- Abstract
The overlapped and correlated existence of Feminism and Antifeminism dates back to the nineteenth century; here, industrialization began to shift the familial and gender roles, their dynamics and gave way both to the fight of women for their freedom and the struggle of society to keep the status quo untouched.
This duality lasted all the way through the 20th century until nowadays, keeping the same aims on both sides: feminists seeking equality of opportunities, sexual, marital and financial freedom; and antifeminists seeking the maintenance of a patriarchal family and society, where men had the active role and women were submissive and devoted to their home, keeping the moral ideals of such chain of thought.
Although a permanent struggle between both sides, the feminist ideals seem to have taken their place in nowadays reality, despite all the opposition from a very large part of society throughout time.
- The relationships between feminism and antifeminism from the 1830s until today
These two concepts can be traced back to the nineteenth century; at this time we were looking at a patriarchal society, in which men had the central power, being the rulers of every role they played: as employers, the employees, as politicians, thinkers and as fathers. The woman had a merely obedient, submissive role, in which she was supposed to marry and be confined to their home, where she would take care of the house, the husband’s needs and desires (to whom she should devoutly obey) and raising the children.
The nineteenth century, however, played a major role too: it allowed the birth of new ideals in women’s mind, new ambitions and, later on, the birth of feminism.
At this time, in the American West, boarders were being broadened by achieving peace with the natives and the whole scenario was under a very quick process of industrialization, which meant urban spaces were growing fast too, to attend the needs of the industrial world. These great needs for workers, who stood in the factories working for much more hours, meant that the same men wouldn’t be home to “rule it”; also, since the majority of male population was already employed in a very short period of time and factories needing strong handwork, it was necessary to start employing women in the same job positions that men once filled before, like lighter jobs at the factories, as supermarket cash register employees, department store clerks, teachers, etc.
Thus, a shift in society’s structure began to happen; according to Kimmel, these “social and economic changes transformed gender relations” (263), in which women were now responsible for ruling their homes, were having their own income, had a much better education, were marrying later; women came to the public sphere and this “capitalist development gave rise to the New Woman.” (Kimmel 265)
The New Woman wanted to be treated the same way as men, fighting for the rights of suffrage and women’s autonomy. When the world was talking about universal rights, women wanted their own; thus, the “American women’s rights movement in the 1830’s-1840’s” (Quanquin 3) was born.
At this time, with women so present in the working field, many were the feminine minds and feminine thinkers who advocated a larger role for women in society: Catharine Beecher lead the “feminization of the teaching profession” (Quanquin 5), establishing the Hartford Female Seminary; Elizabeth Blackwell was the first female physician in America, studying at Geneva Medical College; Arabella Babb Mansfield became the first licensed woman to practice law. The American women’s rights movement also started a change on marriage situation and by the 1830’s, all the way until the Civil War, many states liberalized divorce laws.
These, together with many other notable achievements, gave Feminism a very strong power in Human History. It was indeed a force that started changing the world’s status quo.
Being such a change, some ideas seemed to become somewhat contradictory. Taking in consideration Catharine Beecher, for example, she actively supported the “development and advancement of liberal education for women” (Gardner 2); however, she did not support the idea of women’s right to suffrage, defending that a woman’s role was of self-sacrifice, “expected to lead from a subordinate position within the confinement of the domestic sphere” (Gardner 2) and not engaging in the entrance of what she refers to as male spheres. On the contrary, women should have a role in influencing men in the moral aspects, both at the domestic and social circles, being this what she understood as the “divine plan for the greatest happiness” (Gardner 5) .
Inside this chain of thought women would still be submitted to men and, politically, would still be powerless. This was not according to the Feminist movement of this time; at the same time, it praised the education of women and their role as rulers of the moral standards, raising and influencing the men in their lives to make the best choices, and as teachers. This way, according to Beecher’s ideas, women should have an active voice, yes, but should also stay in their place beside men.
There was still no consensus about the role of women and men in society, even inside the Feminist world.
The fight for women’s suffrage continued after the Civil War. At this time, the abolition of slavery was the main theme on the table and also the discussion about the Fifteenth Amendment, of including or not women in the franchise; some of the feminist women asked for the right to vote, together with the African Americans’ right to vote.
This, of course, was seen by male abolitionists and Republicans as endangering for their aim of abolishing slavery and women, at this point, were asked to wait for their turn, being that, at that moment, the focus point would not be them, but the African Americans.
The American Woman Suffrage Association and National Woman Suffrage Association were born from these conflicts, founded by Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell, and by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, respectively. These two associations fought for the same thing: include women in the franchise. Despite this, when African American were granted the right to vote by the Fifteenth Amendment, they split into two different approaches, where “the Ameican favored a state-by-state approach, while the National promoted the adoption of a federal amendment.” (Quanquin 9)
In 1890 these associations merged and, at this time, some evolution went on in the political field for women: Wyoming and Utah passed a bill on their enfranchisement in 1870 and America saw its first woman, Victoria Woodhull, to candidate for presidency.
