(3) Prologue - Misogyny: A Question of Gender or of Character?

"In Misogyny: The Male Malady, the anthropologist David D. Gilmore traces woman-hating from the jungles of New Guinea to present-day American boardrooms. Philosophers and scientists have played a major role in justifying discrimination." [mijn nadruk] (4)

Voorbeelden daarvan.

"The profoundly influential ideas of Charles Darwin gave sexism a seemingly respectable scientific foundation. Darwinism’s central principle was the survival of the fittest, and for various reasons, men were fitter than women, who, with their smaller brains, were “eternally primitive,” beyond being “a real danger to contemporary civilisation.” A whole generation of psychologists and sexologists, from Sigmund Freud to Havelock Ellis, subscribed to Darwin’s ideas, with repercussions still echoing through today’s society." [mijn nadruk] (5)

En ook veel vrouwen stonden negatief tegenover vrouwen.

"1869. One year before Victoria’s derogatory remarks on feminists, an essay found great public interest and stimulated enormous controversy. Why should the leading liberal thinker of the 19th century be lobbying so strongly for women’s rights? What were his motives, and where was all this leading? The Subjection of Women was John Stuart Mill’s cri de coeur, his rallying call to Victorian society, his appeal to reason and to humanity. He attacked the “legal subordination of one sex to the other” as morally wrong, and called for complete equality.
For his pains, Mill (1806–73) was satirised in the press as being the “women’s member” of parliament; caricatures were drawn of him in a dress. He tried in vain to enlist Florence Nightingale’s assistance for his great cause. The literary critic Anne Mozley even questioned his credentials as the self-appointed champion of women’s rights, while Margaret Oliphant considered his criticism of the subjection of married women to be “a gloomy image conjured up in the philosopher’s study.” Many prominent women insisted that they were perfectly satisfied with the status quo.
Male reformers like John Stuart Mill, later followed by the activists of the suffragist-suffragette movement, thus fought a two-front battle: against a masculine establishment and a phalanx of female supporters of the powers-that-be."(9-10)

[Typisch.]

"During her lifetime however, Wollstonecraft could rely on a greater degree of assistance from her male friends than from most of her female acquaintances. She encountered men like Price, Johnson and Godwin on equal terms of mutual support."(11)

"Mentors, patrons, soulmates: the men in Louise Otto-Peters’ life played similar roles. Germany’s premier feminist was responsible for the country’s first women’s newspaper and association. Her father, a wealthy judge, enabled his daughters to obtain an excellent education with private tutors; he also urged them to develop their own opinions on social and political issues, including the rights of women. Louise (1819–95) became as much a socialist as a feminist, fighting for the rights of factory workers in her early years."(11)

"he terms often used in books and essays to characterise antifeminist women, like “gender traitors,” “Eve’s renegades” etc. reveal a romantic belief in unified sisterhood. The conventional feminist vision of enlightened gender solidarity is however an illusion. Women, like men, are individuals with their own priorities. Collectivising them and implicitly expecting them to subscribe to the gender-justice cause often overestimates the role that sex affiliation plays in their lives.
The same applies to the male feminists, often called Traitors to the Masculine Cause, fighting Against the Tide or operating from Inside the Citadel, to quote the titles of three books on the subject. The implicit assumption being that they were and are almost inexplicably, and thus heroically, betraying their sex. This book concentrates on the role that personal experience on the one hand and liberalism, nationalism, humanism, eugenics and class-bias on the other have played in determining the attitudes of the men who fought for women’s rights." [mijn nadruk] (17)

(18) 1 - From Chivalry to Coherence: Pioneers

"Sex is a biological fact; gender by contrast is a complex construct involving social class, ethnic background, economic status, educational standards, early influences and adult experience among other things. Throughout history, reducing women to their sexual affiliation results in their being stereotyped and mostly maligned, though sometimes idealised. By men, and by women as well."(18)

Volgt een historisch verhaal met allerlei namen die mannen dan wel vrouwen superieur vonden.

[Ik heb al die generalizerende beweringen daarover altijd een zinloze excercitie gevonden.]

"Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet is the great French feminist of the Epoch of the Enlightenment, unique in his idealism and his sense of justice. The Marquis saw women not only as rational, but also as equal beings with the clear right to vote and to take public office. Condorcet (1743–94) was a true humanist, as much against slavery as against sexism. His Plea for the Citizenship of Women of 1790 in which he advocates suffrage is perhaps the most impressive feminist document of the 18th century, surpassing Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women in both radicalism and scope.
Condorcet is an anti-biologist: he makes education and socialisation, not nature, responsible for women’s place in society. He even contends that true democracy can only exist if women participate."(33)

"Kant’s friend Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel is the great German exception. Here, we have the rare case of a pioneer from the Establishment. Hippel (1741–96), a highly gifted lawyer, held a number of high positions including Head of Police and Lord Mayor of Königsberg, Prussia’s second largest city. He also authored anonymous works of literature often attributed to Goethe."(37)

"The German thinker’s signal achievement is his discovery of female individuality. Rather than categorising women and assigning them specific roles, Hippel sees them as persons. Like Condorcet, he demands citizenship for them with all attendant rights and duties. On Improving the Status of Women, published in 1792, two years after Condorcet’s Plea and in the same year as Wollstonecraft’s Vindication, is a landmark, a hundred years ahead of its time. “Why should a woman not be able to say I?” he demands. “Why should women not be persons?” Writing in 1882, the women’s-rights activist Helene Druskowitz said of him: “Those who are a thousand steps ahead of their contemporaries will invariably fail to be heard.”"(38)

