First-wave feminism was a period offeminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout theWestern world. It focused onlegal issues, primarily on securingwomen's right to vote. The term is often used synonymously with the kind of feminism espoused by theliberal women's rights movement with roots in the first wave, with organizations such as theInternational Alliance of Women and its affiliates. This feminist movement still focuses on equality from a mainly legal perspective.[1]
The termfirst-wave feminism itself was coined by journalist Martha Lear in aNew York Times Magazine article in March 1968, "TheSecond Feminist Wave: What do these women want?"[2][3][4] First- wave feminism is characterized as focusing on the fight for women's political power, as opposed tode facto unofficial inequalities. The first wave of feminism generally advocated forformal equality, while later waves typically advocated forsubstantive equality.[5] The wave metaphor is well established, including in academic literature, but has been criticized for creating a narrow view of women's liberation that erases the lineage of activism and focuses on specific visible actors.[6] The term "first-wave" and, more broadly, the wave model have been questioned when referencing women's movements in non-Western contexts because the periodization and the development of the terminology were entirely based on the happenings of Western feminism and thus cannot be applied to non-Western events in an exact manner. However, women participating in political activism for gender equity modeled their plans on western feminists demands for legal rights. This is connected to the Western first-wave and occurred in the late 19th century and continued into the 1930s in connection to the anti-colonial nationalist movement.
The issues of inclusion that began during the first-wave of the feminist movement in the United States and persisted throughout subsequent waves of feminism are the topic of much discussion on an academic level. Some scholars find the wave model of western feminism to be troubling because it condenses a long history of activism into distinct categories that characterize generations of activists instead of acknowledging a complex, interconnected, and intersectional history of women's rights. This is thought to diminish the struggles and achievements of many people as well as worsen separation and conflicts between different groups of marginalized feminists.[7] The points of contention that persist in modern discussions of Western andglobal feminism began with the inequity that hallmarked first-wave feminism. The way in which the west has been oriented as an authority in global feminist discussions has been criticized by feminists in the United States such asbell hooks for replicating colonial hierarchies of discussion, possession of knowledge and centering gender as the foundation of equality.[8] The idea of decolonizing feminism is a response to the political and intellectual position of power western feminism holds. By acknowledging that there are multiple feminisms around the world the narrow scope and lack of consideration for intersectional identities that has persisted since first-wave feminism in the west is responded to. The existence of multiple feminisms and forms of activism is a result of the first-wave of feminism being shaped by a history of colonialism and imperialism.[9]
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Movements to broaden women's rights began much earlier than the 20th century. In her bookThe Second Sex,Simone de Beauvoir wrote that the first woman to "take up her pen in defense of her sex" wasChristine de Pizan in the 15th century.[10] Other "proto-feminists" working in the 15th-17th centuries includeHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa,Modesta di Pozzo di Forzi,Anne Bradstreet andFrançois Poullain de la Barre.[10] Ancient literature and mythology such asEuripides'Medea have become closely associated with the feminist movement and have been interpreted as icons of feminism. Ancient literature plays an important role in feminist theory and scholarly study.[11]Olympe de Gouges is regarded as one of the first feminists. She published a pamphlet namedDéclaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne ("Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the [Female] Citizen") as a response toDéclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen ("Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the [Male] Citizen") in 1791.[12]
The period in whichMary Wollstonecraft wrote was affected byRousseau and thephilosophy of the Enlightenment. The father of the Enlightenment defined an ideal democratic society that was based on the equality of men, where women were often discriminated against. The inherent exclusion of women from discussion was addressed by both Wollstonecraft and her contemporaries. Wollstonecraft based her work on the ideas of Rousseau.[13] Although at first it seems to be contradictory, Wollstonecraft's idea was to expand Rousseau's democratic society but based ongender equality. Mary Wollstonecraft spoke boldly on the inclusion of women in the public lifestyle; more specifically, narrowing down on the importance of female education.[14] She took the term 'liberal feminism' and devoted her time to breaking through the traditional gender roles.[14]
Wollstonecraft published one of the first feminist treatises,A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she advocated the social and moral equality of the sexes, extending the work of her 1790 pamphlet,A Vindication of the Rights of Men. Her later unfinished novel,Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, earned her considerable criticism as she discussed women's sexual desires. She died young, and her widower, the philosopherWilliam Godwin, quickly wrotea memoir of her that, contrary to his intentions, destroyed her reputation for generations.
Wollstonecraft is regarded as the "fore-mother" ofthe British feminist movement and her ideas shaped the thinking of thesuffragettes, who campaigned for the women's vote.[15]
Education amongst young Swiss women was very important during the suffrage movements. Educating young women in society on the importance of self-identity, and going to school was very important to the public and for women to realize what their full potential was. The Swiss suffrage movements believed it was important for young women to know that there was more to their life than just bearing children, which was a very universal thought and action during the suffrage movements in the 1960s and 70s. In a 2015 evaluation from Lord David Willetts, he had discovered and stated that in 2013 the percentage of undergraduate students in the UK were 54 percent females and 46 percent were male undergrads, whereas in the 1960s only 25 percent of full-time students in the United Kingdom were females. The increase of females going to school and contributing in the educational system can be linked to the women's suffrage movements that aimed to encourage women to enroll in school for higher education.[16] This right and political affair eventually came after the right for women to vote in political elections which was granted in 1971. In the 1960s in the United Kingdom, women were usually the minority and a rarity when it came to the higher education system.
