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The Early Struggle for Gender Equality: A Timeline 1683 – Robert Gould publishes A Kate Satyr Against the Pride, Lust, and Inconstancy, etc. of Woman 1686 – At age 14, Sarah Fyge Field Edgerton’s (1670-1723) response to A Kate Satyr Against the Pride, Lust, and Inconstancy, etc. of Woman, is published without her consent. In her work Edgerton seeks to prove “Woman’s Creation good”; and charges that Adam’s sin was greater than Eve’s: “The Devil’s strength weak Woman might deceive,/ And Adam only tempted was by Eve:/ She had the strongest Tempter, and least Charge;/ Man’s knowing most, doth make his Sin more large./ … Why should she thus be made a publick scorn,/ Of whom the Great Almighty God was born?” 1687 –Despite being renounced by her family and forced to leave their home, Edgerton goes on to reprint an improved edition of the work. 1688 – Glorious Revolution, earning the English parliamentary representation and constitutional government, and habeas corpus. A degree religious liberty and freedom of expression is also obtained. 1689 – John Locke (1632-1704) publishes A Letter Concerning Toleration. 1695 – Locke publishes The Reasonableness of Christianity. 1697 – Daniel Defoe (1660?-1731) writes "Essay Upon Projects," which advocated the education of women. The English writer is best known for his work, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719). 1700 – Mary Astell (1666- 1731) publishes “Some Reflections Upon Marriage.” The Daughter of an English coal merchant, Astell, based in England, became one of the first feminist writers. A very devout Christian, Astell supported equal education of women, reform of marriage institution. Scholar Isaac Kramnick suggests she may have been the first to argue against absolutist rule within the family unit by pointing out citizens’ objections to absolutist rule in the state. In “Some Reflections Upon Marriage,” Astell poignantly asked, “If all Men are born Free, how is it that all Women are born slaves?” 1701 – Mary Lee, Lady Chudleigh (1656 - 1710) writes The Ladies Defence: or the Bride-Woman's Counsellor answered: A Poem. In a Dialogue Between Sir John Brute, Sir William Loveall, Melissa, and a Parson. Chudleigh, a pious Anglican, penned the poem as a critical response to a 1699 wedding sermon which called on women to totally surrender themselves to their husband. 1704 – John Locke (1632-1704) dies. While Locke supported the equal education of women, he did not support their independence or political liberty. 1707 – Mme. Anne-Marguerite Petit Dunoyer (1663-1719) begins publishing the journal, Lettres Historiques et Galantes. The journal dealt with, in part, the difficult and often troublesome business of marrying off one’s daughters, particularly the scandalous behavior of suitors. 1709 – Mary de la Riviere Manley’s paper Female Tatler appears in England. She was later arrested for libel, but upon her release she promptly began working for Jonathan Swift. 1721 – Ann Dodd is the major distributor of the opposition London Journal. 1721 – Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) publishes “The Persian Letters.” Through the observations of two Persian travelers, Montesquieu criticizes slavery and colonialism; lampoons Christianity (“The Pope is the head of the Christians. He is an old idol worshiped out of habit”; condemns religious violence (“And thus I can assure you that there never has been a kingdom where there are so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of Christ.”); and encourages religious toleration (“The man who wants to make me change my religion is doing so only because he would most certainly not change his own, even if someone tried to force him to.”) 1729 – Catherine II begins her reign as Empress of Russia, which lasts to 1796. 1734 – Alexander Pope (1688-1744) publishes Essay on Man. 1737 – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu publishes The Nonsense of Common Sense, a weekly English political paper responding to the Opposition paper Common Sense. 1739 – Mary Collier (1689/90 - after 1759) pens The Woman's Labour. The poem describes the burdensome and incessant toil saddled on women laborers. “We must make haste, for when we home are come,/ We find again our Work has just begun;/ So many Things for our Attendance call,/ Had we ten hands, we could employ them all.…/And from the time that Harvest doth begin,/ Until the Corn be cut and carry'd in,/ Our Toil and Labour's daily so extreme,/ That we have hardly ever Time to Dream.” 1744 – Eliza Haywood begins publishing the paper, Female Sepctator (1744-1746) in England. 1748 – Montesquieu publishes The Spirit of the Laws. 1750?. – Bluestockings, a woman’s literary club, begins to flourish. The name Bluestockings was a pejorative derived from the fact Mrs. Elizabeth encouraged Benjamin Stillingfleet to attend one of the group‘s party despite his having only “blue stockings,” traditionally inappropriate for such engagements. The group of upper-middle class women dismissed the trivial appetites and occupations of females of their day, embracing intellectual pursuits instead. The term Bluestockings “came to be applied derisively to a woman who affects literary or learned interests” (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia). 1755 – Francis Hutcheson’s (1694-1746) posthumous two-volume work, System of Moral Philosophy, is published. Hutcheson dedicates a portion of the large work to calling for more equality in marriage and more rights for women. Hutcheson was a Scots-Irish philosopher who did a great deal with John Locke’s works. 