Protofeminism
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Protofeminism is a concept that anticipates modern
History
Ancient Greece and Rome
Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? Or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling their puppies is labour enough for them?
The Republic states that women in Plato's ideal state should work alongside men, receive equal education, and share equally in all aspects of the state. The sole exception involved women working in capacities which required less physical strength.[6]
In the first century CE, the Roman
Islamic world
While in the pre-modern period there was no formal feminist movement in Islamic nations, there were a number of important figures who spoke for improving women's rights and autonomy. The medieval mystic and philosopher Ibn Arabi argued that while men were favored over women as prophets, women were just as capable of sainthood as men.[8]
In the 12th century, the
In the 12th century, the Islamic philosopher and qadi (judge) Ibn Rushd, commenting on Plato's views in The Republic on equality between the sexes, concluded that while men were stronger, it was still possible for women to perform the same duties as men. In Bidayat al-mujtahid (The Distinguished Jurist's Primer) he added that such duties could include participation in warfare and expressed discontent with the fact that women in his society were typically limited to being mothers and wives.[11] Several women are said to have taken part in battles or helped in them during the Muslim conquests and fitnas, including Nusaybah bint Ka'ab and Aisha.[12]
Christian Medieval Europe
In Christian Medieval Europe, the dominant view was that women were intellectually and morally weaker than men, having been tainted by the original sin of Eve as described in biblical tradition. This was used to justify many limits placed on women, such as not being allowed to own property, or being obliged to obey fathers or husbands at all times.
Women in the Peasants' Revolt
The 1381 Peasants' Revolt was a peasant rebellion in England in which English women played prominent roles. On 14 June 1381, the Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, was dragged from the Tower of London and beheaded by the rebels. Leading the group that executed him was Johanna Ferrour, who ordered his execution in response to Sudbury's harsh poll taxes. She also ordered the beheading of the Lord High Treasurer, Sir Robert Hales, for his involvement with the taxes. Ferrour also participated in the looting of the Savoy Palace by the rebels, stealing a chest of gold. The Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir John Cavendish, was beheaded by rebels after Katherine Gamen untied the boat he planned on escaping them in.[15]
Hrotsvitha
Hrotsvitha, a German secular canoness, was born about 935 and died about 973.[16] Her work is still seen as important, as she was the first female writer from the German lands,[17] the first female historian,[17] and apparently the first person since antiquity to write dramas in the Latin West.[18]
Since her rediscovery in the 1600s by Conrad Celtis,[19] Hrotsvitha has become a source of particular interest and study for feminists,[19] who have begun to place her work in a feminist context, some arguing that while Hrotsvitha was not a feminist, that she is important to the history of feminism.[19]
European Renaissance
Restrictions on women
At the beginning of the renaissance, women's sole role and social value was held to be reproduction.[20]
This gender role defined a woman's main identity and purpose in life. Socrates, a well-known exemplar of the love of wisdom to Renaissance humanists, said that he tolerated his first wife Xanthippe because she bore him sons, in the same way as one tolerated the noise of geese because they produce eggs and chicks.[21] This analogy perpetuated the claim that a woman's sole role was reproduction.
Marriage in the Renaissance defined a woman: she was whom she married. Till marriage she remained her father's property. Each had few rights beyond privileges granted by a husband or father. She was expected to be chaste, obedient, pleasant, gentle, submissive, and unless sweet-spoken, silent.[22] In William Shakespeare's 1593 play The Taming of the Shrew, Katherina is seen as unmarriageable for her headstrong, outspoken nature, unlike her mild sister Bianca. She is seen as a wayward shrew who needs taming into submission. Once tamed, she readily goes when Petruchio summons her. Her submission is applauded; she is accepted as a proper woman, now "conformable to other household Kates."[23]
Unsurprisingly, therefore, most women were barely educated. In a letter to Lady Baptista Maletesta of Montefeltro in 1424, the humanist Leonardo Bruni wrote, "While you live in these times when learning has so far decayed that it is regarded as positively miraculous to meet a learned man, let alone a woman."[24] Bruni himself thought women had no need of education because they were not engaged in social forums for which such discourse was needed. In the same letter he wrote,
For why should the subtleties of... a thousand... rhetorical conundra consume the powers of a woman, who never sees the forum? The contests of the forum, like those of warfare and battle, are the sphere of men. Hers is not the task of learning to speak for and against witnesses, for and against torture, for and against reputation.... She will, in a word, leave the rough-and-tumble of the forum entirely to men."[24]
"Witch literature"
Starting with the Malleus Maleficarum, Renaissance Europe saw the publication of numerous treatises on witches: their essence, their features, and ways to spot, prosecute and punish them.[25][26] This helped to reinforce and perpetuate the view of women as dangerous, morally corrupt sinners who sought to corrupt men, and to retain the restrictions placed on them.
Advocating women's learning
Yet not all agreed with this negative view of women and the restrictions on them. Simone de Beauvoir states, "The first time we see a woman take up her pen in defense of her sex" was when Christine de Pizan wrote Épître au Dieu d'Amour (Epistle to the God of Love) and The Book of the City of Ladies, at the turn of the 15th century.[27] An notable male advocate of women's superiority was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa in The Superior Excellence of Women Over Men.[28]
Catherine of Aragon, commissioned a book by Juan Luis Vives arguing that women had a right to education, and encouraged and popularized education for women in England in her time as Henry VIII's wife.