During the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth century, women in Argentina organized and consolidated one of the most complex feminist movements of the western world. Closely associated with the labor movement, they were socialists, anarchists, libertarians, emancipatorians, educationists and Catholics. In May 1910 they organized together the First International Feminist Congress. Well known European, Latin, and North American workers, intellectuals, thinkers and professionals like Marie Curie, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Ellen Key, Maria Montessori and many others presented and discussed their ideas research work and studies on themes of gender, political and civil right, divorce, economy, education, health and culture.
In 1882,Rose Scott, awomen's rights activist, began to hold weekly salon meetings in her Sydney home left to her by her late mother. Through these meetings, she became well known amongst politicians, judges, philanthropists, writers and poets. In 1889, she helped to found the Women's Literary Society, which later grew into theWomanhood Suffrage League in 1891. Leading politicians hosted by Scott includedBernhard Wise,William Holman,William Morris Hughes andThomas Bavin, who met and discussed the drafting of the bill that eventually became the Early Closing Act of 1899.[17]
Canada's first-wave of feminism became apparent in the late 19th century into the early 20th. The build up of women's movements started as consciously raising awareness, then turned into study groups, and resulted into taking action by forming committees. The premise of the movement began around education issues. The particular reason education is targeted as a high priority is because it can target younger generations and modify their gender-based opinions.[18] In 1865, the superintendent of an Ontario public school, Egerton Ryerson, was one of the first to point out the exclusion of females from the education system. As more females attended school throughout the years, they surpassed the male graduation rate. In 1880 British Columbia, 51% high school graduates were female. These percentages continued to increase right through to 1950.[18] Other reasons for the first feminist movement involved women's suffrage, and labour and health rights; thus, feminists narrowed their campaigns to focus on gaining legal and political equity.[19] Canada took action in the International Council of Women and has a specific section called the National Council of Women in Canada, with its president, Lady Aberdeen. Women started to look outside of groups such as garden and music clubs, and dive into reforms furthering better education and suffrage. It was behind the idea that the women would be more powerful if they joined to create a united voice.[20]
In the 1880s and 1890s, both male and female Chinese reformist intellectuals, concerned with the development of China to a modern country, raised feminist issues and gender equality in public debate; schools for girls were founded, a feminist press emerged, and theFoot Emancipation Society andTian Zu Hui, promoting the abolition of foot binding.[21]
Many changes in women's lives took place during theRepublic of China (1912–1949). In 1912, theWomen's Suffrage Alliance, an umbrella organization of many local women's organizations, was founded to work for the inclusion of women's equal rights and suffrage in the constitution of the new republic after the abolition of the monarchy, and while the effort was not successful, it signified an important period of feminism activism.[22] A generation of educated and professionalnew women emerged after the inclusion of girls in the state school system and after women students were accepted at theUniversity of Beijing in 1920, and in the 1931 Civil Code, women were given equal inheritance rights, banned forced marriage and gave women the right to control their own money and initiate divorce.[23]No nationally unified women's movement could organize until China was unified under theKuomintang Government in Nanjing in 1928; women's suffrage was finally included in the new Constitution of 1936, although the constitution was not implemented until 1947.[24]
The first women's movement was led by theDansk Kvindesamfund ("Danish Women's Society"), founded in 1871.Line Luplau was one of the most notable woman in this era.Tagea Brandt was also part of this movement, and in her honor was established theTagea Brandt Rejselegat or Travel Scholarship for women. The Dansk Kvindesamfund's efforts as a leading group of women for women led to the existence of the revised Danish constitution of 1915, giving women the right to vote and the provision of equal opportunity laws during the 1920s, which influenced the present-day legislative measures to grant women access to education, work, marital rights and other obligations.[25]
In the mid 19th-century,Minna Canth first started to address feminist issues in public debate, such as women's education and sexual double standards.[26] The Finnish women's movement organized with the foundation of theSuomen Naisyhdistys in 1884, which was the first feminist women's organisation in Finland.[27] This represented the first wave feminism. The Suomen Naisyhdistys was split into theNaisasialiitto Unioni (1892) and theSuomalainen naisliitto (1907), and all women's organisations were united under theumbrella organisationNaisjärjestöjen Keskusliitto in 1911.
Women where granted their basic equal rights early on with the suffrage in 1906. After the introduction of women's suffrage, the women's movement was mainly channelled through the women's branches of the political parties.[28] The new marriage law of 1929,Avioliittolaki, finally established complete equality for married women, and after this, women were legally equal to men by law in Finland.[28]
The issue of women's rights were discussed during theAge of Enlightenment and theFrench Revolution. Some success was achieved by the new inheritance rights (Loi sur l'héritage des enfants) and the divorce law (Loi autorisant le divorce en France).[29]
A movement that brought feminism into play happened during the same time a republican form of government came to replace the classic Catholic monarchy. A few females took on leadership roles to form groups divided by financial stability, religion, and social status. One of these groups, theSociety of Revolutionary Republican Women, managed to draw significant interest within the national political scene, and advocated for gender equality in revolutionary politics. Another such group wereSociété fraternelle des patriotes de l'un et l'autre sexe. These groups were driven to increase economic opportunities by hosting meetings, writing journals, and forming organizations with the same means.[30]
However, theCode Napoléon of 1804 eradicated the progress made during the revolution. Women's rights were supported by the rule of the CommunistParis Commune of 1870, but the rule of the Commune came to be temporary.
