THE ORIGINS OF MODERN FEMINISM When did women

THE ORIGINS OF MODERN FEMINISM: When did women gain the right to vote? 1869: Wyoming Territory 1893: New Zealand 1906: Finland 1913: Norway, Denmark 1918: Great Britain, Germany, Austria, USSR, Sweden 1920: USA 1931: Spain 1944/45: France, Italy 1971: Switzerland

Rural family scene (Germany, 1839): Work & housework were closely linked in the old household economy

“The Sewing Room” (1823): In modern, middle-class families the husband “went to work” as the women stayed home

The tyranny of French fashion (Iris, 1852) and a whalebone corset

ARGUMENTS AGAINST WOMEN’S EQUALITY AROUND 1850 SOCIOLOGICAL: That all progress of civilization depends on a strict division of labor between the sexes and devotion by women to child-rearing. NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL: That only the male brain is suited for quantitative and abstract reasoning. MEDICAL: That adolescent girls would become barren if asked to study as hard at school as boys. PSYCHOLOGICAL: That women are especially prone to mental illness (“hysteria”). Experts began to challenge all these arguments in the 1880 s and ‘ 90 s….

THE SPREAD OF FAMILY PLANNING IN GERMANY: Total number of children born by women married in the years-Pre-1905 -09 1910 -14 1915 -19 In cities with over 100, 000 people Self-employed 3. 30 2. 40 1. 98 1. 61 White-collar 3. 01 2. 40 2. 04 1. 74 Blue-collar 4. 03 3. 16 2. 64 2. 18 Among the peasantry (villages with under 2, 000) Self-employed 5. 42 4. 64 4. 10 3. 52 Farmworker 6. 18 5. 38 4. 87 4. 26

THE FINDINGS OF JOAN SCOTT & LOUISE TILLY FOR FRANCE Most women in the 19 th century faced a grim choice between families and careers

Only recently has it become feasible to combine motherhood with a career.

THE ORIGINS OF A MASS MOVEMENT FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS 1880 s: A Doll’’s House by Henrik Ibsen and The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff become international literary hits 1890 s: European socialist parties embrace the demand for women’s suffrage 1896: Formation in Germany of the liberal League of German Women’s Clubs, which grew to 300, 000 members by 1914 1903: Emmeline Pankhurst founds the Women’s Social and Political Union in England, dedicated to “militant tactics” 1900 -1913: The moderate British National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies grows to 300, 000 members

Rally of the Women’s Social and Political Union, Manchester, 1908

Emmeline Pankhurst arrested at Buckingham Palace Emmeline Pankhurst in prison, 1910

The French Union for Women’s Suffrage (founded in 1909, with 12, 000 members in 1914): “French Women Want the Vote: Against alcohol, slums, and war” (ca. 1913)

Some of the first German women university students (1908)

Delegates to the Women’s Suffrage Congress in Munich, 1912

“Women’s Dreams about the Marriage of the Future” (1908)

Madeleine Pelletier (1874 -1939), the first woman psychiatrist in France