1755 – Lisbon earthquake; Voltaire writes “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster; Or, An Examination of the Axiom ‘All is Well’” 1758? – William Blackstone writes “Commentaries on the English Constitution.” Blackstone explained that once a woman became married, she turned over her individual rights to her husband. According to Blackstone, a mother had no legal power over her children, and her husband had the legal authority to discipline his wife. 1758 – Helvetius (1715-1771) anonymously publishes De l’esprit (On Mind). In this work, which was condemned by Pope Clement XIII in 1759, Helvetius argues that the differences between men and women are vastly due to a difference in education. He supported a completely equal education among men and women. 1759 – Voltaire publishes Candide 1760 – Charlotte Lennox publishes the Lady’s Museum (1760-1761) paper in England. 1761 – Mme. De Beaumer takes over Journal des Dames (1759-1778), using the publication to call attention to the plight of womankind as well as to highlight the achievements of women. She was eventually forced to flee to Holland. 1762 – Rousseau publishes Emile. In Emile Rousseau argues that women are by nature mentally and physically inferior to men, as well as predisposed to love beauty and other trifles. He says women’s normal and true business is giving birth and that because a husband must be made confident that the children she bears him are his own, a wife’s infidelity is treasonable and far worse than a husband’s. Also, since reputation is indicative of her fidelity, women must be ever mindful how she is perceived by not only her husband but also “his friends and neighbors.” As an adult woman is destined to live a life of subordination both to “propriety” and her husband; girls must be taught “to bear the yoke from the first, so that they may not feel it, to master their own caprices and to submit themselves to the will of others.” And should be instilled with the “docility which woman requires all her life long, for she will always be in the subjection to a man, or to man’s judgment, and she will never be free to set her own opinion above his.” 1763 – Voltaire publishes A Treatise on Toleration. 1764 – Kant (1724-1804) publishes Observations on Feeling of Beautify and Sublime, in which he asserts that women are innately inclined to enjoy “all that is beautiful, elegant, and decorated,” as well as “trivialities.” Like Rousseau, Kant warns that if women are educated like men they run the risk of destroying “the merits that are proper to her sex.” Quote: “A woman who has a head full of Greek, like Mme Dacier, or carries on fundamental controversies about mechanics, like the Marquise de Chatelet, might as well even have a beard.” In the work Kant also declares that the science of woman is the science of man, that woman own “beautiful virtue” (men have “noble virtue”) lending them to judge right action by judging its “beauty”; and he declares that Providence has instilled in women “kind and benevolent sensations, a fine feeling for propriety, and a compassionate soul,” in place of principles which he says women are incapable of possessing. 1765 – James Fordyce (1720-1796), writes Sermons to Young Women. Wollstonecraft calls the following excerpt from Fordyce’s work a “portrait of a house slave.” “I am astonished at the folly of man women, who are still reproaching their husbands for leaving them alone, for preferring this or that company to theirs, for treating them with this and the other mark of disregard or indifference; when, to speak the truth, they have themselves in a great measure to blame. Not that I would justify the men in any thing wrong on their part. But had you behaved to them with more respectful observance, and a more equal tenderness; studying their humours, overlooking their mistakes, submitting to their opinions in matters indifferent, passing by little instances of evenness, caprice, or passion, giving soft answers to hasty words, complaining as seldom as possible, and making it your daily care to relive their anxieties and prevent their wishes, to enliven the hour of dullness, and call up the ideas of felicity: had you pursued this conduct, I doubt not but you would have maintained and even increased their esteem, so far as to have secured every degree of influence that could conduce to their virtue, or mutual satisfaction; and your house might at this day have been the abode of domestic bliss.” To which Wollstonecraft responds, “Such a woman ought to be an angel - or she is an ass - for I discern not a trace of the human character, neither reason nor passion in this domestic drudge, whose being is absorbed in that of a tyrants.” 1774 – Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel’s (1741-1796) writes “On Marriage.” A Prussian-born German writer and follower of Kant, Hippel’s work offered gender stereotypes like those found in the works of Rousseau and Kant, but Hippel went on to highlight inequalities in marriage in later editions of the work. 1774 – John Gregory writes A Father’s Legacy to His Daughters. Mary Wollstonecraft sites Gregory’s work in her Vindication of Women. She notes that Gregory warns his daughters to keep their intellect hidden from plain view, citing this passage: “Be even cautious in displaying your good sense. It will be thought you assume a superiority over the rest of the company -- But if you happen to have any learning, keep it a profound secret, especially from the men who generally look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of great parts, and a cultivated understanding.” 1775 – Thomas Paine anonymously publishes “An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex.” In the work Paine laments how women have been enslaved and mistreated throughout the history of humankind, across the globe. “Even in countries where they may be esteemed most happy,” he wrote, they are “robbed of freedom of will by the laws,” and “the slaves of opinion, which rules them with absolute sway, and construes the slightest appearances into guilt.” 