Women's Liberation Coming Out of the 19th Century - Research Paper Example

? Women's Liberation Coming Out of the 19th Century With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, Americans began moving into the growing cities to seek work, bringing their women in from the fields on the farms to the internal rooms of the middle class. This growing middle class gave birth to what has since been referred to as the Cult of the True Woman, first identified by Barbara Welter in the mid-1960s (1966). This term is used to refer to a specific set of ideas and beliefs people held regarding the proper structure of the ideal American family and the woman's role within it. “The onset of industrialization at the beginning of the nineteenth century highlighted differences among women just as it exacerbated those between men and women workers” (Kessler-Harris, 1991). Widows, single women and women in need of additional support for their families beyond what their husbands could bring home poured into the mill towns of New England, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. They were attracted by the high wages that were offered by the factories as compared to what they could earn at home without taking into consideration the associated differences in living costs. “In 1870, 60 percent of all female workers were engaged in some aspect of domestic service and another 25 percent earned their livings in factories and workshops” (Kessler-Harris, 1991). To avoid being grouped with these less fortunate women, many of whom ended up turning to prostitution as a means of earning a living wage, more prosperous married women were banned from taking any kind of job. Instead, they were expected to uphold the True Woman feminine values of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. This is the background that fed the birth of the Women's Liberation movements that continue into the present day. Much of the progress of the modern women's movement was started in the mid- to late-1800s and early 1900s with such notable women as Catherine Beecher and Francis Willard as well as through the efforts of countless women in forming new activist groups focused on abolition, food protection and labor legislation. Catherine Beecher was a product of the True Womanhood cult; however, she worked within that ideology to help provide a socially acceptable avenue of refuge for other young women like her who felt trapped but did not wish to become ‘fallen women.’ Beecher struggled to find comfort in her religion after her fiance was lost at sea, but was unable to relinquish her sense of self and self-will (Sklar, 1973). She moved to Hartford, Connecticut and opened up new schools designed to benefit girls and providing women with additional acceptable life options outside of marriage. Her tracts, books and lectures were intended to make her less threatening to men and women who felt True Womanhood was the only natural and right social arrangement (Sklar, 1973). Her efforts provided women with a sense of self-respect and paved the road for future female activists such as Francis Willard. Francis Willard also worked from within the cult of True Womanhodd to help bring other women into a more public sphere by focusing attention on the expected responsibilities of women within their 'natural' role within the family. According to Amy Slagell (2002), “Willard knew that by recruiting, organizing and energizing interested women to being their work of transforming the world as she believed they were called to do, women would come to a new awareness of their power so that not only would the outer world be transformed, but the women themselves as well” (23). She introduced the Home Protection argument to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union “as a wedge argument, a way to break through the walls of prejudice an ‘average woman’ would likely bear toward suffrage and women’s political work” (Slagell, 2002: 10). According to Flexner, she took a “shrewd” approach; “a series of tangential moves, in the course of which women … were gradually led to understand that they could not protect their homes and families from liquor or other vices, without a voice in public affairs” (1975: 187). This approach allowed women to evolve their ideas rather than defy them altogether. Gifford points to the brilliance of using faith to bolster her argument by rediscovering “scriptural passages that supported women’s activism and as they experienced a calling from God to work for temperance and for Home Protection” (Gifford, 1986: 111). It soon became 'obvious' that women had to be involved in the public sphere if they were to fulfill the duties God had lain upon their shoulders. The urbanized, industrialized, modern-moving context of the city became the realm of the middle class responsible New Woman and the newly respectable Working Class Girl. Each of these classes of women retained individuality and autonomy which frightened many of their True Woman contemporaries (Evans, 1989: 145). The increase in numbers of independent, educated, unmarried older women emphasizes the energy of this period in women's history. As women gained educated voice in the marketplace, union hall, church and even within politics, it became harder for the men to ignore them. Finally, facing an onslaught of protests, marches and various hardships within the home itself through the Women's Suffrage movement led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women finally won the right to vote in 1920 with the passing of the 19th amendment to the Constitution of the United States (Hemming & Savage, 2009). Following the women’s suffrage movement, the feminist movement slowed dramatically until the early 1960’s. In many ways, women had fallen back into the subservient position they had held before achieving the right to vote and 'feminists' were vilified as unfeminine