued that feminism, which promoted lesbianism, could potentially destroy Western civilization. He accused feminist leaders of being lesbians who seduced young women to convert them to the movement.

Some critics argue that feminism died in the US in the 1920s because of complacency following the achieving of suffrage for women. This is the period that Betty Friedan would later dub the era of “the feminine mystique” (see here). Women were increasingly highly educated, achieving university-level qualifications, and although more women were employed, their position within the labour force was declining.

The result was a surplus of highly educated, under-employed women.

Anti-feminist propaganda undermined efforts to promote women’s rights and culminated in the publication of the bestseller Modern Woman: The Lost Sex in 1942, which emphasized the need for women to return to the home and give up their high-paying jobs in war production. The “lost” women were the independent ones interested in science, art and politics, and those engaged in careers beyond their domestic sphere. The book described feminism as an “expression of emotional illness, of neurosis … at its core a deep illness”.

Among the best-known of the novelists and feminist writers who questioned women’s contribution to social and political life was Virginia Woolf (1882–1941). Woolf was married to the political journalist Leonard Woolf, with whom she founded the Hogarth Press, which published relatively unknown writers such as Katherine Mansfield, T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster.

In A Room of One’s Own, she explored the cultural and economic constraints on female creativity and pondered the historical and political obstacles which have hampered the establishing of a female literary tradition.