An 1897 newspaper, La Fronde, was the most prestigious women-run newspaper. It maintained as a daily paper for 6 years and covered controversial topics such as the working women and advocating for women's political rights.[31]
The First wave women's movement in France organized when theAssociation pour le Droit des Femmes was founded byMaria Deraismes andLéon Richer in 1870.[32] It was followed by theLigue Française pour le Droit des Femmes (1882) which took up the issue of women suffrage and became the leading suffrage society in parallel to theUnion française pour le suffrage des femmes (1909-1945).
The First wave women's movement in Germany organized under the influence of theRevolutions of 1848. It organized for the first time in the first women's organization in Germany, theAllgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein (ADF), which was founded byLouise Otto-Peters andAuguste Schmidt inLeipzig 1865.
Women in the middle class sought improvements in their social status and prospects in society. A humanist aspiration connected the women together as they wanted to identify and be respected as full individuals.[33] They were drawn into the socialist political struggles of the revolution because they were promised full equity afterwards. The agenda of women's improvements consisted of gaining rights to work, education, abortion, contraception, and the right to seek a profession.[34] The premise of German feminism was revolved around the political common good, including social justice and family values.[35] The pressure women put on society led to women's suffrage in 1918. This created further feminist movements to expand women's rights.[35]
In comparison to the United States, German feminism targets a collective representation and women's autonomy whereas the American feminism is focused on general equality.[35]
Although in the Netherlands during theAge of Enlightenment the idea of the equality of women and men made progress, no practical institutional measures or legislation resulted. In the second half of the nineteenth century, many initiatives by feminists sprung up in The Netherlands.
Aletta Jacobs (1854–1929) requested and obtained as the first woman in the Netherlands the right to study at university in 1871, becoming the first female medical doctor and academic. She became a lifelong campaigner forwomen's suffrage, equal rights, birth control, and international peace, travelling worldwide for, e.g., theInternational Alliance of Women.
Wilhelmina Drucker (1847–1925) was a politician, a prolific writer and a peace activist, who fought for the vote and equal rights through political and feminist organisations she founded. In 1917–1919, her goal of women's suffrage was reached.
Cornelia Ramondt-Hirschmann (1871–1951), President of the Dutch Women's International League for Peace and Freedom [WILPF].
Selma Meyer (1890–1941), Secretary of the Dutch Women's International League for Peace and Freedom [WILPF]
Early New Zealand feminists and suffragettes includedMaud Pember Reeves (Australian-born; later lived in London),Kate Sheppard andMary Ann Müller. In 1893,Elizabeth Yates became Mayor ofOnehunga, the first time such a post had been held by a female anywhere in theBritish Empire. Early university graduates wereEmily Siedeberg (doctor, graduated 1895) andEthel Benjamin (lawyer, graduated 1897). The Female Law Practitioners Act was passed in 1896 and Benjamin was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand in 1897 (seeWomen's suffrage in New Zealand).
The First wave women's movement in Norway organized when theNorwegian Association for Women's Rights was founded in 1884.
Members of theNorwegian Association for Women's Rights could not agree on the topic of education and the gravity of women's suffrage. Therefore,Gina Krog, one of the founding members, split from theNorwegian Association for Women's Rights and foundedThe Women's Suffrage Association in 1885. Several years later in 1898, theNational Suffrage Association was established. Splits in associations can be attributed to the lack of agreement amongstbourgeois andworking-class members.[36]
In Imperial Russia, it was not legal to form political organisations prior to the1905 Russian Revolution. Because of this, there was no open organised women's rights movement similar to the one in the West before this. There was, however, in practice a women's movement during the 19th century.
In the mid-19th century, several literary discussion clubs were founded, one of whom, which was co-founded byAnna Filosofova,Maria Trubnikova andNadezjda Stasova, which discussed Western feminist literature and came to be the firstde facto women's rights organisation in Russia. TheCrimean War had exposed Russia as less developed than Western Europe, resulting in a number of reforms, among them educational reforms and the foundation of schools for girls. Russian elite women de facto spoke for reforms in women rights through their literary clubs and charity societies. Their main interest were women's education- and work opportunities. The women's club ofAnna Filosofova,Maria Trubnikova andNadezjda Stasova managed to achieve women's access to attend courses at the universities, and the separate courses held for women became so popular that they were made permanent in 1876. However, in 1876 women students were banned from being given degrees and all women's universities were banned except two (Bestuzhev Courses in Saint Petserburg andGuerrier Courses in Moscow).[37]
In 1895, Anna Filosofova founded the "Russian Women's Charity League", which was officially a charitable society to avoid the ban of political organisations but which was in effect a women's rights organisation: Anna Filosofova was elected to theInternational Council of Women in 1899. Because of the ban of political activity in Russia the only thing they could do was to raise awareness of feminist issues.
