They would have been stoned to death, locked in a looney bin, or offered as tribute to the conquerer of the vanquished.
Answered By: zeb6219 - 4/30/2007 |
|
Ouch! That's gotta sting! You may be on to something there.
Answered By: Soldier_Of_Christ777 - 4/30/2007 |
|
Prior to the creation of modern technology, it was hard for any group to mobilize for change. Social movements were generally very local.
Also, 200 years ago was early indusrialization - the ideology of the family and the domestic sphere was just emerging. I'm not denying that women were oppressed prior to industrialization, but it was at this time when women were largely shut out of jobs. It wasn't until the mid to late 1800's that middle class women, because they had the resources to meet and be influential, began to speak about the "middle class women's dilemma."
Also, FYI, some women still worked prior to the feminist movement. They often worked in factories under oppressive conditions - but for less pay as men. Working class women struggled to be part of the largely middle-class women's movement and have their voices heard as well.
EDIT: (Not So) Smart Alex: The reason people could survive on one income was because there were more well-paying blue-collar jobs in the 1950's. Most of those jobs have disappeared with the advent of modern technology, whereas service jobs are on the rise. Also, the baby boomer generation drove up the cost of real estate - supply and demand.
EDIT II: Re: "allegra: Who's "they"? You're claiming sufragettes were burned at the stake? Documentation please...I always thought women were burned because they were accused of practicing witchcraft."
"Practicing witchcraft" involved having opinions or going against societal norms.
Answered By: Carrie is wondering... why? - 4/30/2007 |
|
Women demand equal rights but i don't see them wanting to sign up for the military draft
Answered By: buckeyeman - 4/30/2007 |
|
Those who spoke up were killed. A man had the right to beat up his wife and demand relations.
It was the two World Wars that really did for women. The men were gone. Women proved to themselves and their countries that they can hold down a job and can support a family.
Answered By: elletera - 4/30/2007 |
|
Get your history straight and then we'll talk!
Answered By: cynnkitty - 4/30/2007 |
|
In ancient Rome women tried to demand equal rights. But they were denied.
"Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is useless to let go the reins and then expect her not to kick over the traces. You must keep her on a tight rein . . . Women want total freedom or rather - to call things by their names - total licence. If you allow them to achieve complete equality with men, do you think they will be easier to live with? Not at all. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters . . ." -- Cato the Elder 234-149 B.C. quoted in Livy’s ‘History of Rome’.
Also in Queen Victoria's time:
"The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Woman's Rights", with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety."
Nothing new under the Son...
Answered By: Mike D - 4/30/2007 |
|
There were a few women even earlier than that who demanded equal rights. It took some progress in other areas of society before the concept really caught on.
Answered By: Rio Madeira - 4/30/2007 |
|
Um, they did. They were burned at the stake for witchcraft in the New England colonies and, in the nineteenth century, thrown into mental institutions.
Particularly those poor Quakers, who allowed woman preachers. Heaven FORBID a woman SPEAK IN PUBLIC.
___________
Sure, I'll find your precious documentation, since no one cares to find and read things for themselves. But, yes, again, that's what I said: women who took the liberty to speak in public and felt they should be treated like equals were *accused* of witchcraft and burned at the stake. What the crap do you think the "witchcraft" scares were about? Real witchcraft? No.
_____________
Here is information on woman Quakers. Quaker Mary Dyer was quite famously martyred: http://www.quakerinfo.com/quakwomn.shtml .
Here is a New York Times review of Carol Karlsen's 1987 _The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England_: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE3DA133AF932A15752C1A961948260 .
"Ms. Karlsen examines the 344 cases in which residents of New England were accused of witchcraft between the years 1620 and 1725. Her findings, among others, are that 78 percent were female (and that roughly half of the accused men were husbands, sons or friends of female witches); that the majority were over the age of 40 (that is, past child-bearing age); and that single, widowed or divorced women were proportionately overrepresented among those accused of witchcraft.
