Relating feminisms,nationalisms and imperialisms: Ireland,India and Margaret Cousins's sexual politics

Abstract

From 1907 to 1913 Margaret Cousins was one of the most prominent leaders of the Irish Women's Franchise League, the most militant of the various Irish suffragist groups. A Theosophist, Cousins left Ireland in 1913 for Theosophical headquarters in Madras, spurred by her commitment to “the cause of womanhood the world over”. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s Cousins played a central role in certain forms of Indian feminist and cultural nationalist movements. This article attempts to sketch some of the ways in which Cousins's class and imperial situation provoked and limited her feminist ideology.