After the1905 Russian Revolution, political organisations was made legal in Russia and the women's movement was able to organise in the form ofLiga ravnopraviia zhenshchin, which started a campaign of women's suffrage the same year. The Russian Revolution of 1917 formally made men and women equal in the eyes of the law in the Soviet Union.
The Korean women's movement started in the 1890s with the foundation ofChanyang-hoe, followed by a number of other groups, primarily focused on women's education and the abolition of gender segregation and other discriminatory practices.[38]
When Korea became a Japanese colony in 1910 women's associations were banned by the Japanese and many women instead engaged in the underground resistance groups such as the Yosong Aeguk Tongji-hoe (Patriotic Women's Society) and the Taehan Aeguk Buin-hoe (Korean Patriotic Women's Society).[38]As a result, the role of women in society began to change.[citation needed]
After the end of the War and the partition of Korea in 1945, the Korean women's movement was split. InNorth Korea, all women's movement was channelled in to theKorean Democratic Women's Union; in South Korea, the women's movement where united under theKorean National Council of Women in 1959, which in 1973 organized the women's group in thePan-Women's Society for the Revision of the Family Law to revise the discriminating Family Law of 1957, a cause that remained a main focus for the rest of the 20th century and did not result in any major reform until 1991.[38]
Feminist issues and gender roles were discussed in media and literature during the 18th century by people such asMargareta Momma,Catharina Ahlgren,Anna Maria Rückerschöld andHedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht, but it created no movement of any kind. The first person to hold public speeches and agitate in favor of feminism wasSophie Sager in 1848,[39] and the first organization created to deal with a women's issue wasSvenska lärarinnors pensionsförening (Society for Retired Female Teachers) byJosefina Deland in 1855.[40]
In 1856,Fredrika Bremer published her famousHertha, which aroused great controversy and created a debate referred to as theHertha Debate. The two foremost questions was to abolishcoverture for unmarried women, and for the state to provide women an equivalent to a university. Both questions were met: in 1858, a reform granted unmarried women the right to apply for legal majority by a simple procedure, and in 1861,Högre lärarinneseminariet was founded as a "Women's University". In 1859, the firstwomen's magazine in Sweden and the Nordic countries, theTidskrift för hemmet, was founded bySophie Adlersparre andRosalie Olivecrona. This has been referred to as the starting point of a women's movement in Sweden.
The organized women's movement begun in 1873, whenMarried Woman's Property Rights Association was co-founded byAnna Hierta-Retzius andEllen Anckarsvärd. The prime task of the organization was to abolishcoverture. In 1884,Fredrika Bremer Association was founded bySophie Adlersparre to work for the improvement in women's rights. The second half of the 19th century saw the creation of several women's rights organisations and a considerable activity within both active organization as well as intellectual debate. The 1880s saw the so-calledSedlighetsdebatten, where gender roles were discussed in literary debate in regards to sexual double standards in opposed to sexual equality. In 1902, finally, theNational Association for Women's Suffrage was founded.
In 1919–1921,women's suffrage was finally introduced. The women suffrage reform was followed by theBehörighetslagen of 1923, in which males and females were formally given equal access to all professions and positions in society, the only exceptions being military and priesthood positions.[41] The last two restrictions were removed in 1958, when women were allowed to become priests, and in a series of reforms between 1980 and 1989, when all military professions were opened to women.[42]
The Swiss women's movement started to form after the introduction of the Constitution of 1848, which explicitly excluded women's rights and equality. However, the Swiss women's movement was long prevented from being efficient by the split between French- and German speaking areas, which restricted it to local activity. This split created a long lasting obstacle for the national Swiss women's movement. However, it did play an important role in the international women's movement, whenMarie Goegg-Pouchoulin founded the first international women's movement in the world, theAssociation Internationale des Femmes, in 1868.[43]
In 1885, the first national women's organisation, theSchweizer Frauen-Verband, was founded byElise Honegger. It soon split, but in 1888, the first permanent, national women's organisation was finally founded in theSchweizerischen Gemeinnützigen Frauenverein (SGF), which became anumbrella organisation for the Swiss women's movement. From 1893 onward, a local women's organisation, theFrauenkomitee Bern, also functioned as a channel between the Federal government and the Swiss women's movements. The question of women's suffrage in Switzerland was brought forward by theSchweizerischer Frauenvereine from 1899, and by theSchweizerischer Verband für Frauenstimmrecht from 1909, which were to become the two main suffrage organisations of many in Switzerland.
The Swiss suffrage movement had struggled for equality in their society for decades until the early 1970s; this wave of feminism also included enfranchisement. October 31, 1971, Swiss women were granted the right to vote in political elections. According to Lee Ann Banaszak the main reasons for lack of success in women's suffrage for Swiss women was due to the differences in mobilization of members into suffrage organizations, financial resources of the suffrage movements, alliances formed with other political actors, and the characteristics of the political systems. Therefore, the success of the Swiss women's suffrage movement was heavily affected by the resources and political structures. "The Swiss movement had to operate in a system where decisions were made carefully by a constructed consensus and where opposition parties never launched an electoral challenge that might of prodded governing parties into action." This explains how the closed legislative process made it way more difficult for suffrage activists to participate in, or even track women's voting rights. Swiss suffrage also lacked strong allies when it came from their struggle to vote in political elections.[44] The 1970s saw a turning point for Swiss feminist movements, and they began to steadily make more progress in their struggle for equality to present day.