"The situation in America at the time was dispiriting. The Founding Fathers were mostly confirmed patriarchs and the same applied to a broad cross-section of the U.S. revolutionaries, notwithstanding the fact that luminaries like Washington, Jefferson and Franklin had strong friendships with individual women on a very egalitarian basis. However, their support for women’s rights was lukewarm at best."(40)

"Paine (1737–1809), the celebrated author of Common Sense, emphasises the differences between men and women rather than rejecting or relativising them, as Condorcet and Hippel do. He sees them primarily as wives and mothers."(41)

"In the 19th century, the Age of Ideologies, women’s rights received a growing degree of attention and became a greater part of public discourse. Charles Fourier contributed to this. The utopian’s ideas of universal harmony pivot round the “Phalansterium,” an ideal society organised in phalanxes composed of representatives of 810 personality types. His phalanx colonies developed in France and the U.S., but did not stand the test of time."(43)

"Fourier’s ideas of universal harmony were well-meaning but highly impractical. However, he was a perceptive observer. His observations on alienation were influential for Marxist thought; equally, his contention that the treatment of women indicated how civilised a country was, impressed women’s-rights activists in both France and Germany."(43)

"Robert Owen had one tremendous advantage over Fourier and Saint-Simon.(...) Owen later put his ideas on community into practice in New Harmony in Indiana. Equal rights for women was a fundament: “They will be equal in education, rights, privileges and personal liberty,” he proclaimed in his Book of the New Moral World. Owen regarded the institution of marriage as a “pure, unadulterated system of moral evil” and saw communal living as a way to achieve social harmony." [mijn nadruk] (46)

"Engels sees the legal inequality of married women as the result of economic oppression. The woman “only differs from the ordinary courtesan in that she does not let out her body on piecework as a wage-worker, but sells it once and for all into slavery.” The husband is in this logic a bourgeois, while the wife belongs to the proletariat. Only proletarians without property can have equal relationships."(47)

"The founder of Marxist feminism believed that women were domestic creatures; in his early writings, he however showed far more empathy for the plight of female and child workers. Indeed, Engels made no secret of his dislike of self-willed women. Tristram Hunt sums up: “Engels was the intellectual architect of socialist feminism and an old-fashioned sexist.” Materialism apparently precluded true sympathy for women. The women’s-rights issue was reduced to class inequality; Marxists took the naïve view that the socialist revolution would solve all problems." [mijn nadruk] (48)

"Bebel also resembled Engels in his personal dislike of intelligent, articulate women."(49)

"Utilitarian pragmatism was by contrast to the Utopians and Marxists a breath of fresh air. The intellectually banal principle of the “greatest happiness of the greatest number” automatically amplifies the radius of reform and puts the accent on doing, rather than theorising. Consequentialism focuses on results rather than sheer ideas, on outcomes rather than intentions. Here, quite clearly, are the germs of social activism that led to reform.
For Utilitarianism’s guiding spirit Jeremy Bentham, equal rights for women were part of his liberal-hedonistic doctrine. His radical blueprint for an enlightened world included the legalisation of homosexuality, the right to divorce and abolition of the death penalty. Bentham’s demands became reality in most Western countries during the course of the 20th century. The pragmatic humanism of this reclusive eccentric manifestly prevailed over the visions and dogmas of the Utopians and the Marxists.
Bentham (1748–1832) considered women to be equally entitled to happiness. By contrast, he considered them “commonly inferior” in mental terms, though morally superior. This is a surprisingly conventional viewpoint for someone arguing for women’s suffrage, participation in government and the right to divorce. Indeed, it seems that the great reformer demanded the right things for the wrong reasons."(52)

(53) 2 - Battle for the Ballot Box: Suffragists and Suffragettes

Over John Stuart Mill.

"Mill cooperated closely with both male and female reformers; he was for instance President of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage founded by Lydia Becker. No other male feminist has ever been as widely respected and highly acclaimed. His amendment, though defeated, earned serious debate."(55)

Nieuw Zeeland

"Mill’s ideas led to concrete change in New Zealand, the first country in the world to grant universal female suffrage in 1893, only 14 years after the adoption of complete male suffrage. The liberal philosopher had a strong influence on both male and female suffragists."(59)

"The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was the backbone of the suffrage movement. The strong correlation between temperance and suffrage made the liquor lobby consequently the most vehement opponent of the women’s vote. Alcohol producers rightly feared that women would vote for restrictions when given suffrage.(...) The temperance movement’s high moral tone and propagation of “virtue” commanded respect and facilitated their demands for women’s rights."(59-60)

[Veel moralisme daar. Maar als mannen voortdurend dronken thuiskwamen is dat niet zo gek.]

Groot-Brittannië

"Despite the support of a fair cross-section of politicians including Liberals and Conservatives, progress in Britain was painfully slow. Mill was a strong influence on both moderate and radical suffrage-seekers. However, only a small coterie of politically active men and women joined the struggle for suffrage."(63)

"The radical Richard Marsden Pankhurst was even more influential than Fawcett; his impact on the suffragette movement is in fact crucial. Pankhurst (1834–98) can best be characterised as a compulsive reformer in search of causes: free speech, abolition of the House of Lords, home rule for the Irish, independence for the Indians and votes for women. A brilliant lawyer, who won a gold medal when passing his LLD examinations, Pankhurst soon abandoned the confines of the Liberal Party, becoming one of the founders of the Independent Labour Party."(66)

"Later, the suffragette movement, consolidated as the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), became increasingly conservative and authoritarian; Sylvia quarrelled with her mother and sister about their disdain of working-class women, later acting in her father’s spirit by endorsing a variety of causes, including the Russian Revolution and the Ethiopian resistance against the Italian invasion. She was duly ejected from WSPU."(68)

[Ai...]