1775 – American Revolution 1776 - Declaration of Independence 1776 – The Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) writes An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 1779 – William Alexander, Lord Stirling (1726 - d.1783) publishes the 2 volume work The History of Women from Earliest Antiquity. Born in New York City, Lord Stirling went to be heavily involved in the American Revolutionary War. 1784 – Kant writes “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” 1785 – James Madison (1751-1836) gives Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments speech. In the speech Madison issues passionate criticism of the establishment of religion: “Rulers, who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure and perpetuate it needs them not. Such a Government will be best supported by protecting every Citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect, nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another.” 1785 – First scientific society for women is founded in Dutch Republic. 1787 – Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745?-1813), writes “Thoughts upon Female Education.” A signer of the Declaration of Independence, Rush advocates the thorough education of woman so that she can properly educate their children, help her husband guard his property, and, should she outlive him, manage the estate left to her. While Rush argues for the complete education of women, the aim of such education has nothing to do with aiding them in the pursuit of true freedom; instead the aim of a full education is to prepare American women to be skilled mothers and helpmates. “To be the mistress of a family is one of the great ends of a woman's being, and while the peculiar state of society in America imposes this station so early and renders the duties of it so numerous and difficult, I conceive that little time can be spared for the acquisition of this elegant accomplishment.” He goes on to write: “The influence of female education would be still more extensive and useful in domestic life.” 1787 – Antoine Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794) writes a letter calling for woman’s complete political and social equality, and espousing the belief that women are largely equal to men in nearly all respects. 1787 – Wollstonecraft’s first serious work is published, “Thoughts on Education of Daughters.” 1787 – United States Constitution 1789 – French revolution 1789 – Madison proposes amendments to Constitution 1790 – Edmund Burke (1729-1797) writes Reflections on the Revolution in France. A British politician and publicist, Burke’s book was a scathing incitement of the Enlightenment’s radical ideas regarding government, liberty, and religion, all materialized in the French Revolution. In the work Burke exalts long-standing traditions as prejudices to be cherished. The age of such traditions alone is enough reason to embrace them. For Burke, ideas of liberty, government, morality, and social norms in general should abide by the examples of the past. Believing that “the evils of inconstancy and versatility” far outweighed the problems of “obstinacy and the blindest prejudice,” Burke staunchly opposed sweeping reforms like those implemented in France, writing that individuals should approach the “defects or corruptions” with “due caution,” and “pious awe and trembling solicitude.” Because Burke viewed society as one does a fine wine, the older it is the better its quality, he believed that the improvements implemented by the National Assembly were “superficial” while “their errors fundamental….” 1790 – Mary Wollstonecraft writes A Vindication of the Rights of Men, one of the earliest responses to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. July 1790 – Condorcet publishes “On Giving Women the Right of Citizenship” in the Journal de la Societe de ‘89 (no. 5). 1790 – Catherine Sawbridge Macaulay (1731-1791) writes “Letters on Education.” Refuting Rousseau’s vision of women, Macaulay, the first renowned female English historian, writes that “it is not reason, it is not wit; it is pride and sensuality that speak in Rousseau, and, in this instance, has lowered the man of genius to the licentious pedant.” Claiming that prejudice, not truth is the principal reason inequality of the sexes is accepted, she proclaims that the “foibles and vices” of women “originate in situation and education only.” Taking Rousseau to task, Macaulay explains that women will be inclined to fancy trifles as long as they are taught that such preoccupations are their best and often only means to obtain well-being and self preservation; after all, “the admiration of the other sex is held out to women as the highest honor they can attain.” She gives “no credit to the opinion of a sexual excellence,“ and believed there should be “no variation in the fundamental principles of the education of the two sexes.” Furthermore, women should be educated “of the great utility of chastity and continence; that the one preserves the body in health and vigor, and the other, the purity and independence of the mind.” As for the general state of women’s rights, Macaulay writes that while women in Europe are better situated that women across the globe, they still have no political rights, and married women “have hardly a civil right to save them from the grossest injuries.” 