The early feminist reformers were unorganized, and including prominent individuals who had suffered as victims of injustice. This included individuals such asCaroline Norton whose personal tragedy where she was unable to obtain a divorce and was denied access to her three sons by her husband, led her to a life of intense campaigning which successfully led to the passing of theCustody of Infants Act 1839 and the introduction of theTender years doctrine for child custody arrangement.[45][46][47] The Act gave married women, for the first time, a right to their children. However, because women needed to petition in the Court of Chancery, in practice, few women had the financial means to petition for their rights.[48]
The first organized movement for English feminism was theLangham Place Circle of the 1850s, which included among othersBarbara Bodichon (née Leigh-Smith) andBessie Rayner Parkes.[49] The group campaigned for many women's causes, including improved female rights in employment, and education. It also pursued women's property rights through its Married Women's Property Committee. In 1854, Bodichon publishedA Brief Summary of the Laws of England Concerning Women,[50] which was used by theSocial Science Association after it was formed in 1857 to push for the passage of theMarried Women's Property Act 1882.[51] In 1858, Barbara Bodichon,Matilda Mary Hays and Bessie Rayner Parkes established the first feminist British periodical, theEnglish Woman's Journal,[52] with Bessie Parkes the chief editor. The journal continued publication until 1864 and was succeeded in 1866 by theEnglishwoman's Review edited until 1880 byJessie Boucherett which continued publication until 1910. Jessie Boucherett andAdelaide Anne Proctor joined the Langham Place Circle in 1859. The group was active until 1866. Also in 1859, Jessie Boucherett, Barbara Bodichon and Adelaide Proctor formed theSociety for Promoting the Employment of Women to promote the training and employment of women.[53] The society is one of the earliest British women's organisations, and continues to operate as the registered charityFutures for Women.[54]Helen Blackburn and Boucherett established the Women's Employment Defence League in 1891, to defend women's working rights against restrictive employment legislation.[55] They also together edited theCondition of Working Women and the Factory Acts in 1896. In the beginning of the 20th century, women's employment was still predominantly limited to factory labor and domestic work. DuringWorld War I, more women found work outside the home. As a result of the wartime experience of women in the workforce, theSex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 opened professions and the civil service to women, and marriage was no longer a legal barrier to women working outside the home.
In 1918,Marie Stopes published the very influentialMarried Love,[56] in which she advocatedgender equality in marriage and the importance of women's sexual desire. (Importation of the book into the United States was banned as obscene until 1931.)
TheRepresentation of the People Act 1918 extended the franchise to women who were at least 30 years old and they or their husbands were property holders, while theParliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 gave women the right to sit in Parliament, although it was only slowly that women were actually elected. In 1928, the franchise was extended to all women over 21 by theRepresentation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928, on an equal basis to men.[57]
Many feminist writers and women's rights activists argued that it was not equality to men which they needed but a recognition of what women need to fulfill their potential of their own natures, not only within the aspect of work but society and home life too.Virginia Woolf produced her essayA Room of One's Own based on the ideas of women as writers and characters in fiction. Woolf said that a woman must have money and a room of her own to be able to write.
It ought to be recognized that the early British feminist movement was deeply intertwined with the British imperial project and an essential arm of it. Contemporary writers likeMona Caird asserted that women deserved representation in the "councils of the nation" as defenders of the white race and its supremacy.[58] In order to achieve status and value as women, these feminists framed themselves as the benevolent feminine liberators of the "foreign woman".Antoinette Burton writes that rather than upending Victorian gendered assumptions, "early feminist theorist used [them] to justify female involvement in the public sphere by claiming that the woman's moral attributes was crucial to social improvement."[59] Burton calls to our attention that women exerted real power over their male counterparts by making claims to the very moral assumptions that bound them to the home. It would be naïve to suggest that these women were not complicit in or did not contribute to imperial oppression abroad, but what is missed by previous treatments of feminisms and feminist movements is the diversity and flexibility of power relationships that navigated the superstructure of the moral order. The place of sex and gender in Victorian society was more diverse and plural thanVictorian morality imagined for itself.
The beginning of first-wave Feminism in the United States is traditionally marked by theSeneca Falls Convention of 1848; however this event was empowered by women becoming increasingly politically active in the years leading up to 1848 through theAbolitionist Movement andTemperance Movement and activists began to have their voices heard. Some of these early activists include,Sojourner Truth,Elizabeth Blackwell,Jane Addams, andDorothy Day.[60] The first wave of feminism was primarily led by white women in the middle class, and it was not until thesecond wave of feminism that women of color began developing a voice.[61] The term Feminism was created like a political illustrated ideology at that period. Feminism emerged by the speech about the reform and correction of democracy based on equalitarian conditions.[62]
Leading up to the early 19th century, white women in Colonial America were socially expected to remain domestically confined and their property and political rights were severely limited and controlled by marriage. Social expectations preceding and following theAmerican Revolution did not encourage women to be politically active or seek formal education.[63] Women were also expected to pass on and teach Christian values to their children. Thus the impact of alcohol on many men postCivil War became not only a moral motivation for women to become active in the Temperance Movement but also a way to exert control over finances and property. Communities of women in churches congregated and rallied outside of the home for the cause.[64] The most direct and impactful movement on first-wave feminism was the Abolitionist Movement. Black men and women had been fighting for rights during and before the Temperance Movement. White women began to identify themselves with the struggle for rights and became involved in the abolition of slavery.