"A large number of progressive writers supported women’s rights, in particular suffrage. Many of them belonged to the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage, founded in 1907."(75)

"Bertrand Russell was perhaps the most cerebral supporter of the woman’s vote. Both his parents had been strong supporters of women’s rights and the advanced ideas of Germany’s Social Democrats initially influenced him. In his superbly argued pamphlet Anti-suffragist anxieties, Russell (1872–1970) demolishes a succession of sexist prejudices including fears of “feminine emotion” and puts his finger on examples of male emotionalism, citing religious revivalism and imperialism."(77)

"While strongly influenced by Margaret Llewelyn Davies, secretary of the Women’s Cooperative Guild, Russell quickly lost sympathy with the WSPU because of its militancy. Other suffragist authors included H.G. Wells, G.B. Shaw, John Galsworthy, E.M. Forster, J.M. Barrie and G.K. Chesterton. The Men’s League united an illustrious brotherhood of academics and writers, joined by ministers, lawyers and army officers. It is fair to say that a broad cross-section of the British intelligentsia supported suffrage. As Evelyn Sharp, Henry Nevinson’s long-term lover, pointed out, their activities ensured that the suffrage cause was not a “sex war.”" [mijn nadruk] (79)

Verenigde Staten

"The American movement for suffrage shows strong parallels to Britain’s, particularly in the split between moderates like Susan B. Anthony’s NWSA (later NAWSA) and radicals (Alice Paul’s NWP). However, there were also important differences: the abolition-of-slavery issue drew a wedge through suffrage."(79)

Weer allerlei namen.

"However, in terms of male activists, America lacked major national figures like John Stuart Mill or Richard Pankhurst. Many men became involved through familial or marital connections rather than through their own convictions. On the other hand, full female suffrage came in 1920 with fewer compromises made at a later stage than in Britain"(83)

Duitsland

"By contrast, Friedrich von Bülau, Professor of Economics at Leipzig University and a constitutional scholar, stated that women’s mental capacities were equal or superior to those of men. Bülau (1805–59) also believed that women were at least as independent in their viewpoints as the great majority of the men and came to the resigned conclusion that their exclusion was because men made the laws."(87)

"Hedwig Dohm (1831-1919) was by far the most eloquent and consequent feminist of 19th-century Germany. Influenced by Mill, she called for suffrage in the 1870s, but remained an isolated figure."(87)

"The only coherent and consistent institutional support for suffrage came from the Social Democratic Party (SPD). August Bebel, the later party leader, tried to make the woman’s vote part of the party programme in 1869, but failed. In 1875, the SPD agreed on a neutral formulation, whereby “all citizens” had the right to vote.
From 1891 onwards, the SPD officially endorsed suffrage. The party overcame reservations that women would vote conservative and generously endorsed a movement that would prove detrimental to their own electoral prospects."(88)

Frankrijk

"The ideas of Condorcet were as neglected as those of Hippel in Germany. Napoleon’s Code Civil codified the misogynist heritage of the Jacobins. A peculiarly French phenomenon is that those striving for social change were simultaneously the greatest detractors of women.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is a good example. He combined socialist ideology with a demeaning view of women as being either housewives or prostitutes. Similarly, the influential historian Jules Michelet, a great interpreter of the French Revolution, preached democracy while confining women to a maternal role that precluded voting. He saw the “feminisation” of the French monarchy as being its major flaw."(89-90)

"Prominent authors like Alexandre Dumas and Emil Zola were profound anti-feminists. This contrasts vividly with the large number of British intellectuals in favour of the vote. Victor Hugo was a great exception."(91)

"As in Germany, suffrage came because of women’s exemplary conduct during a period of crisis, not because of any true belief in the importance of the women’s vote."(96)

Italië

"In a number of ways, Italy resembles France. Suffrage came to the country after the Second World War, with women voting for the first time in 1946. Like France, the country lacked organised activism; unlike its Latin neighbour, Italy brought in male suffrage at a late stage. In 1882, men’s voting rights still depended on their “capabilities,” in particular literacy."(96)

"Courageous individuals pursued the issue on their own initiative. Anna Maria Mozzoni (1837–1920) had translated Mill’s Subjection of Women into Italian and evolved from socialism in the Fourier mould to become a prominent liberal thinker. In her uncompromising attitude towards any kind of discrimination, she was certainly comparable to Hedwig Dohm and equally isolated in her own country, though well connected in the international women’s movement."(98)

"The country’s pioneer male feminist, a parliamentarian called Salvatore Morelli, reaped mockery for his efforts to improve women’s lives. Morelli (1824–80) had been imprisoned under demeaning conditions during the campaign for Italian unification. In 1861, eight years before Mill’s Subjection of Women, he published his major study on Woman and Science."(98)

"However, the fringe question of whether prostitutes should be excluded from the electoral rolls proved divisive and, ultimately, the Senate blocked the ratification of the law."(100)

[Ja, want iemand die met seks bezig is, kan zijn hersens niet gebruiken ... Belachelijke argumenten.]

Zwitserland

"Why did suffrage come to one of the world’s oldest democracies as late as 1971? In the conservative canton of Appenzell, women could indeed vote only from 1990 onwards. The easy answer to the question being that the country’s system of direct democracy makes referendums imperative. Thus, both houses of parliament approved women’s suffrage in 1958; a year later, voters rejected it."(101)

[Waaraan je ziet hoe beperkt van waarde die referenda zijn. Veel conservatieve vrouwen stemden trouwens ook tegen.]