1790 – Constantia (pen name for Judith Sargent Stevens Murray) (1751-1820) publishes “On the Equality of the Sexes” in the Massachusetts Magazine. An American from Gloucester, Massachusetts, Constantia turns the attacks on woman on their head, asserting that the vices usually perceived in women, such as their ability to invent scandal and destroy reputations, are “proofs of a creative faculty, of a lively imagination”; and if such mental prowess was “properly directed” what is now considered a vice in women would become potentially virtuous. Constantia complains that the only reason women are intellectually inferior to men is because “the sister must be wholly domesticated, while the brother is led by the hand through all the flowery paths of science.” If women were offered an education equal to men, women “would have little room for the trifles with which our sex are, with too much justice, accused of amusing themselves, and they would thus be rendered fit companions for those, who should one day wear them as their crown.” Furthermore, Constantia points out the absurdity of those who reject a woman’s right to contemplate high-minded ideas asking: “is it reasonable, that a candidate for immortality, for the joys of heaven, an intelligent being, who is to spend an eternity in contemplating the works of Deity, should at present be so degraded, as to be allowed no other ideas, than those which are suggested by the mechanism of a pudding, or the sewing the seams of a garment?” To those who claim the superiority of man based on his being the stronger sex, she points to “robust masculine ladies,” “effeminate gentlemen,” the diminutive statures belonging to men like “Mr. Pope,” and the fact that many animals are more powerful than men. “…many of those hours which are at present swallowed up in fashion and scandal, might be redeemed, were we habituated to useful reflections.” 1791 – Bill of Rights ratified by states 1791 – Thomas Paine publishes The Rights of Man 1791 – Olympe de Gouges (1755-1793) writes “Declaration of Rights of Women.” Critical of the French Revolution’s omission of women from its “Declaration of the Rights of Man,” Olympe’s work commanded an absolute equal distribution of rights and duties to both men and women. She asserted that women “must have the same shares in the distribution of positions, employment, offices, honors, and jobs.” She wrote that the “law must be the expression of the general will; all female and male citizens must contribute either personally or through their representatives to its formation.” Olympe, a butcher‘s daughter, also declared women’s right to property regardless of her marital status; and demanded a mother’s freedom to identify the father of her child “without being forced by a barbarous prejudice to hide the truth.” 1792 – Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) authors “A Vindication of the Rights of Women.” Wollstonecraft’s work debunked popular claims of woman’s innate intellectual inferiority and the stark polarity between the sexes. The work also aimed to emancipate woman from the sensual rule of man, which had succeeded in transforming her into a vane creature “so weak in mind and body, that [she] cannot exert [herself], unless to pursue some frothy pleasure, or to invent some frivolous fashion.” She also argued that when men like Rousseau proceeded to vainly defend absurd claims of woman‘s inferiority, they succeeded in little more than proving themselves as childish sensualists. “Why were we created, just to be sensualist playthings?” Of course not, she contends. Women, after all, are human beings, capable of rational thought. 1792 – Mary Anne Radcliff (1746? - after 1810) writes The Female Advocate: or, an attempt to recover the rights of woman from male usurpation (later published in 1799). Radcliff discusses the economic plight of women that put them in poverty and forced them to careers in prostitution. She also puts the spotlight on the immoral, indolent husband who is more concerned with his passions than his family’s basic needs: “How far the wife was intended to be the slave to her husband, I know not; but certain we are, she was designed to be his friend, his companion, and united part; or, according to the gentleman’s phrase, his better part; and yet how often do we see her sinking under the burden of a household load, whilst the unfeeling husband is lavishing away the substance which ought to be the comfort and support of a family? Yet such unnatural beings there are, who, by giving way to some unlawful passion, can, without scruple or remorse, trample under foot all laws, divine and human, and with impunity bring wretchedness upon those he is bound to support: not withstanding St. Paul tells us, “if any one provide not for his own, and especially those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” July 13 1793 – Marie Anne Charolette Corday d'Armont (1768-1793) assassinates French revolutionist Jean Paul Marat, a supporter of the more radical Jacobins whom she blamed for the Reign of Terror. 1793 – Marie-Jeanne Phillipon Roland (1754-1793), a woman of letters during the French Revolution, is executed for opposing the execution of the king. 1794 – Condorcet is found dead in his cell, days after being arrested 1795 – Condorcet’s Sketch of the Intellectual Progress of Mankind is published. 1797 – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly is born. Shelly went on to write the classic novel, Frankenstein. 1798 – Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) writes Alcuin: A Dialogue, the first book published in the U.S. on the topic of women’s rights. The work takes on the inequalities endured by women in marriage, as well as the inaccessibility to adequate education and significant careers.
* Thanks goes to Sunshine for Women for giving me a great deal of guidance on this subject matter, not to mention summaries and actual text, via www.pinn.net/~sunshine/main.html
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