Judith Sargent Murray published the early and influential essayOn the Equality of the Sexes in 1790, blaming poor standards in female education as the root of women's problems.[65] However, scandals surrounding the personal lives of English contemporariesCatharine Macaulay andMary Wollstonecraft pushed feminist authorship into private correspondence from the 1790s through the early decades of the nineteenth century.[66] Feminist essays fromJohn Neal inBlackwood's Magazine andThe Yankee in the 1820s filled an intellectual gap between Murray and the leaders of the 1848Seneca Falls Convention,[67] which is generally considered the beginning of thefirst wave of feminism.[68] As a male writer insulated from many common forms of attack against female feminist thinkers, Neal's advocacy was crucial to bringing feminism back into the American mainstream.[69]
Woman in the Nineteenth Century byMargaret Fuller has been considered the first major feminist work in the United States and is often compared to Wollstonecraft'sA Vindication of the Rights of Woman.[70] Prominent leaders of the feminist movement in the United States includeLucretia Coffin Mott,Elizabeth Cady Stanton,Lucy Stone, andSusan B. Anthony; Anthony and other activists such asVictoria Woodhull andMatilda Joslyn Gage made attempts to cast votes prior to their legal entitlement to do so, for which many of them faced charges. Other important leaders included several women who dissented against the law in order to have their voices heard, (Sarah and Angelina Grimké), in addition to other activists such asCarrie Chapman Catt,Alice Paul,Sojourner Truth,Ida B. Wells,Margaret Sanger andLucy Burns.[71]
First-wave feminism involved a wide range of women, some belonging toconservative Christian groups (such asFrances Willard and theWoman's Christian Temperance Union), others such asMatilda Joslyn Gage of theNational Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) resembling the radicalism of much ofsecond-wave feminism. The creation of these organizations was a direct result of theSecond Great Awakening, a religious movement in the early 19th century, that inspired female reformers in the United States.[72]
The majority of first-wave feminists were more moderate and conservative than radical or revolutionary—like the members of theAmerican Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) they were willing to work within the political system and they understood the clout of joining with sympathetic men in power to promote the cause of suffrage. The limited membership of the NWSA was narrowly focused on gaining a federal amendment for women's suffrage, whereas the AWSA, with ten times as many members, worked to gain suffrage on a state-by-state level as a necessary precursor to federal suffrage. The NWSA had broad goals, hoping to achieve a more equal social role for women, but the AWSA was aware of the divisive nature of many of those goals and instead chose to focus solely on suffrage. The NWSA was known for having more publicly aggressive tactics (such as picketing and hunger strikes) whereas the AWSA used more traditional strategies like lobbying, delivering speeches, applying political pressure, and gathering signatures for petitions.[73]
During the first wave, there was a notable connection between theslavery abolition movement and the women's rights movement. Frederick Douglass was heavily involved in both movements and believed that it was essential for both to work together in order to attain true equality in regards to race and sex.[74] Different accounts of the involvement of African-American women in the Women's Suffrage Movement are given. In a 1974 interview,Alice Paul notes that a compromise was made between southern groups to have white women march first, then men, then African-American women.[75] In another account by theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), difficulties in segregating women resulted in African-American women marching with their respective States without hindrance.[76] Among them was Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who marched with the Illinois delegation.
The end of the first wave is often linked with the passage of theNineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1920), granting women the right to vote. This was the major victory of the movement, which also included reforms inhigher education, in the workplace and professions, and in health care.Women started serving on school boards and local bodies, and numbers kept increasing. This period also saw more women gaining access to higher education. In 1910, "women were attending many leading medical schools, and in 1915, the American Medical Association began to admit women members."[77] AMatrimonial Causes Act 1923 gave women the right to the same grounds for divorce as men. The first wave of feminists, in contrast to the second wave, focused very little on the subjects of abortion, birth control, and overall reproductive rights of women. Though she never married, Anthony published her views about marriage, holding that a woman should be allowed to refuse sex with her husband; the American woman had no legal recourse at that time againstrape by her husband.[78]
The rise in unemployment during theGreat Depression which started in the 1920s hit women first, and when the men also lost their jobs there was further strain on families. Many women served in the armed forces duringWorld War II, when around 300,000 American women served in the navy and army, performing jobs such as secretaries, typists and nurses.
