(chapter 16)+documents

Echos of the Revolution: Feminist Movements

Dear Reader,

The reading for the end of chapter 16 focused on the abolition of slavery and the feminist movements of Europe and their influence around the world.

I found the reading for the feminist movements more interesting, choosing to focus on that topic in this post. The first group of women to gather and discuss improving their situation as women were formed in Europe. The women were influenced by enlightenment ideas , focusing on getting equality, respect, and freedom of choice.

At this time in history french house wives were beginning to become influenced by European ideals on equality. They also began starting their own conferences of feminist in France to tackle inequality and sexism in their society.
Mainly, the middle class women wanted the right to join the work force and be respected as equals.
While the upper class women went to universities to receive equal educational opportunities.
I wasn't surprised to find out that the most common field of study was professional nursing for women at the time. It showed me that in their way of trying to get equality, in a way they were limited to being respected but only in the field of nursing.

The church argued for their biblical ideals that they always kept by. They argued that women had a holy function of motherhood and the push for equality overstepped the boundaries of the place of women in society. The church basically wanted to limit women to where they were, just to have children for the household.

A feminist document was in the chapter describing the life of Kartini and her feminist ideals as a Muslim french female growing up in a male dominated society. She wanted equality, freedom, and fraternity. Basically she wanted freedom, equality, and the right to choose when and who she had children with. She didn't want to be confined to the restrictions society had placed women in and pushed for a better situation for women. In a way she was a enlightenment leader for her work in feminist literature.

All of these ideas of the revolution focused on enlightenment ideas. I found the reading very interesting because I was able to understand the push for improvement and how that connected to the ideas in society at the time.

Thanks for reading,

Sebastian