Borders and frontiers in women's history

Abstract

This article, based largely on London material, seeks to explore the interaction of various pressures from home, from school and from domestic education advocates on girls in their last two years at elementary school before leaving at fourteen. It examines in particular the extent and nature of resistance from some teachers and other educationists to overmuch domestic tuition for pupils, seeing this as leading to a narrowed perspective and as an unwarranted interference with the girls' right to a good general education. Given the strong official backing and widespread public agreement in the early twentieth century for the need to domesticate girls at school along approved lines, the determination of teachers and others to uphold the counter-claims of general education deserves detailed study.     

Bridging cross-cultural feminisms: annie besant and women's rights in England and India, 1874-1933

Abstract

Annie Besant was a Victorian radical whose outspoken views included advocacy of women's rights and opposition to British imperial policies. In her mid-forties she went to live in India. Contesting British attempts to Westernize Indian society, Besant found herself in the seemingly anomalous position of defending traditional Indian patriarchy and resisting efforts to reform the status of Indian women. Such conservatism brought on Besant criticism not only from Western liberals and Christian missionaries, but also from many Indian social reformers. When she gradually shifted her views and voiced her support for Indian women's rights, Indian nationalists condemned her as a British imperialist. The conflict between loyalty to national heritage and opposition to traditional patriarchy is one that colonized women have commonly experienced. By examining how an anti-imperialist British feminist responded to the question of women's reform in India, this paper offers another perspective on the complexities of this dilemma.     

A hidden and complex heritage: Reflections on the history of Germany's women's movements

This paper examines the conditions of early feminism in Germany, the differing attitudes and strategies adopted by early feminists, characterizations of the movement in historical accounts and the relationship of contemporary feminism in Germany to its earlier manifestation. The conclusion reached is that our feminist heritage is a hidden and complex one and can only be understood fully if the ‘underside’ is examined ‘from below’.     

Equality versus difference and gender versus class in Danish women's history

The articulated goals of feminist research and politics in Denmark have been changing during the last twenty years, from “liberation” to “equality” and now perhaps to “difference”. Open theoretical debates on these changes have been rare in the Danish context, but the need for such debates has been made topical by the latest theoretical and political discourses in Denmark on equality and difference, gender and class. The American feminist historian Joan W. Scott has shown the detrimental effects to feminist research and politics of constructing the concepts of equality and difference as binary oppositions. She argues that women's equality with men could be claimed on the basis of sameness/ similarity as well as on the basis of difference. The same detrimental effects occur, however, when sameness/similarity and difference, gender and class, are constructed dichotomously. The history of the women's movements in Denmark around the turn of the century shows that some women have tried to avoid such dichotomies. Other women have contributed to them, however, and their arguments have been sustained by the hegemonic discourses of the time. Women's history research is part of competing discourses on gender. It may have political impact on the gender relations of today. Therefore, an important purpose of feminist history is to expose the way dichotomous discourses act against feminist goals, and to avoid making such discourses part of one's own theoretical framework.     

Citizens not feminists: the boundary negotiated between citizenship and feminism by mainstream women's organisations in England, 1928-39

Abstract

This article explores the concepts of citizenship and feminism as interpreted by six large voluntary and mainstream women's groups in England during the years 1928–39. The six organisations considered here are the Mothers' Union, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Catholic Women's League, the National Federation of Women's Institutes, the National Union of Townswomen's Guilds and the National Council of Women. The article asks why these organisations, which declared they were not feminist were committed to highlighting, and fighting for, the rights of newly enfranchised women citizens. It is concluded that for these organisations the concept of citizenship for women, as opposed to feminism, was a more effective way to secure social and economic rights for the majority of women during the inter-war period.     

The victorian female civilising mission and women's aspirations towards priesthood in the Church of England

This article analyses the effects of the Victorian female civilizing mission, with its central motif of spiritual womanhood, in shaping women's aspirations towards the Anglican priesthood during the twentieth century. The considerable development of nineteenth-century women's ex officio ministry is documented, and the ensuing clash in early twentieth-century male/clerical and female perspectives on women's appropriate role within church life is analysed. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the legacy of the Victorian civilising mission evident within the post-1960 Anglican debate over women's ordination.