Still, the Feminist quest continued and also the fight for the right of suffrage, all the way to the 20th century. At this time, feminism held hands with socialism, in the 1910’s, and World War I appeared as very influential for the grant of suffrage to women. In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution and women now had the legal right to vote. This, although, was not enough; some feminists aimed for equal rights. Thus, they wanted an Equal Rights Amendment to be passed.
At this point, there was again no consensus within the feminist movement, as two sides parted; one of them, the League of Women voters, was against this amendment, since they thought it could be a negative influence on previous legislation that provided specific protection to women. Consequently, with no convergence of ideals, no amendment (although proposed every year) was passes until World War II.
Having a pause on this chain of events, on the other side of this fight (and all the way through time), one must obviously take in consideration how men positioned themselves in all of this.
All these changes in society’s structure, where men used to have the central role, but now gradually seeing their circles being “invaded” by women, caused a “crisis of masculinity” (Kimmel 262). They felt the need to re-affirm themselves as the leaders in new areas, the need to re-configure their traditional values or even support feminist ideas.
Of course, the main attitude that one immediately expected as this shift began, in the nineteenth century, was blaming women for this crisis and wanting to reinforce their submission towards men, which was expressed both in political, religious and even medical fields for support. The argument of this being how nature followed its course was also one of them.
Some antisuffrage organizations were also formed by men; an antifeminist response for these new events that presented this same biological theory for difference of genders. One man, Horace Bushnell, even claimed that the right of vote would produce some sort of physiological damage on women, “growing larger, developing heavier brains, and losing their unique feminine mannerisms and features.” (Kimmel 267)
The first antisuffrage association found was in the United States, in 1872; their activity, however, was sporadic and did not aim far. Not at least until women’s suffrage began to win some ground, by the 1890’s. One could notice stronger activity in heavy industrialized areas, like New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. With suffrage movement growing and the referenda about it being considered, these organizations grew, being their biggest activity period from 1912 to 1916.
These organizations, despite their growth, were opposing more than what they could propose and this implicated that their future could be jeopardized, along with their acceptance (and their negative speech) by society. To change such course, there was a true re-invention on their rhetoric, in order to claim new individuals for the defense of their ideals and also maintain the ones who already made part of it.
In the middle of all of this, there was also, of course, opposition by female individuals to women’s suffrage, who defended the traditional ways. These were also forced to rapidly change their speech, so that it would not be associated with opposing women’s rights; thus, the ideals that traditional female side defended were based on the image of a traditional woman as the “true” woman.
Moreover, the antisuffragists developed a series of “gestures of cohesion, or appeals to the unifying elements of society” (Marshall 350), evoking motherhood, the symbol of family or country. They wanted to keep the separated spheres and, for this, they praised women as the unique and main characters in roles like being a wife, a mother and the moral compass, within the home scenario, where they were portrayed as queens and, at the same time, protected from the world’s darkest face. Obviously for them, women’s suffrage meant that this would be annulled, resulting in loss of power and privileges.
On another point of view, still by the antisuffragists, the class’ interests should be defended, because with women’s labor expanding (paid or unpaid), the correct use of a right to vote would a whole new extra amount of work, time and effort required, they said, besides the one they already had in their homes. Yes, this became also a support for not granting the feminist women the equality on job opportunities, fields and salaries.
Even with so much effort in trying to re-establish the society’s known status quo, the Feminist movement evolved and reached new grounds, with the help of minds like Emma Goldman, who influenced Margaret Sanger to “open her first birth control in 1916” (Quanquin 11), in Brooklyn. This quickly gained public support and, soon, “the movement for birth control gained momentum in the United States.” (Quanquin 11) – the Planned Parenthood, as it was called after World War II.
With the Second World War, the Feminist movement gained a new impulse, granting access for women to jobs with much better salaries, like in the war industry. But soon after it ended, the return of the veterans and a world just entering the Cold War took its turn on this movement, by enhancing again the ideal of a domestic woman. As a result, millions of women lost their jobs in the 1950’s, they married by the time they reached twenty years of age and had more children. Although with access to education, it was also not likely for women to graduate.
Only by the 1960’s Feminism became a focal point again and regained its political strength; in order for this to happen, some events were crucial, like the spread of women’s dissatisfaction, of Planned Parenthood, the civil rights movement on the previous decade and the students’ movement, which made ways to a whole new generation of feminists – the “second-wave feminism” (Quanquin 12). Again, equality, race and gender linkage, emphasizing actresses, sexuality and the rights on reproduction came to life.
And, thus, once again, traditionalism and the fight against all this, for the maintenance of the society’s good rules, had to rise and make it be heard.