undesirables. It was through the efforts of women such as Betty Friedan, Ruth Rosen and Gloria Steinum during the 1960’s that the women’s movement was revived leading to more permanent change in women's roles. Though cast under one umbrella term, the women’s liberation movement consisted of two groups of women. “The (women’s) movement actually has two origins, from two different strata’s of society, with two different styles, orientations, values, and forms of organization” (Freeman, 1971). The first of these began with the formation of the Commission on the Status of Women to which feminist Betty Friedan was appointed. By 1966, she had founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) which became the first new feminist association in nearly half a century. NOW, the Federally Employed Women, the Professional Women’s Caucus and the Women’s Equity Action League were groups made up of an older demographic representing mostly working women and those of a similar age sympathetic to their cause. The younger groups, mostly college-aged women, were energized by the Civil Rights movement. The ‘younger generation’ witnessed the efforts and words of the ‘older generation' and took their words to heart. However, the splintering of the feminist movement hadn't stopped there. Feminist ideology can refer to many diverse ideas, most of which have evolved during the past four decades. In the 1960’s, women were learning how to express the oppression they endured in a way that men could understand and that enabled them to realize they were not alone in this oppression. Through the 1970’s, women began coordinating and mobilizing their efforts to challenge the status quo patriarchy. However, by the 1980’s, feminists began to disagree on some of the major objectives and definitions that became attached to feminist thought. “Today, there are as many definitions of feminism as there are feminists. Each definition of feminism depends on a number of factors including one’s own beliefs, history and culture” (Kramarae et al, 1985). This led to the fracturing of the group into two main camps - the radical feminists and the liberal feminists. Radical feminism is what most people have in their minds when they consider what is meant by feminism. This camp approaches the issue from the stance that the entire patriarchal system must be torn down before women will be able to achieve true equality among men. Within this ideology, Gloria Steinum argued that the subjugation of women within the patriarchal social structure is no different than the suppression of other groups of people. Steinum defends the concept of radical feminism by stating “radical feminist is only a way of indicating that I believe the sexual caste system is a root of race and class and other divisions” (Schnall, 1995). According to this ideology, the subjugation of women is the worst form of tyranny because it has been practiced since the beginning of civilisation oppressing women regardless of class, culture or race. Because this oppressive societal system has been in place so long, the objective of the radical feminists is to dismantle society by any means at their disposal. “Sometimes radical feminists believe that they must wage a war against men, patriarchy, and the gender system which confines them to rigid social roles. They completely reject these roles, all aspects of patriarchy, and in some cases, they reject men as well” (Daly, 1990). It is not surprising that feminists have continued to fight against negative social opinions given these attitudes. Despite the tendency of radical feminists to give feminism a bad reputation, there are many ways that the radicals and the liberals feed off of each other. Radical feminists, of course, blame the patriarchal system for society's acceptance of female subjugation as a social norm for gender roles. It aspires to “tear down the legitimised and institutionalized domination of men over women and replace it with systems of mutuality, cooperation, and sharing” (Storkey, 1985). Because the prevailing general opinion of this group is that it is a group of lesbians jaded by bad relationships with men, many of the good things they've done has gone unnoticed, but has served to push the liberal feminists forward. Radical feminism, through high-profile activities such as public protests, have forced women's issues into the spotlight when quieter, calmer methods had failed. These political actions by the radicals have appropriately linked them to liberalist thought. “The consciousness raising efforts of liberalism have laid the groundwork for the major changes sought by radicals” (Storkey, 1985). Though the foundational ideology of radical feminists differs from that of liberal feminists, the radicals also owe much of their successes to the liberals. It was because of the liberal's efforts that feminism was able to get a foothold as even a cursory respectable and valid movement. Though the status of women has improved over the past 40 years thanks to the combined efforts of these two groups, radical feminists submit that rampant and overt discriminatory practices and blatant sexism continue to exist while liberal feminists work to educate and encourage women to take their true rightful place within society equal to the men. Liberal feminism is what is typically thought of when people remember the feminists involved in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s. They insist that all people, including men, are entitled to equal rights and considerations in the home and in the workplace. While they share the goal of equal rights for women with their radical counterparts, the methods used by these two groups are very different. Radical feminists stay focused on large scale social changes while liberal feminists attempt to improve individual rights. Activist Ruth Rosen calls attention to the fact that the conservatives are