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The Role Of Feminism In The 19th Century

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Introduction
“The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.”
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) Simone de Beauvoir wrote that “the first time we see a woman take up her pen in defense of her sex” was Christine de Pizan who wrote Epistle to the God of Love in the 15th century (Stole, 2011). In the 17th to 18th century, names such as Olympes de Gouge, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Jane Austen are not unfamiliar. They are the foremothers of the modern women's movement. All of these women advocated for women’s equal rights or feminism. However, it was not until the late 19th century that the efforts for feminism consolidate into a clearly identifiable and self-conscious movement, or rather, a series of movements. According to Weedon (1987:1), feminism is a “politic directed at changing existing power relations between women and men in society. These power relations structure all areas of life, the family, education and welfare, the worlds of work and politics, culture and leisure.” …show more content…

The first wave of feminism took place between the period of 1830-1920, arousing from an industrial society and liberal, socialist politics. The main concerns during this period were the enfranchisement of women and the extension of civil rights to women, particularly suffrage. There were other officially mandated inequalities as such property rights, equal rights in marriage, and positions of political power too. A new view of what women were capable of doing dawned upon when during World War I, there was a serious shortage of able-bodied men and women were required to take on men’s

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