Aristocratic women had greater chances of receiving an education, but it was not impossible for lower-class women to become literate. A woman named Margherita, living during the Renaissance, learned to read and write at the age of about 30, so there would be no mediator for the letters exchanged between her and her husband.[29] Although Margherita defied gender roles, she became literate not to become a more enlightened person, but to be a better wife by gaining the ability to communicate with her husband directly.
Learned women in Early Modern Europe
Women who received an education often reached high standards of learning and wrote in defence of women and their rights. An example is the 16th-century
The famous Renaissance salons that held intelligent debate and lectures did not allow women. This exclusion from public forums led to problems for educated women. Despite these constraints, many women were capable voices of new ideas.[31] Isotta Nogarola fought to belie such literary misogyny through defenses of women in biographical work and the exoneration of Eve. She made a space for women's voice in this time period, being regarded as a female intellectual. Similarly, Laura Cereta re-imagined the role of women in society and argued that education is a right for all humans and going so far as to say that women were at fault for not seizing their educational rights. Cassandra Fedele was the first to join a humanist gentleman's club, declaring that womanhood was a point of pride and equality of the sexes was essential.[31] Other women including Margaret Roper, Mary Basset and the Cooke sisters gained recognition as scholars by making important translating contributions.[32] Moderata Fonte and Lucrezia Marinella were among some of the first women to adopt male rhetoric styles to rectify the inferior social context for women. Men at the time also recognised that certain women intellectuals had possibilities, and began writing their biographies, as Jacopo Filippo Tomasini did.[33] The modern scholar Diana Robin outlined the history of intellectual women as a long and noble lineage.[34]
The Reformation
The Reformation was a milestone in the development of women's rights and education. As Protestantism rested on believers' direct interaction with God, the ability to read the Bible and prayer books suddenly became necessary to all, including women and girls. Protestant communities started to set up schools where ordinary boys and girls were taught basic literacy.[35]
Some Protestants no longer saw women as weak and evil sinners, but as worthy companions of men needing education to become capable wives.[36]
Spanish colonial America
India Juliana
Juliana, better known as the
Today, the India Juliana is regarded as an early feminist and a symbol of women's liberation,
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was a nun in colonial New Spain in the 17th century. She was an illegitimate Criolla, born to an absent Spanish father and a Criolla mother.[44] Not only was she highly intelligent, but also self-educated, having studied in her wealthy grandfather's library.[45] Sor Juana as a woman was barred from entering formal education. She pleaded with her mother to let her masculinize her appearance and attend university under a male guise. After the Vicereine Leonor Carreto took Sor Juana under her wing, the Viceroy, the Marquis de Mancera, provided Sor Juana with the chance to prove her intelligence.[45] She exceeded all expectations, and legitimized by the vice-regal court, established a reputation for herself as an intellectual.[45]
For reasons still debated, Sor Juana became a nun.[46] While in the convent, she became a controversial figure,[47] advocating recognition of women theologians, criticizing the patriarchal and colonial structures of the Church, and publishing her own writing, in which she set herself as an authority.[48] Sor Juana also advocated for universal education and language rights. Not only did she contribute to the historic discourse of the Querelle des Femmes, but she has also been recognized as a protofeminist, religious feminist, and ecofeminist, and is connected with lesbian feminism.[47][49]
17th century
Nonconformism, protectorate and restoration
The 17th century saw many new
In general, though, women who preached or expressed opinions on religion were in danger of being suspected of lunacy or witchcraft, and many, like Anne Askew, who was burned at the stake for heresy,[54] died "for their implicit or explicit challenge to the patriarchal order".[55]
In France and England, feminist ideas were attributes of heterodoxy, such as the Waldensians and Catharists, rather than orthodoxy. Religious egalitarianism, such as that embraced by the Levellers, carried over into gender equality and so had political implications. Leveller women mounted demonstrations and petitions for equal rights, although dismissed by the authorities of the day.[56]
The 17th century also saw more women writers emerging, such as
Seventeenth-century France saw the rise of salons – cultural gathering places of the upper-class intelligentsia – which were run by women and in which they took part as artists.[59] But while women gained salon membership, they stayed in the background, writing "but not for [publication]".[60] Despite their limited role in the salons, Jean-Jacques Rousseau saw them as a "threat to the 'natural' dominance of men".[61]
Mary Astell is often described as the first feminist writer, although this ignores the intellectual debt she owed to Anna Maria van Schurman, Bathsua Makin and others who preceded her. She was certainly among the earliest feminist writers in English, whose analyses remain relevant today, and who moved beyond earlier writers by instituting educational institutions for women.[62][63] Astell and Aphra Behn together laid the groundwork for feminist theory in the 17th century. No woman would speak out as strongly again for another century. In historical accounts, Astell is often overshadowed by her younger and more colourful friend and correspondent Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Relaxation of social values and secularization in the
Major feminist writers in continental Europe included Marguerite de Navarre, Marie de Gournay and Anna Maria van Schurman, who attacked misogyny and promoted women's education. In Switzerland, the first printed publication by a woman appeared in 1694: in Glaubens-Rechenschafft, Hortensia von Moos argued against the idea that women should stay silent. The previous year saw publication of an anonymous tract, Rose der Freyheit (Rose of Freedom), whose author denounced male dominance and abuse of women.[70]
In the New World, the Mexican
See also
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