"Swiss microcosm also provides evidence of how men supporting women’s rights are often wilfully ignored by women’s organisations."(105)

"A major factor in Switzerland was not only the weakness of the suffrage movement, but also potent opposition emanating from men’s and in particular women’s groups. The Catholic Women’s Association had distanced itself from suffrage in the 1920s and other pressure groups formed in reaction to suffrage activism." [mijn nadruk] (106)

"The committee united mostly conservative, well-educated women from privileged circles, who feared that the social order would be upset through greater rights for poorer, “simpler” women." [mijn nadruk] (106)

[Hun sociale orde uiteraard. De superioriteitgevoelens van de hogere milieus.]

"The situation in the U.S. was largely similar. A network of highly placed East Coast women fought the “feminist disease,” their motivation deriving from broadly the same mixture of the cult of domesticity and fear of lower-class women usurping their positions in society. Ladies of the Massachusetts and New York State Associations were often highly placed professionals in academia, journalism and even in social services."(109)

[Er lijkt nog helemaal niets veranderd daar in de VS. ]

"Antisuffrage is a prime example, but not the only example of how gender solidarity can prove flimsier than the power of vested interests or of ideology. Standpoint, rather than sex affiliation, is the decisive element in attitudes and decisions." [mijn nadruk] (113)

[De waarden en normen dus.]

"The implicit “we women” attitude of some feminists is thus an assumption that many women do not share. Similarly, the expectation that men should oppose women’s suffrage because it would threaten their privileges is facile."(113)

(114) 3 - Women’s Minds: Writers, Teachers, Entrepreneurs

Mannen in de salons van rijke dames.

Groot-Brittannië

"Discussion circles led by talented women like Montagu (1718–1800), Frances Boscawen and Elizabeth Vesey were avidly attended by members of a masculine elite which ranged from literary figures like Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Richardson and Walter Scott and historians of the stature of Edward Gibbon, to theatre celebrities like David Garrick and Richard Sheridan."(115)

Eerst worden allerlei schrijvers en hun opvattingen over vrouwen besproken.

"Conversely, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders was vastly closer to life, an outlaw profiting from rather than oppressed by marriage. Virginia Woolf considered Defoe (1660–1731) to be an empowered feminist; Moll exploits the system designed to confine her. Others disagree, emphasising Moll’s use of her body for fortune-hunting. The same applies to his other famous novel Roxana. Defoe’s feminist credentials are certainly improved by his essay The Education of Women, in which he calls the fact that women are denied education “one of the most barbarous customs in the world.”"(118)

"Thomas Hardy’s heroines are far more real as victims of social norms. This is particularly the case in rural areas like Wessex, the setting of his novels. Hardy (1840–1928) in fact shows a sense of affinity to his female protagonists without idealising them. He cogently criticises patriarchal norms by individualising female characters like Tess of the d’Urbervilles, who are far more of flesh and blood than Tennyson’s princess or Browning’s victims."(119)

"British writers with feminist credentials have often tended to be either timid or licentious in their personal lives. William Butler Yeats and George Bernard Shaw belong to the first category, H.G. Wells and Oscar Wilde to the second."(120)

"H.G. Wells was less serious in his intentions than Shaw was, but at gut level possibly closer to the feminine psyche. Ann Veronica created a scandal comparable to Lady Chatterley’s Lover when published in 1909. The novel describes a young feminist woman who also happens to be very feminine and exploits the tension inherent in this mind-body conflict."(122)

Frankrijk

"During the long 19th century, intellectual support for women is generally hard to find in France. Victor Hugo is the great exception. He repeatedly asserted his support for women’s rights. In 1875, he wrote to a women’s association, “In our society, such as it has been made, woman suffers. She is right to claim a better fate.” Together with Maria Deraismes, Hugo (1802–85) called on women to “enrol in the feminist army.” In private life by contrast, Hugo was a great womaniser, maltreating both his wife and numerous lovers, seemingly indifferent to their fate."(124)

"In general, French intellectuals were revolted by any kind of seeming masculinity on the part of women."(125)

"Equally obscure, but in a completely different vein, was the novel La Garçonne, a succès de scandale in the 1920s. Rather in the vein of H.G. Wells’ Ann Veronica, but published 13 years later in the aftermath of the First World War, Victor Margueritte’s heroine Monique Lerbier wears bobbed hair and a short skirt; she also has intercourse with both women and men. Here comes La Femme Nouvelle with a vengeance."(126)

Duitsland

"However, in Germany, women were traditionally defined as wives and mothers. Salonières were not motivated to advance the interests of their sex. No supportive networks of men and women developed as in Britain. More significant was the free mixing of people of different religions and social standings, particularly in the salons hosted by Jewish hostesses like Rachel Varnhagen von Ense and Henriette Herz."(128)

"Beyond that, literary luminaries like Goethe and Schiller had condescending attitudes to women. Kant’s famous dictum that the female sex was characterised more by temperament than by character resonated strongly. His “theory” of gender characters relegated women to being the beautiful sex."(128)

"While the German Krausianer favoured evolution, the German Romantics revolutionised sexual attitudes. This was particularly true of Friedrich Schlegel, who had an affair with Dorothea Veit, daughter of the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. They later married and after converting to her husband’s Protestant religion; Dorothea was then instrumental in their joint conversion to Catholicism. Their relationship profoundly influenced Lucinde. Less a tract than a sensualist manifest, Schlegel’s novel caused an enormous scandal when published in 1799.
Schlegel (1772–1829) idealised women while emphasising the importance of exchanged roles and androgyny. Influenced by his highly intelligent wife, an author in her own right, he firmly believed in women’s intellectual qualities. In a letter to her, Schlegel concluded that philosophy was vital knowledge for women. This was in clear opposition to the general norm that too much education was detrimental to female virtue.
Schlegel’s ideas are considered to presage Judith Butler’s gender theories. As a writer, he tried to undermine sexual clichés subversively. He is thus close to viewing gender as a social construction."(130)

