Gender Equality In Fraternity Analysis

1284 Words6 Pages

Historically the foundation of society has laid firm upon the superior position of men with regard to women. The habitual practice of the world has placed them in a state of “ingenious subjection”(Thompson, 2005: 6), and in a time in which birthrights only privileged men, women were silenced and repressed by gender differences. All the while writers, philosophers and other political thinkers attempted to lay the foundation of the usefulness of gender equality by advocating for feminine subjection and conjugal dominance, progressive proto-feminist intellectuals aimed their goal at “subverting the conventional depiction of women” (Backscheider, 2000: xi). These authors decided to address the situation that separated private issues from public …show more content…

They sought to expose the foolishness of a preconceived society by representing women “whose mind and body are unencumbered by the rules of sexed propriety” (Thompson, 2005: 202), instead of women who were lacking power and individuality. The battleground for these intellectuals were the ongoing debates about the position of women in society, questions affecting marriage and family issues and the merge of the public and private sphere. The marginality of women were past errors of judgment committed by the insufficiencies of patriarchal authority, which these radical thinkers desired to eradicate. Thus, the union of both spheres foregrounded the entrance of women into the fictional world, while their hard work brought them respectability as women …show more content…

Evidently the Revolution’s aftermath came at a high price for “Jacobin” liberals who became increasingly unpopular, all the while the English society was “invited to ostracize and fear the outspoken women who had emerged in the radical 1790s” (Eberle, 1994: 123). As if that was not enough, a “negative” addition to the philosophical war of ideas was facilitated by William Godwin’s publication of the Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman. His revelations about the unconventional life style which Wollstonecraft lived only reinforced the status quo of the repressive patriarchal system, and promoted once more the idea of “the proper lady” for which conduct books so firmly advocated. Thus, for women writers any affiliation with Mary Wollstonecraft’s feminism jeopardized their image of “pure women”, and catalogued them as

Open Document