In times where now political forces were mainly parted as Republican or Liberal, right-wing or left-wing, that first one began to win momentum in American society, giving ways to the establishment of radical “right-wing reactionism.” (Petchesky 206), having racist, antifeminist and anti-liberal ideals – the New Right.
This New Right rejected the fought notions of equality and, thus, also the social programs, seeing them as an intrusion and overregulation done by the state; the feminism of the 1960’s was seen as permissive and hedonist and this was largely spread by “the dominant media and intellectual organs, the centers of corporate and state power, and even from some self-defined leftists.” (Petchesky 207)
The main issue that gave power to this movement, however, was based on both sexual and reproductive fields; once again, notions of correct sexuality, natural reproduction and family (as the center of all that) were the leading ideals for their program. These, along with the abortion issue, throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, granted the win of elections.
There was a distinct opposition to both abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment – which was only passed in 1972, despite all the fight, all the way until the nineteenth century.
Ronald Reagan, however, together with some conservative politicians, did not want to be associated with these elements; to escape such associations, his speech focused on what he called to be “serious issues like the economy and foreign policy.” (Petchesky 208)
There was a parting from all tings feminine that, as Einstein stated, “unrelated to the familial and personal, is an essential part of that politics.” (Petchesky 208)
Thus, all the aims of Feminism were now the aim of the New Right’s attacks, which were against the right for abortion, sexual freedom and the escape from a notion of a patriarchal type of family life. Again, the moralistic speeches gained way in these political times.
Following these same chains of thought, the Supreme Court made the contradictory decision, in 1980, of not allowing anyone to have the necessary means for abortion, even though there would be a constitutional right to have a medical abortion, given by them in 1973 for all stages of pregnancy.
But make no mistake: the abortion issue did not just make part of a social welfare context; its association with women’s liberation and the seventies’ ideals of sexual freedom (all of these feminist aims), made it something to be defeated.
Together with the Equal Rights Amendment, the defeat of abortion was a direct and obvious attack to feminism, to defend a male-dominant society. Taking the feminist notion of privacy, the New Right twisted the notion of privacy for its own interest, presenting it, in its turn, as the interest for the patriarchal definition of family, for the church and schools.
This Republican wing, thus, meant to oppose to programs against domestic violence, family planning, birth control, the Equal Rights Amendment itself, homosexual activity, women’s studies, etc., because its individuals understood such notions as an encouragement to divorce and to getting women out of their homes.
For this, the media flooded the spectators’ senses with “religious and evangelical manifestations of the New Right” (Petchesky 211) against the threat of Feminist ideals of freedom. The Church itself, both Catholic and Protestant, joined this crusade against sexual liberation; an institution that should be impartial, took sides and granted, of course, mass adherence.
But, despite all this, since the 1970’s sexual liberation ideals, based on previous Feminist ideals and fights, “one out of five of all Americans lives as a single individual – that is, alone, not in a family” (Petchesky 235), millions of couples are unmarried, the fertility rate has fallen to its lowest point and motherhood, although making part of most women’s lifetime aims, is a very small part of it. This gave way to women’s careers to appear, where taking care of their children takes only a part of their lives; women also stop having children when they reach forties and births related to unmarried women under the age of twenty five rose.
Society’s norms and structure have indeed changed over time, taking a total shift and opening horizons to new possibilities and definitions of family and life that include, as stated above, careers, sexual freedom, marital freedom, orientation freedom, all out of what was considered as traditional. Motherhood definition has also changed from its traditional form: now a mother works outside the home every day, while raising one or two children; this also means independence in the financial field from the husband.
These huge changes “occurred only during the last twenty years” (Petchesky 236) and, as a result of a less-than-one-generation shift, have proved to be hard to manage, even for the feminists. As for the traditionalists and antifeminists, this is now a very upsetting world, where the fight for the status quo and their sense of “morality” was proven in a final stage as ineffective and, contradictorily, empowering for the whole Feminist movement.
- Conclusion
Analyzing the chain of events, all the way back to the nineteenth century, when both Feminism and Antifeminism were born, until nowadays, one can conclude that these opposing forces are also overlapping and correlated, since one event on one side is directly involved as a response to another event on the other side and also the cause of that same event; such thing happens, because, as can also be concluded, the aims of both Feminism and Antifeminism also remained the same all throughout time, being context the only variable in the equation.
On another point of view, analyzing now how nowadays’ reality fits into the portrayed Feminist ideals, one can also conclude that, despite earnestly fighting against these ideals, the Antifeminists’ plans not only ultimately failed, but they have also empowered the Feminists’, giving them an even bigger highlight and attention; thus, these new notions and definitions of social, sexual and marital fields have gradually become current and the norm, not seeming so unusual anymore and, as time went by, were adopted and tolerated until fully accepted.
References
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Quanquin, Hélène. “American Women from the American Revolution to WWII”. Feminism and Gender Relations in the United States , Master1, 2009-2010.
