European Feminisms, 1700-1950: A Political HistoryStanford University Press, 2000 - 554 pages This ambitious book explores challenges to male hegemony throughout continental Europe. It focuses especially on France, but it also offers comparative material on developments in the German-speaking countries and in the smaller European nations and aspiring nation-states. Spanning 250 years, the sweeping coverage extends from Portugal to Poland, Greece to Finland, Ireland to Ukraine, and Spain to Scandinavia as well as international and transnational feminist organizations. The study has several objectives. For general readers and those interested primarily in the historical record, it provides a comprehensive, comparative account of feminist developments in European societies, as well as a rereading of European history from a feminist perspective. By placing gender, or relations between women and men, at the center of European politics, where the author argues that it belongs but from which it has long been marginalized, the book aims to reconfigure our understanding of the European past and to make visible a long but neglected tradition of feminist thought and politics. On another level, by providing a broad and accurate historical analysis, the book seeks to disentangle some misperceptions and to demystify some confusing contemporary debates about the Enlightenment, reason, nature, equality vs. difference, and public vs. private, among others. The author argues that historical feminisms offer us far more than logical paradoxes and contradictions; feminisms are about sexual politics, not philosophy. Feminist victories are not, strictly speaking, about getting the argument right, nor is gender merely a useful category of analysis ; sexual difference lies at the heart of human thought and politics. |
Contents
History Memory and Empowerment I | 1 |
Thinking About Feminism in European History | 19 |
The Eighteenth Century | 27 |
Feminism and | 50 |
The Nineteenth Century | 77 |
Rearticulating Feminist Claims 18201848 | 87 |
Birthing the Woman Question 18481870 | 108 |
Internationalizing Feminism 18701890 | 144 |
Nationalizing Feminisms and Feminizing Nationalisms | 213 |
The Twentieth Century | 251 |
World War I the Russian Revolution | 257 |
Portugal Ireland | 311 |
Globalizing and Politicizing European Feminist International | 341 |
Reinventing the Wheel? | 379 |
Notes | 399 |
Bibliography | 509 |
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activists advocates Aleksandra Kollontai antifeminist argued arguments Austrian British campaign Catholic citizenship civil Clara Zetkin communist congress cultural debate early economic efforts Ellen Key employment England English equal rights essays Europe European Fascism female femi feminine féminisme feminist claims femmes France Frauen French Gender German historian history of feminism Hubertine Auclert human insisted Irish issues Jeanne Deroin Jus Suffragii knowledge wars Kollontai labor League of Nations London Louise Otto male Maria Deraismes marriage married Mary masculine maternity ment moral motherhood mothers Mujeres Libres Nazi nineteenth century nist Paris Party peace political prostitution protective published quote radical reform repr Republic Revolution revolutionary role Russia sexual Social Democratic socialist society subordination tion tional transl University Press vote WILPF woman question woman suffrage women workers women's emancipation Women's History Women's Movement women's rights writers York