Rusland

"Russia in the 19th century may have been very much on Europe’s periphery. Despite this, it featured a remarkable number of intellectuals with feminist affinities. First and foremost was the revolutionary writer Nikolay Chernyshevsky, who influenced an entire generation, including Lenin, with his novel What Is to Be Done."(131)

"The literary critic Dmitry Pisarev had comparably enlightened views. It was Pisarev (1840–68), who rejected the primary assumption of Kant and other philosophers that women are more capable of feeling rather than thinking. According to him, the goal of human education was quite simply to develop a person’s full potential. He too was a formative influence on Lenin."(132)

Verenigde Staten

"Salons were slow to develop in the U.S., though Anne Lynch Botta and Emma Embury attracted a large cross-section of the East Coast elite at their soirées. Botta’s guests included luminaries like Edgar Allen Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Greeley and Andrew Carnegie."(133)

"Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s life achievement lies in his championing of the poet Emily Dickinson. Like Greeley, Higginson (1823–1911) was a militant reformer. As an abolitionist, he participated in the anti-slavery movement...(...) Higginson firmly supported higher education for women and came out for the vote, co-founding the Women’s Suffrage Association. He systematically refuted Edward H. Clarke’s influential diatribe Sex in Education, which contended that academic studies would inhibit women’s capacities to be mothers. In his essay Ought Women To Learn The Alphabet?, Higginson ridicules a philosophy that accepts that “John is a fool; Jane is a genius: nevertheless, John, being a man, shall learn, lead, make laws, make money; Jane, being a woman, shall be ignorant, dependent, disfranchised, underpaid.”
He also corrected the moralistic views of reformers like Frederic C. Howe, Immigration Commissioner of the Port of New York. Howe (1867–1940) believed that women should have the vote because they were morally superior and could thus redeem men from their sins. Higginson by contrast trenchantly pointed out: “It is a plausible and tempting argument to claim suffrage for women on the ground that she is an angel, but I think it will prove wiser, in the end, to claim it for her as being human…” For him, women were not men’s better halves, but simply their other halves." [mijn nadruk] (134)

"By contrast, Edgar Allan Poe portrayed women as passive creatures in his stories, as victims of marauding men, but firmly supported them as writers, reviewing their works and mingling with them at salons. Poe (1809–49) however led a dissolute life and was indeed guilty of paedophilia, in view of the fact that he married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia."(135)

[Lekker gemakkelijk oordeel. Hoe zou hij officieel kunnen trouwen met een 13-jarige als dat wettelijk niet zou zijn toegestaan?]

"Middleton realised that suffrage was only one element of women’s rights; he called it the “kindergarten” of feminism. The playwright joined the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage co-founded by Max Eastman with prominent participants like Rabbi Stephen Wise and the philosopher John Dewey. Eastman (1883–1969) discounted arguments based on feminine virtue. Women would not improve politics, on the contrary: politics would develop women. Here, he is close to the logic employed by Higginson."(137)

Vervolgens een hele reeks auteurs over onderwijs voor vrouwen.

"The officer and writer James Henry Lawrence by contrast made a tomboy the heroine of his novel The Empire of the Nairs; or the Rights of Women, first published in Germany and strongly praised by Wieland and Schiller. Lawrence (1773–1840) was a kindred soul of Wollstonecraft; he refers to a book on the vindication of women’s rights written by a woman who was “an ornament to her sex.”"(142)

"A number of prominent academics contributed to the establishment of women’s colleges and collaborated closely with female educators."(147)

[Allemaal uit de hogere milieus ongetwijfeld. Ook opvallend is dat het allemaal gaat om particuliere initiatieven en niet om een overheid die iets in gang zet. Onderwijs voor vrouwen wordt dan iets van liefdadigheid en/of zieltjes winnen.]

Veel van de scholen voor vrouwen kwamen voort uit de christelijke hoek en daar werd de christelijke ideologie even belangrijk gvonden als de andere inhoud. Ook was de benadering er vaak een van segregatie: vrouwen opleiden voor een vrouwenwereld en zeker niet voor een gelijke rol in de mannen wereld.

"The Seven Sisters were trailblazers. By the 1880s, one-third of all college students in the U.S. were female. However, an incipient conservatism kept college graduates from entering the professional mainstream. Established educationists like Edward H. Clarke of Harvard University advanced pseudo-biological arguments to prove that women were incapable of receiving a “man’s education,” citing alleged cases of hysteria and indeed digestive problems in coeducational schools. Prominent academics like the philosopher John Dewey however rebutted these absurd arguments. Dewey, who also endorsed suffrage, contended that both women and men profited from an educational mix, the boys learning gentleness and courtesy, the girls acquiring greater self-reliance." [mijn nadruk] (156)