The American states are separatesovereigns,[79] with their ownstate constitutions,state governments, andstate courts. All states have a legislative branch which enacts state statutes, an executive branch that promulgates state regulations pursuant to statutory authorization, and a judicial branch that applies, interprets, and occasionally overturns both state statutes and regulations, as well as local ordinances. States retain plenary power to make laws covering anything not preempted by the federal Constitution, federal statutes, or international treaties ratified by the federal Senate. Normally,state supreme courts are the final interpreters of state institutions and state law, unless their interpretation itself presents a federal issue, in which case a decision may be appealed to theU.S. Supreme Court by way of a petition for writ ofcertiorari.[80] State laws have dramatically diverged in the centuries since independence, to the extent that the United States cannot be regarded as one legal system as to the majority of types of law traditionally under state control, but must be regarded as 50separate systems oftort law,family law,property law,contract law,criminal law, and so on.[81]
Marylynn Salmon argues that each state developed different ways of dealing with a variety of legal issues pertaining to women, especially in the case of property laws.[82] In 1809,Connecticut was the first state to pass a law allowing women to write wills.
In 1860, New York passed a revisedMarried Women's Property Act which gave women shared ownership of their children, allowing them to have a say in their children's wills, wages, and granting them the right to inherit property.[83] Further advances and setbacks were experienced in New York and other states, but with each new win the feminists were able to use it as an example to apply more leverage on unyielding legislative bodies.
Anxiety in the United States over the moral degeneracy and temptation ofAmerican men in the Philippines inspired women's involvement in the politics of the colonial government. An article published inThe Washington Post in 1900 describes the Philippines as an environment where relatively permissive conceptions of morality caused white men to "lose all notions of right and wrong". It was said that white men "disgraced the offices to which they had been appointed", and that, despite having left their homes "with records that were above reproach", they were "degenerated by the conditions of their new existence". Away from the social pressures imposed by their community, they did not possess the strength of moral character or principle needed to maintain the "social discipline".[84]
White women feminists, in this historical context, asserted their superiority over white men and brown women. They have in been criticized by modern women writers of color likeValerie Amos andPratibha Parmar.[85]
In the First Wave context, there are two different fights for the equal rights of white women and black women. White women were fighting for rights equal to white men in society. They wanted to correct the discrepancy in education, professional, property, economic, and voting rights. They also fought for birth control and abortion freedom. Black women, on the other hand, were facing both racism and sexism, contributing to an uphill struggle for black feminists. While White women could not vote, black womenand men could not vote.Mary J. Garrett who founded a group consisting of hundreds of Black women in New Orleans, said that black women strove for education and protection. It is true that "black women in higher education are isolated, underutilized, and often demoralized,"[86] and they fought together against this. They were fighting against "exploitation by White men" and they wanted to "lead a virtuous and industrious life."[87] Black women were also fighting for their husbands, families, and overall equality and freedom of their civil rights. Racism restricted white and black women from coming together to fight for common societal transformation.[88]
First Wave Feminism in the United States did not chronicle the contributions of black women to the same degree as white women. Activists, including Susan B. Anthony and other feminist leaders preached for equality between genders; however, they disregarded equality between a number of other issues, including race. This allowed for white women to gain power and equality relative to white men, while the social disparity between white and black women increased. The exclusion aided the growing prevalence of White supremacy, specifically white feminism while actively overlooking the severity of impact black feminists had on the movement.[89][90]
Susan B. Anthony andElizabeth Cady Stanton were abolitionists but they did not advocate foruniversal suffrage. They did not want black men to be granted the right to vote before white women. TheNational American Woman Suffrage Association was created to distinguish themselves from advocating for black men to vote.[88] TheFifteenth Amendment states no person should be denied the right to vote based on race. Anthony and Stanton opposed passage of the amendment unless it was accompanied by a Sixteenth Amendment that would guarantee suffrage for women. Otherwise, they said, it would create an "aristocracy of sex" by giving constitutional authority to the belief that men were superior to women. The new proposal of this amendment was named the "Anthony Amendment".[91] Stanton once said that allowing black men to vote before women "creates an antagonism between black men and all women that will culminate in fearful outrages on womanhood".[92] Anthony stated, she would "cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work for or demand the ballot for the negro and not the woman".[93]Mary Church Terrell exclaimed in 1904 that, "My sisters of the dominant race, stand up not only for the oppressed sex, but also for the oppressed race!"[94] TheNational American Woman Suffrage Association sustained the inequalities between black and white women and also limited their ability to contribute.[95]
Susan B. Anthony andFrederick Douglass together formed theAmerican Equal Rights Association, advocating for equality betweenboth gender and sex. In 1848, Frederick Douglass was asked to speak by Susan B. Anthony at a convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Frederick Douglass was an active supporter.[96] Later, Douglass was not permitted to attend an Atlanta, GeorgiaNAWSA convention. Susan B. Anthony exclaimed, "I did not want to subject him to humiliation, and I did not want anything to get in the way of bringing the Southern white women into our suffrage association, now that their interest had been awakened".[97] Douglass opposed the fact that Cady and Anthony were extremely unsupportive of black voting rights.[98] White women condoned racism at the cost of black women if it meant benefitting and more support of the white suffrage movement.[99][90]
