The leaps that American society has made since Margaret Fuller’s lifetime, grow closer to fulfilling her petition for equality among all people and more specifically, women’s right to be individuals. In the 19th century, Fuller looked for an improvement to society which could only start with a new establishment of principles (Fuller). Men had a similar “tone of feeling toward women as toward slaves” throughout history, and it was this way of thinking that caused men to treat women as inferior (Fuller). Instead of providing rights to women, lawmakers gave power to only men to the extent that a man could kidnap his own children to control his wife. This is in stark contrast to cases of child custody today where the mother is the most likely parent to receive custody. Along with the inability to vote or own property after marriage, American’s claim to “national independence” did not ring true in the ears of its female members (Fuller). …show more content…
This is something that can be seen within modern day society, where people have a narrow focus on their own quality of life while neglecting the needs of others. Unlike many transcendentalist writers of her time, who focused on the individual separating themselves from society, Fuller wanted women to have an equal and fair standing in society so that they could be individuals. Her idea of the importance of individualism, however, matched those of other transcendentalists including Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman saying, “the gain of creation consists always in the growth of individuals minds” (Fuller). Margaret Fuller showed that women had a harder time achieving individuality because of the stricter constraints placed on them by