"Unlike the Anglo-Saxon countries, education in Continental Europe was and is mostly state-run. This strongly limits the leeway for individual pioneers. Countries like France and Germany could not rely on men of action like Holloway and Vassar, though the same type of entrepreneurs existed in the economic sphere.
Ironically, the biggest laggard in suffrage was a pioneer in medical education. Switzerland’s universities opened their doors to women long before universities in Germany and other Central European countries. Zurich University allowed women to attend lectures from 1840 onwards. (...)
Soon, women from all over the world, in particular Russia, Germany, Britain and the U.S., studied at Swiss universities. Prominent degree-takers included Rosa Luxemburg and Lou Andreas-Salomé. Liberal German professors, some of whom had immigrated to Switzerland in the aftermath of the 1848 revolution, played an important role in making Switzerland the premier country for women to study."(162)

"Germany was as much a mecca for mathematics students as Switzerland was for medicine."(164)

"Göttingen was a great exception in Prussia, which introduced university education for women as late as 1908. Other German states like Baden and Bavaria were slightly more liberal, but in general, Germany lagged behind both the Anglo-Saxon countries and Switzerland. By contrast, it was a pioneer in practical training."(166)

"A large number of Austrian politicians, professors and professionals supported women’s education. Beyond this, the Union of Austrian Professors offered a large variety of courses on subjects such as public-sector theory, economics and economic history. A professor of zoology called Carl Brühl was one of the few natural scientists to confirm the mental equality of women, in stark contrast to Darwin and to German scientists like Paul Julius Möbius, who published an infamous, influential pamphlet On the Physiological Stupidity of Women. At the Vienna World Fair in 1873, Brühl showed skeletons proving that male and female brains were of equal size."(168)

"Men have traditionally dominated the economic world. Female entrepreneurs and managers still form a minority; wage disparities between male and female employees remain persistently high. The masculinity of money is a fact proven by behavioural research: Implicit Association Tests demonstrate the connection made between men and wealth.
The link between masculinity and money is particularly strong in countries with highly developed financial markets like the U.S. and Britain. Stock exchanges and trading have promoted a macho culture well symbolised by the “Big Swinging Dicks,” a designation for particularly successful stockbrokers and exchange traders. The link between the male genital and moneymaking is as apparent as visions of supremacy. In a Master of the Universe culture, men are subjects while women are objects."(169)

[Wat een rare uitspraken. Het lijkt nu net alsof dat vanzelfsprekend zo is en niet het gevolg van cultuur. Vrouwen mochten immers niets anders dan thuis zitten en voor hun man zorgen.]

"In Britain, common law grossly discriminated against women engaging in any form of entrepreneurial activity. Salaried women were equally disadvantaged and, over a large period of time, the trade unions were disinclined to advocate women’s rights. Union leaders were stridently masculine, masquerading as women’s protectors when it came to justifying unequal pay and working conditions.(...) Men invited public disgrace if they allowed their wives to work."(173)

[Nou dan. ]

"A remarkable range of male personalities has supported women in the working world."(179)

"Another reason why progress in opening higher education to women has been stronger in the Anglo-Saxon countries has to do with the fact that they are to a greater degree free-market societies. Entrepreneurs like Vassar and Holloway pushed ahead and established pioneer colleges. By contrast, in countries with state-run education, progress was slow because reformers had to undertake the “long march through the institutions of power”..."(187)

[Over de nadelen daarvan zullen het maar niet hebben? ]

(187) Women’s Bodies: Abolitionists, Abortionists, Birth-Controllers

"As early as 1800 BC, the Code of Hammurabi viewed women’s bodies as men’s property. Rape was thus a property crime, not a crime against humanity. English common law, as codified by Sir William Blackstone in 1769 and soon adopted in the U.S., gave husbands unrestricted rights over the property and bodies of wives. They could beat or rape their wives with virtual impunity, as the case of Caroline Norton indicates. Similar rules applied in Continental law, particularly in the Code Napoléon."(189)

"Here, we encounter a significant difference to the campaigns addressing women’s minds. Leading protagonists of abolitionism were predominantly female. Butler (1828–1906) was for women’s bodies what Mill was for suffrage. However, men played vital roles as doctors, politicians, civil servants, clerics and publicists."(190)

"Stead concentrated on girls older than 13, the scandalously low age of consent at the time."(199)

[Er sluipen inderdaad waardeoordelen binnen in zijn verhaal.]

Prostitutie

"There was a significant difference between Britain and the Continent: laws regulating prostitution in countries like France dated back to the Napoleonic period. From 1804 onwards, France established official brothels with registered prostitutes subject to regular medical checks. This precluded the drama of the CD Acts. The main emphasis was on combatting venereal disease (VD)."(202)

"In France, Sainte-Croix (1855–1939) and other female abolitionists like Sarah Monod mostly belonged to the country’s tiny Protestant minority and gained the support of sympathetic relatives. Sarah’s cousin Henri, Head of the Public Health Department in Paris, supported the campaign against regulated prostitution ..."(202)

[Waarom zou je prostitutie af willen schaffen? Legaliseren en reguleren is minstens beter. Maar allereerst moet je de oorzaken wegnemen waarom vooral vrouwen zich wel moeten prostitueren: de armoede, de afhankelijkheid van het inkomen van mannen, het gebrek aan voorbehoedmiddelen, en zo verder. Dan is er vanzelf minder prostitutie. Ik denk niet dat die religieuze middenklasse abolitionisten daar zelfs maar aan dachten. Ook moet je er voor zorgen dat prostitutie verder echt vrijwillig is, dat geweld uitgesloten wordt, dat ziektes voorkomen worden. Er is principieel niets tegen iemand die geld wil verdienen met seks. Nog beter zou acceptatie zijn, ook voor vrouwen die wel eens een man willen. ]

"Anna Pappritz, the country’s major campaigner, met Butler in 1895 and, inspired by her, founded the German branch of IAF in 1899. Apart from this, she edited the magazine Der Abolitionist. Pappritz (1861–1939) had a strong sense of morality and saw female sexuality exclusively in the context of married life. This led her to oppose those who, like Helene Stöcker, advocated a new autonomous sexuality for women. Both however were committed to abolishing prostitution; Pappritz believed that stable marriages were the solution, while Stöcker had a more modern view of sexual relationships." [mijn nadruk] (204)

[Dit is bijna archetypisch. Uiteraard heeft Pappritz ongelijk. En de auteur is ook weer krtiekloos: ze had een 'strong sense of morality'. Wat betekent dat zelfs maar?]