seeking to reverse the gains made by the women’s movement and move American society back toward the patriarchal system. “The truth is we’re living with the legacy of an unfinished gender revolution. Real equality for women, who increasingly work outside the home, requires that liberals place the care crisis at the core of their agenda and take back ‘family values’ from the right” (Ruth Rosen, 2007). Women who identify with liberal feminism today rarely describe themselves as a feminist even when they support equality legislation because of the stigma that has again attached itself to the label. Liberal feminists correctly do not think of themselves as extremists and tend to trust that the women’s issues that remain unresolved will ultimately be achieved through a critical reasoning process. This will happen because of a gradually enlightened society which will evolve its views through lobbying efforts. People who criticize the liberal feminist ideology say its assumptions of individual rights make it incapable of seeing the underlying social values that are both creating and derived from the long-standing patriarchal societal arrangement. “Critics [of liberal feminist thought] believe that institutional changes like the introduction of women’s suffrage are insufficient to emancipate women in its investment in a social hierarchy that allows nominal equality on the basis of merit and effort” (Bryson & Campling, 1999). Unless this patriarchal system is altered at its core, these critics claim, it will continue work to oppress women. According to radicals, until women are entirely independent from men, the patriarchal system will confine them to a life of perpetual subservience to a dominator. There are very few absolutes in attempting to find the correct answers to the human rights debate as engaged by liberal and radical feminists. Both groups claim that the opposite view subverts their common goal of gender equality. At its core, the women’s movement that was touched off by feminist thought more than a century ago through the modern movement of the 1960s and continuing even today has successfully addressed equality and human rights issues for women. The movement has been instrumental in passing legislation that has continued to protect and expand these rights. “The women’s movement raises awareness of issues that directly affect women and indirectly affect our culture” (McPhee, 1997: A23). Some of the major accomplishments of feminism include the suffragettes' right to vote, the advancement of equal opportunities within the workplace, government sponsored child care, legal, thus safe, abortions, tougher domestic violence and rape laws and some progression of gay rights as well. Though liberal and radical feminists often disagree, this division is typical for any group. “All movements are fraught with extremism, infighting, and power struggles” (McPhee, 1997: A23). Unfortunately, the conservative wave currently sweeping the country threatens many of these hard-won victories and it may soon be necessary for women to again band together to retain them. The Women’s Liberation Movement as we know it today emanated from two different ideological sources and continues to promote two widely different points of view. Feminist issues are multifaceted, so it is unsurprising that the approaches to remedying these issues are often contentious and inadequate. Feminists don't always agree on the recommended solutions and not all of the needs of women have been met. Women and their ever changing lives cannot be placed in specified categories nor can the answers to their specific needs be found in theories. What all feminists should recognize is that the overall goal of leveling the playing field for everyone is a never-ending effort. References Bryson, Valerie & Campling, Jo. (September 1999). Feminist Debates: Issues of Theory and Political Practise. New York: New York University Press: 14-15. Daly, Mary. (November 1990). Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon Press. Evans, Sara M. (1989). Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America. The Free Press. Flexner, Eleanor. (1975). Century of Struggle: The Women’s Rights Movement in the United States. Cambridge: Belknap Press. Freeman, Jo. "The Women's Liberation Movement: Its Origins, Structures and Ideas." History of Women's Liberation. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois at Chicago, 1971. Gifford, Carolyn. (1986). “Home Protection: The WCTU’s Conversion to Woman Suffrage.” Gender, Ideology, and Action: Historical Perspectives on Women’s Public Lives. Janet Sharistanian (Ed.). Westport: Greenwood Press. Hemming, Heidi & Julie Hemming Savage. Women Making America. Clotho Press, 2009. Kessler-Harris, Alice. (1991). “Women and the Work Force.” The Reader’s Companion to American History. Eric Foner & John A. Garraty (Eds.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Kramarae, Cheris and Treichler, Paula A., with assistance from Ann Russo. (1985). A Feminist Dictionary. London, Boston: Pandora Press. McPhee, John. (March 4,1997). “A Feminist Redefined.” The New York Times. p. A23. Rosen, Ruth. (February 22, 2007). “The Care Crisis” The Nation Magazine. Schnall, Marianne. (April 3, 1995). “Interview with Gloria Steinem” Feminist.com Sklar, Katherine. (1973). Catherine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity. London, England: Yale University Press. Slagell, Amy. (2002). “The Rhetorical Structure of Frances E. Willard’s Campaign for Woman Suffrage.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs. Vol. 4, N. 1. Storkey, Elaine. (1985). What’s Right with Feminism. Grand Rapids, MI: SPCK (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge); Rev Ed edition (1 Aug 2006). Welter, Barbara. (1966). “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” American Quarterly. Vol. 18, N. 2, P. 1, pp. 151-74. Read More