It was not just through personal racism that black women were excluded from feminists movements;institutional racism prevented many women from having an avid say and stance. It is important to consider the history of black women's labor in the economic, social and political history of America and when orienting the role of black women in first-wave feminism because that history indicates an entirely different experience between black and white women. Black Americans regardless of gender face a violent history of oppression that exploited, abused and commoditized the body for labor as an essential aspect of the early development and success of the United States' economy. Black women were essential to maintaining the mass labor of enslaved people because they could have children that would later become subject to forced labor as well. This uniquely ties black women to the foundation of the United States' economic success. Black women thusly face oppression based on class, race as well as gender that means their interactions with the legal, social, political, educational and economic institutions that feminism aims to change is different from how white women interact with those same systems. The goal of first-wave feminism being mainly to resolve legal issues, chiefly to secure voting rights, only considered the needs of white high class women. First-wave feminism entirely mimicked the racial hierarchy that maintained the power dynamics that exploit black women and completely alienated black women from the feminist movement.[100] TheNational American Woman Suffrage Association, established bySusan B. Anthony andElizabeth Cady Stanton[101] did not invite black women to attend specific meetings, excluding them entirely. Feminist and women's suffrage conventions held in Southern states, where black women were a dominant percentage of the population, were segregated.[88]
Institutional racism excluded black women in the March on Washington in 1913. Black women were asked to march separately, together, at the back of the parade.[95] They were forced to be made absent which can be seen in the lack of photographs and media of black women marching in the parade. White women did not want black women associated with their movement because they believed white women would disaffiliate themselves from an integrated group and create a segregated, more powerful one.[93]
Despite participating and contributing a great deal to all feminists movements, black women were rarely recognized.Mary McLeod Bethune said that the world was unable to accept all of the contributions black women have made.Susan B. Anthony andElizabeth Cady Stanton together wrote theHistory of Woman Suffrage published in 1881. The book failed to give adequate recognition to the black women who were equally responsible for the change in United States history.[102]Sojourner Truth became an influential advocate for the women's rights movement. In 1851 she delivered her "Ain't I a Woman" speech at the women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio. Black women at this point were beginning to become empowered and assertive, speaking out on the disproportionate inequalities. Truth speaks of how she, and other women, are capable of working as much as men, after having thirteen children. This speech was one of the ways white and black women became closer to working towards fighting for the same thing. Sojourner Truth's speech was originally documented by Marius Robinson, a good friend of hers, who was present at the women's rights convention. Sojourner voiced her thoughts on the civil rights of women. In 1863, twelve years after she delivered the speech Frances Gage published her recollection of Sojourners speech on that day. Gage changed a majority of Sojourner's words and made her appear as if she had a southern slave dialect which she in fact did not as shown in Robinson's accurate version. Gage wrote phrases such as "chillen, whar dar's so much racket dar must be som'ting out o'kilter."[103] when Sojourner actually said "May I say a few words? I want to say a few words about this matter."[104] Thought this speech was a huge stepping stone for the women's movement, it was still evident who the movement was focused on. Truth made a speech at theAmerican Equal Rights Association in New York in 1867. In the speech, she said, "If colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before."[105] Her speeches brought attention to the movement, for black women, but also for white. Although private lives continued to be segregated, feminist coalitions became integrated. Two separate reasons aided integration in the feminist movement.Paula Giddings wrote that the two fights against racism and sexism could not be separated.Gerda Lerner wrote that black women demonstrated they too were fully capable of fighting and creating change for equality.[102]
For Kyla Schuller inThe Biopolitics of Feeling: Race, Sex, and Science in the Nineteenth Century, "biopower is feminism's enabling condition ... movements for gender equality have materialized amid a field of power in which, at least since Malthus, the interdependence of reproduction and economics forms the primary field of the political."[236] Schuller argues that "[the] evolutionary notion of the distinct sexes of male and female, understood as specialized divergences in physiology, anatomy, and mental function that only the most civilized had achieved, was itself a racial hierarchy ... the very idea of sex as a biological and political subjectivity is a product of the biopolitical logics unfolding hand in hand with the sciences of species change."[236] Schuller quotesCanadian philosopherMichelle Murphy inSeizing the Means of Reproduction: Entanglements of Feminism, Health, and Technoscience: "Historicizing feminisms as a biopolitics that has taken 'sex,' and its subsidiary, 'reproduction,' as central concerns requires that we understand feminisms in all their variety and contradiction as animated within - and not escaping from - dominant configurations of governance and technoscience."[236] From this perspective, 19th- and early 20th-century feminisms reproduced the very social hierarchies they had the potential to struggle against, exemplifying the claim ofMichel Foucault in hisThe History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction that "resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power."[237]
First-wave feminism offered no intersectional perspective. Gender was not thought of as a social construction, nor was the roles that each gender plays thought of as sexist.[238] This time period also focused on biological differences, and that only the way to be considered a woman was through biology or sex.[239] It did not consider and fight for women of color, or women of lower socioeconomic status.[240] It also reinforced and made colonization stronger, as well increasing the eroticization of women from different nations.[240] First-wave theorists also leave out all of the activism women of color contributed. Activists like Maria Stewart, and Frances E. W. Harper are hardly mentioned with any credit for the abolitionist or suffrage movements during this time period.[241][242] First wave feminism is male centric meaning it was made in the form of the way men see women.[240] Another issue with First-Wave feminism is that the white, middle-class women were able to decide what is a woman problem and what is not.[243] First-wave lacked the sexual freedom women aspired to have but could not have while men could.[244] It is also said that many of the white fundamental First Wave feminists were in alliance with women of color but stayed silent when they figured they could reach progression for middle class, white women.[245]
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