"Parallel to their agitation, male morality campaigners from both the Protestant and Catholic churches attacked prostitution."(205)

[Ze vielen waarschijnlijk seks aan, onder het mom van een aanval op prostitutie. ]

De Verenigde Staten:

"During most of the 19th century, prostitution was considered a “necessary evil.” Since its regulation was a state domain according to the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, conditions in individual states greatly varied. Though considered illegal under vagrancy laws, brothels and streetwalkers were mostly tolerated."(208)

"Sanger pinpointed the phenomenon’s major cause as being poverty, not female depravity."(209)

"The public mood then changed in the 1880s. A curious temporary alliance between social-purity crusaders and early feminists came into being, comparable to the connection between the temperance movement and suffragists. Prostitution became an absolute, not a necessary evil, a scourge on national purity. While free-love feminists stressed a woman’s right to refuse sex, even in marriage, the purity activists were far closer to middle-class morality. Their criticism of the sex drive as deviating from a focus on work and material success was potently Puritanical.
Women’s and Men’s Groups coexisted, remaining strangely separate. Vice commissions were generally dominated by men, while women organised themselves mostly in religious groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Inspired by events in Britain, they campaigned to raise the age of consent and called for the abolition of brothels.
Men concentrated more on eradicating organised vice and on health issues. Many were doctors like Prince Albert Morrow, marking a transition from social purity to hygiene." [mijn nadruk] (209-210)

[Een raadsel. Hoe kan iemand die zich feminist noemt samenwerken met christelijke puriteinen die seks uit de wereld willen helpen?]

"Ethnocentrism in the U.S. was even stronger than in Britain and the Continent. Social-purity activism focused on pure Anglo-American girls coerced and misled into “white slavery.” They became the easy prey of degenerate immigrants. Abolitionist rhetoric lost all sense of proportion." [mijn nadruk] (211)

Voorbehoedmiddelen

"Well aware of Malthus’s gloomy predictions, Place [Francis Place (1771–1854) - GdG]criticised him for being ignorant of the conditions in which the poor lived. He equally attacked Malthus for having the illusion that the poor would refrain from sex until economically capable of supporting a family.
Place’s Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population is the first book to advocate contraception openly. Beyond this, he published several handbills, mostly counselling readers to use a vaginal sponge, while also advocating coitus interruptus." [mijn nadruk] (215)

"Place’s most important disciple was equally versatile. Richard Carlile, who also propagated universal suffrage and freedom of the press, had a strong satirical streak, landing in prison for his parody of the Book of Common Prayer. Carlile (1790–1843) was a remarkable humanist, truly believing in equality between the sexes and in the fact that men and women had the same sexual appetites. For him, birth control and sexual emancipation were closely linked.
In What is Love? Carlile pleads for free love as opposed to purely matrimonial sex. He specifically advocates contraception, in particular the sponge, though also mentioning condoms, coitus interruptus and interfemora (ejaculation between the thighs of a woman).
Carlile goes as far as calling for a “new attitude to physical love – secular, open, celebratory and hedonistic, rather than Christian, clandestine, condemnatory and prim,” as M.L. Bush, editor of the new edition of the book, puts it. Men and women are equal because they have the same sexual appetites. Carlile strikingly points out: “I am not for treating women as the mere breeding machines for the human race and men as the directing lords of the aggregate machinery.” However, he draws the line at homosexual sex. What is Love? was published in 1825." [mijn nadruk] (215)

"The early propagators of birth control (BC) came from many professions, not however from the medical. Yet, one of the 20th century’s most remarkable doctors almost single-handedly made BC both respectable and legal. Bertrand Dawson (1864–1945) combined impeccable academic qualifications with an intense dislike of religious dogma." [mijn nadruk] (219)

"Like Gates, Stopes was a fervent believer in eugenics, advocating sterilisation not only of the insane and feebleminded, but also of “revolutionaries” and “half-castes.” BC clearly aimed at reducing the reproduction rate of the lower classes and of undesirable human beings. Unsurprisingly, Stopes admired Hitler, sending him a book of her poems with an unctuous letter as late as August 1939; she was both strongly anti-Semitic and homophobic. Britain’s BC pioneer certainly was consistent in her eugenic convictions: when her son Harry Stopes-Roe married a myopic woman, she disinherited him." [mijn nadruk] (223)

"Stopes’ great inspiration was American pioneer Margaret Sanger. There are strong parallels in their lifestyles and political views. Both seemed to be doing the right thing in alleviating misery and increasing personal freedom for the wrong, racist-elitist reasons. In particular, they were helping the poor in order to eliminate their procreation; their motivation was at least as eugenic as it was humanistic." [mijn nadruk] (225)

"Sex radicals coexisted with the Utopians and endorsed their ideas. The journalist Moses Harman not only demanded that women determine their own procreation; he also propagated free love and advocated abolishing marriage, which in his opinion enslaved women. Needless to say, Harman (1830–1910) was prosecuted and imprisoned."(230)

