Report about the Emancipation in GB and the USA

Structure:

1. introduction
2. first wave of feminist movement
• the Seneca Falls Declaration
• The movement for women's suffrage
i. Christabel Pankhurst
ii. Carrie Chapman Catt
3. second wave of feminist movement
• Betty Friedan
4. Emancipation today
• third wave of feminist movement
• in Germany
i. Alice Schwarzer
ii. Eva Herman
iii. „the crisis of masculinity“
5. sources





















1. Introduction

• “The right of citizens in the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
• When in Britain?
• woman’s suffrage
o 1869 Wyoming
o 1893 New Zealand (active, passive in 1919)
o 1902: Commonwealth of Australia
o 1906: Finland
o 1918: Germany and Austria
o 1920: USA (19th Amendment)
o 1928: GB
o 1930: Turkey (active, 1934 passive)
o 1944: France and Belgium
o 1946: Italy
o 1971: Swiss
o 1984: Liechtenstein
o 2005: Kuwait
• question about feminism
• Feminism is a diverse collection of social theories, political movements and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerned with the experiences of women.
• girl power (picture of the Spice girls while music playback)
• "God help the mister that comes between me and my sister" ("Love Thing")


2. First-wave feminism
• refers to a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth century and earlier
• primarily focused on gaining the right of women's suffrage
• focused largely on de jure (officially mandated) inequalities
• ended with the granting of this right (1920 in the USA; 1928 in the UK)
• most important aims (simplified):
o right to work
o right of education
o right to vote
• in the USA:
o developed out of the Abolitionist movement
o religious motivated woman recognized, that not only the blacks but also the woman got fewer rights than the white men
o separation between socialist, civil-modest and civil-radical woman
o 1848: “Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments”
 also known as the “1848 Woman’s Rights Convention”
 signed by sixty-eight women and thirty-two men
 was the result of the first woman’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York
 this convention is often called the birthplace of woman’s movement
 followed the form of the Declaration of Independence
 demands
 the woman’s right to vote
 a reform of the marriage and female property rights
 this document caused much controversy since traditional gender roles were very much in place
 many people respected the courage and abilities behind the drafting of the document, but were unwilling to abandon conventional mindsets
 Many newspapers insisted that the Declaration was drafted at the expense of women's more appropriate duties
 the document found not much support because the right to vote was seen too difficult too gain while the woman’s possession rights were the nearest aim
• in the UK:
o literature, e.g. “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft in which she advocated the social and moral equality of the sexes
• The movement for women's suffrage
• social, economic and political reform movement aimed at extending suffrage to women
• suffragist: anyone, man or woman, who supports the extension of suffrage to women
• suffragette: a woman who campaigns for the right of suffrage
• methods:
o passive resistance
o disturbance of public events
o hunger strikes
o chaining on railings
o setting fire on mailboxes
o smashing windows
o acid usage
• the woman’s suffrage movement in the UK:
o campaign over 50 years
o woman had very few rights in the UK
o woman were prohibited from voting in the “Suffrage Reform Act” (1832)
o 1903: National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies was found
 a radical-middle class woman’s movement, which called attention by public demonstrations (e.g. 1908 in Hydepark with 500000 people) and hunger strikes
 slogan: "Deeds, not words”
 members should go to prison instead of paying the fines
o subgroup called the Women's Tax Resistance League, used the slogan "No Vote, No Tax" and began a campaign of tax resistance
o 1905: beginning of the militant campaign
o many members were imprisoned and went then into hunger strike
o the government decreed forced feeding what made the suffragettes win great sympathy from the public
o Cat and Mouse Act
o in 1910 a new suffrage bill failed, so the WSPU started a new campaign, it included:
o smashing shop windows
o setting fire on stately homes
o bombing public buildings (for example Westminster Abbey)
o in 1913 Emily Davison was trampled by the King's horse
o while WW I the movement split; the most woman stopped protesting while few radical ones continued
o in 1918 the right to vote was given to woman over 30 (Representation of the People Act 1918)
o the reasons are the suffragettes and World War I
o in 1928 to woman over 21
o Christabel Pankhurst
 1880-1958
 daughter of lawyer Dr. Richard Pankhurst and Emmeline Pankhurst
 studied law
 co-founded the Women's Social and Political Union
 fought for the woman’s suffrage
 preferred a system that would only give the vote to women with money and property
 had the control of the WSPU in London
 under her control it got more militant
 nickname "Queen of the Mob"
 went 3 times into prison
 engaged in hunger strikes
 after the law for woman’s suffrage was passed she tried to join the parliament, but failed
 she emigrated into the USA
 actions:
• interrupted political meetings
• leading protest movements

• the woman’s suffrage movement in the USA
o since the found of the USA there had always been few woman who fought for the right to vote; some have even been listened to in the Congress
o 1869: National Woman's Suffrage Association
 object of securing an amendment to the Constitution in favor of woman suffrage
o 1869: American Women's Suffrage Association
 suffrage should be brought about by constitutional amendments within the various States
o 1890: uniting to the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
o the organization obtained a hearing before every Congress, from 1869 to 1919
o more and more states allowed the woman to vote, the first one was Wyoming in 1869
o 1912: local organization in every senatorial district
o file cards for each of the members of the Congress
o 1913, first-term Speaker of the House, Champ Clark, told Trout that he would submit the bill for a final vote, if there was support for the bill in Illinois
o in June 13 the woman in Illinois got the right to elect the president of the United States and for local offices
o One after another, western states granted the right of voting to their women citizens
o campaign against the government (they called the president “Kaiser Wilson”)
o from 1915 to 1919 there were 4 tries to pass the bill for the woman’s right to vote
o by the time the Suffragists found the support of President Wilson
o in summer 1920: 19th Amendment to the Constitution which granted suffrage to woman
o this bill overrode state laws only allowing men to vote
o Carrie Chapman Catt
• 1859-1947
• teacher
• woman's suffrage leader => fought for woman’s suffrage
• two times president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
• actions:
o Supervised dozens of campaigns
o mobilized numerous volunteers (1 million by the end)
o made hundreds of speeches
• made skilled use of communication and publicity, fashioning disciplined campaigns and building a highly effective machine
• wanted to enhance woman’s dignity as human beings
• her highest goal was world peace
• founded the League of Woman Voters in 1920

