13.6: First Wave Feminism

Even as socialist parties were growing in size and strength, another political and cultural conflict raged: the emergence of feminism. According to the ideas of “separate spheres”, the man’s job was to represent the family unit in public and make decisions that affected the family. Meanwhile, the woman’s job was to maintain order in the home and raise the children, albeit under the “veto” power of her husband. The Code Napoleon, in Article 231, proclaimed that the husband owed his wife protection, and the wife owed her husband obedience.

As of 1850, women across Europe could not vote, could not initiate divorce (in those countries in which divorce was even possible), could not control custody of children in the case of divorce, could not pursue higher education, could not open bank accounts in their own name, could not maintain ownership of an inherited property after marriage, could not initiate lawsuits or serve as legal witnesses, and could not maintain control of their own wages if working and married. Despite the claim by male socialists that the working class was the “wretched of the earth,” male workers enjoyed vastly more legal rights than did women of any social class at the time.

“First-wave” feminism occurred during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. It was the battle against legally-mandated discrimination against women, involving property laws, control over children within the family, and the right to vote. Of all of the cultural struggles and legal battles of the period, first-wave feminism faced the greatest opposition from those in power: men. Biologists routinely claimed that women were simply physiologically less intelligent than men. Women who had risen to positions of note were constantly attacked and belittled.

In response, first-wave feminists argued that women were only “inferior” because of their inferior education. If women were educated at the same level and to the same standards as men, they would be able to exercise their reason at the same level, and would deserve to be treated as full equals by the law.

First-wave feminism’s defining concern was suffrage - the right to vote. In 1867, the National Society for Women’s Suffrage was founded in Britain, and comparable movements spread across the continent over the next three decades. However, only in Finland and Norway did women gain the vote before World War I. In some cases, it took a shockingly long time: France only granted it in 1944 as a concession to the allies who liberated the country from the Nazis, and it took Switzerland until 1971!

It would be misleading to claim that first-wave feminism was solely focused on suffrage. For middle-class women, marriage was a necessity, not a choice. Working-class women worked in terrible conditions just to survive. As a result, feminists argued that women needed economic independence. First, the ability to support themselves before marriage without loss of status or respectability. Second, the right to retain the property and earnings they brought to and accumulated during a marriage. Voting rights and the right to initiate divorce were thus “weapons of self-defense”.

After decades of campaigns by feminists, divorce became a possibility in countries like Britain and France in the late nineteenth century, but it remained difficult and expensive to secure. For a woman to initiate divorce, she had to somehow have the means to hire a lawyer and navigate labyrinthine divorce laws; as a result, only the well-off could do so. In other countries, like Russia, divorce remained illegal. (On a side note: socialists thought gender divisions were byproducts of capitalism: once capitalism was eliminated, gender inequality would supposedly vanish).

Women's suffrage societies – groups that campaigned for the right to vote – began to emerge in Britain in the mid-19th century. These suffragists believed in peaceful, constitutional campaign methods. However, under Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) and her daughters, militant tactics became more prominent. Upon her death, British women obtained full equality in the voting franchise.

Figure 5.5.1: Suffragettes who went on hunger strikes were often brutally force-fed while jailed; here, their jailors are described as a “modern inquisition.” (Great Britain)

By World War I, by and large, women secured the right to enter universities, and the first female academics secured teaching positions soon after - the first woman to hold a university post in France was the famous Marie Curie (1867-1934), whose work was instrumental in understanding radiation. Further, women could initiate divorce in some countries, along with the right to control their own wages and property and to fight for the custody of children.

How feminism faired in the 20th century is part of the World History B course.