From these figures, she concludes that those individuals who failed to fulfill the principal function of women in Puritan society (to bear children and serve as ''helpmeets'' to the men) tended to be the most likely victims of witchcraft accusations. She adds that women, without brothers or sons, who were in a position to inherit substantial estates, were also especially vulnerable, and that by putting such women under suspicion of witchcraft, magistrates were able to insure that their communities' system of male inheritance remained intact."
You could probably go check this book out at the library, if you know how to do that.
Answered By: allegra - 4/30/2007 |
|
There were feminists 200 years ago, who spoke out for equal rights.
Read, for example, the letters of Abigal Adams to her husband John.
Why did it take as long as it did to shake the insane idea that women are properly considered property?
That I haven't entirely figured out, but it took a long time to grasp other seemingly simple truths.
If you had any grasp whatsoever as to what it means to be a human being, this wouldn't be beyond your understanding.
Answered By: tehabwa - 4/30/2007 |
|
You are misinformed. I think Karen Offen sums up the answer to your question very well: Amnesia," she writes, "not a lack of history, is feminism's worst enemy today. Let us then refresh our memory"
Karen Offen wrote "European Feminisms, 1700-1950: A Political History" Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 2000.
Here's a few women who had very different opinions from those around them, in the 1600 and 1700's:
1) Margaret Askew Fell Fox (1614-1792) from "Women's Speaking Justified", 1667
2) Sarah Fyge Field Egerton (1669/72 - 1722/23) from "The Female Advocate", 1686
3) Judith Drake (fl. 1696) from "An Essay in Defense of the Female Sex", 1696
4) The feminism of the late seventeenth century which had found its fullest expression in the works of Mary Astell had, by the seventeen thirties, an old-fashioned tone. Astell's feminism, founded in "A Serious Proposal to the Ladies" (1694) and "Some Reflections Upon Marriage" (1700), grew from her religious convictions; if woman's soul was as good as man's, her mind was equally good and made of the same reason, to love God.
5) 1792 British author Mary Wollstonecraft argues for the equality of the sexes in her book, the "Vindication of the Rights of Women".
Good luck!
Answered By: waswisgirl1 - 4/30/2007 |
|
Hmm...so for this "theory" to work, women would have had to sit back, patiently waiting for "technology" to catch up...passing this "agenda" on to their daughters, and telling them to bide their time until AIR CONDITIONING is invented?
But seriously, you do realize, that, except for war, 200 years ago (poor) women were doing the same jobs men did. Women worked in the field right along with men...when the harvest needed to be brought in, EVERY capable hand was needed. Cottage Industry? The women did the same work as the men. Whatever it took to get the goods finished, and it always took EVERYONE, contributing equally. The Industrial Revolution? Again, poor women went into the factories right along with their husbands...for a quarter of the pay, of course. Only the wealthy could afford the "luxury" of a "stay at home wife." And the wealthy men did precious little real "work," themselves.
The concept of the home as the "woman's sphere" is very much a product of the advent of the middle class. And the middle class (males) did not "do" dangerous jobs, or even war, very often. You suggest a dichotomy that did not truly exist, 200 years ago. I suggest you read more history.
Answered By: wendy g - 4/30/2007 |
|
I hope for your sake that ignorance is bliss...
The modern women's movement stemmed from the Abolitionist movement during the 19th century, LONG before air conditioning invented. Women saw that because of their legal status at the time (they we're they're husband's property) that they had a great deal in common with the slave women they sought to free.
Take a look at the Seneca Falls Convention and the Declaration of Sentiments... women's rights are NOT a new thing.
You can also go back MUCH further than the 19th century. Your argument is inherently flawed.
Answered By: scandalouslyaverage - 4/30/2007 |
|
Er....very short history lesson here. 200 years ago only a select few individuals were literate (du-uh). Most of these individuals were men - women were most often not educated. Still, the vast majority of the population was illiterate. Literacy greatly aids in the DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION.
Answered By: Baba Yaga - 4/30/2007 |
|