"The attitudes and interests of the medical profession enormously influenced the social acceptance of BC. In 19th-century America, most doctors publicly denounced BC, though they were known to privately give advice on contraception or even perform abortions.
Edward Bliss Foote was the great exception. Despite his strict Presbyterian upbringing, he was a freethinker with the courage of his convictions. These included the need for free access to contraception, women’s suffrage and, curiously, polygamy. Foote believed that monogamy made women sexually apathetic and men impotent."(232)

"One ally was Robert Latou Dickinson, a distinguished gynaecologist and President of both the American Gynecological Society and the American College of Surgeons.
Dickinson (1861–1950) had a deep interest in sexual pathology and assembled more than 5,000 sexual case histories in the course of his career, strongly influencing Alfred Kinsey. While agreeing with Sanger’s principles, he firmly believed that only doctors had the authority to deal with BC. Both had strong personalities and clashed; they founded rival clinics, but Dickinson’s was far less successful in attracting patients." [mijn nadruk] (235)

Abortus

Vooral door mannen beslist. Opnieuw wordt per land gekeken.

"In the U.S., a broad coalition of doctors, lawyers, journalists and priests united to lobby for liberalisation. In Britain, equally a civil society, medical experts ruled supreme and marginalised other groups. With the signal effect that abortion became a doctor’s decision; the social aspects receded to the background."(261)

"Men contributed to liberating women’s bodies to varying degrees. In terms of abortion, they were at the forefront, particularly in the U.S.; on birth-control issues, they played an important, but not central role; while their role in eradicating or humanising prostitution was certainly more marginal and questionable."(288)

(290) 5 - Behind Every Great Woman: Relatives, Friends, Allies

"She was the founding mother of modern feminism. A heroine, one of the first English women to revolt against a masculine establishment that consigned women to menial supporting roles. In the face of immense pressure, she asserted women’s rights and assailed men’s prerogatives.
All this is true. Yet, image and reality deviate in the case of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–98) to a degree that is characteristic of many well-meaning assumptions relating to women’s rights. Recent scholarship has relativised Wollstonecraft’s lone, heroic role and put it into a progressive perspective.
The founding mother was in fact part of a group of radical men and women, religious dissenters who were mostly supporters of the French Revolution in the early phase. In philosophical terms, they were rationalists and utilitarians. In personal terms, they subscribed to warm friendships as equals. As Arianne Chernock points out in Men and the Making of Modern British Feminism, these men were not just “fellow travellers,” but rather “central participants” in the struggle for women’s rights." [mijn nadruk] (290-291)

"Wollstonecraft’s unorthodox views on love and marriage were already well known and considered objectionable."(294)

"This was typical of a conservative backlash that united men and women in their disapproval of female independence. “Loyalists” like Burke, supported by a large cross-section of conservative women including Hamilton, Anna Barbauld and Hannah More, attacked the English “Jacobins,” to whom both Wollstonecraft and Hays belonged." [mijn nadruk] (297)

"Were Wollstonecraft’s female adversaries, those with conservative views on a woman’s role in society, unmarried women and virtuous housewives? To a certain degree, yes." [mijn nadruk] (303)

"According to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, this century covered the period from the French Revolution until the outbreak of World War One. In Britain, the Victorian era is certainly the apogee of this period, in which a new generation of women’s-rights activists fought against the forces of middle-class moralism using mass media and organising campaigns."(306)

"English Common Law grossly discriminated against married women well into the 20th century. Single women could own property and enter into contracts, while married women’s rights merged with those of their husbands. Male prerogatives included child custody, so George [Norton] was perfectly within his rights when he refused her access to the family home. Caroline [Norton] reacted by publishing pamphlets on the natural claims of mothers to their children and enlisted powerful supporters to change the law."(313)

"Margaret Fuller is often compared with Mary Wollstonecraft. Indeed, her immediate impact on America’s feminists far surpassed Wollstonecraft’s in Britain, while her lifestyle was equally colourful and her character at least as multifaceted. Her pioneering book Woman in the Nineteenth Century was celebrated as a masterpiece and for the first generation of suffragists, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret was an inspirational figure. Her demands were not only for equal education but also for open employment; why for instance should a woman not be a sea captain?
Beyond this, Fuller (1810–50) was the first woman to do a variety of things: conduct research in the Harvard Library, become editor of an intellectual journal, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Dial, then be the first literary editor of a national newspaper, Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, and after that the newspaper’s first female foreign correspondent."(329)

"Like the Pankhursts, the American suffragettes were conservative at heart, forced into militancy by the need to fight effectively for the vote. Their progressive attitudes on suffrage contrasted starkly with a lack of interest in other gender issues or in racial or social reform. This was however equally true of some of the suffragists."(338)

[Het is weer een eindeloze opsomming van namen en relaties.]

(391) Male Feminists: An Eternal Paradox?

"If women’s antifeminism is a paradox, men’s profeminism is, at least at first sight, equally so. In her analysis of the American women who opposed female suffrage, Susan Marshall concentrates on their economic status and family backgrounds.(...) The explanation however is remarkably simple: the paradox only exists because gender patriotism is assumed as a given. In reality, women are as little motivated by “sisterhood” as men by “brotherhood.” This applies not only to suffrage, but also to a host of other issues discussed in this book."(392)

"Liberalism’s original and enduring sin is its lack of social conscience. The patron saint of profeminism John Stuart Mill provides excellent testimony of the overestimation of individuality. Mill’s concept of liberty had close links with German romanticism and to Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Bildungsideal. His elitist attitudes regarding suffrage eligibility and corresponding distance to the working-class limited the purview of his feminism." [mijn nadruk] (403)