3. second wave feminism

• period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the late 1980s
• de jure and de facto (unofficial) inequalities
• encouraged women to understand aspects of their own personal lives as deeply politicized
• was largely concerned with other issues of equality ranging from the economic to the reproductive
• in the USA:
o inspired by the Civil Rights Movement of the Blacks and mass demonstrations against the Vietnam War
o many of the most prominent American men's colleges became co-educated
o timeline
 1963: Commission on the Status of Women was created
• it issued a report that documented discrimination against woman in every area of American life
• Betty Friedan's “The Feminine Mystique”, an immediate bestseller, was composed of interview materials with women that buttressed the facts reported by the Commission report
 1964: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 of the USA
• illegalized employment discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race, religion, and national origin
 1966: formation of “The National Organization for Women” (NOW)
o aim: to function as a legal "watchdog" for women
 1970s: radical feminism
• branch of feminism that views women's oppression (or patriarchy) as the basic system of power upon which human relationships in society are arranged
• seeks to challenge this arrangement by rejecting standard gender roles and male oppression
 1972: Title IX in the Education Amendments of 1972 passed
• forbade discrimination in the field of education
• contributed to equal provisions for women's sports in school and feminist campus activism
 1972: Equal Rights Amendment proposed
• Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
• Opponents charged that passage of the ERA would lead to men abandoning their families, unisex toilets, gay marriages, and women being drafted
• when the deadline for ratification came in 1982, the ERA was still three states short of the 38 needed to write it into the U.S. constitution
 1973: Roe vs. Wade decided by the U.S. Supreme Court
• legalized abortion in all 50 states
 late 1970s and 1980s: The Feminist Sex Wars
• between anti-pornography feminism and sex-positive feminism
• led to deep divisions within the feminist movement
o Betty Friedan
 1921 – February 4, 2006
 feminist, activist and writer
 studied psychology
 wrote “The Feminine Mystique”
• (composed of interview materials with women that buttressed the facts reported by the Commission report)
 co-founded the US National Organization for Women and was its first president
The problem that has no name — which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities — is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.
- Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 1963. NY: Dell Publ., 1974.

• in Germany
o became a social movement (because of the Revolution of ‘68)
o spectacular forms of protesting
o "Consciousness Raising"
o got weaker in the 70s

4. Emancipation today

a. third wave of feminist movement

• began in the early 1990’s
• in the USA
• reaction on feminism and the opinion, feminism was unnecessary
• orientated on the aims of the second wave
• mistakes are seen in eurozentrism and the exclusion of men
• intersection between race and gender
• feminism should be adapted to the current conditions of society
• questioning [Infragestellen] of traditional concepts of gender roles and sexuality
• necessity that men change their image of their self, because both gender are entightened by their role and this was the only way to gain equality
• Third Wave Foundation found
• micropolitics
o writing about forms of gender expression and representation that are less explicitly political than their predecessors
• Buffy studies and Girl Power
o "Feminism has become a dirty word. Girl Power is just a nineties way of saying it. We can give feminism a kick up the arse. Women can be so powerful when they show solidarity." -official book for the Spice Girls

b. in Germany

i. Alice Schwarzer

• information from an interview
o Germany has a good feminist development
o feminism disappeared for a long time and returns now
Reason: female chancellor
o the great coalition was good for feminism, because the woman working there had the same aims
o she things the discussion about “Elterngeld”, family politics and demography attacks feminism and wants to make woman a bad conscience
o she calls Eva Herman a “Suada zwischen Mutterkreuz und Steinzeitkeule“
o discussions about demography are always concealed discussions about the role of woman
o with the phrase “wir müssen dem Führer 2006 kein Kind mehr schenken“ she wants us to know that she isn’t worried about the demographic development
o she things the interests of woman are not represented in politics
o the major question for her is if the woman win the struggle for their body

ii. Eva Herman

• former newswoman
• praises the withdraw into a warm nest
• thinks that this was the way out of our problems
• thinks that with the oppressed desire for children the lust got lost
• quotations from her book “Das Eva-Prinzip”:
o “We woman yearn desperately for insurance [Geborgenheit], home and family.”
o “We’ve spent years on running after the empty promises of feminism.”
o “We are on the best way to systematically destroy our base of life [Lebensgrundlage].”
o We “oust our feminity” [Weiblichkeit]
o “we forget being woman”

iii. The Crisis of masculinity [Männlichkeit]

• Thesis of Horst-Eberhard Richter, a German Psychologist
• woman accepted masculine attributes and perfected themselves
• men remained as they were, unperfected
• so men have to adopt woman attributes: conciliation [Versöhnlichkeit], helpfulness, demanding for partnership [Bindungsverlangen], Tolerance, Sensitivity [Empfindlichkeit]

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