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Feminist Forefathers
Father's Day Tributes to Extraordinary Men
The following men were early pro-women writers on the "woman question."
Juan Rodriguez de la Camara (or Juan Rodriguez del Padron) Padron's Triunfo de las donas ( The Triumph of Women , 1438) (Other Voices)
Martin Le Franc Le Champion des dames ( The Champion of Women 1440-1442) (Other Voices)
Don Alvardo de Luna (c. 1450) Libro de las claras y virtuousas mujeres (Book of pure and virtuous women, Spanish, found in Amy Katz Kaminsky, Water Lillies, p. 37
Rhodiginua Lodovico Coelius (b.1450 - d.1520) Italian
list maker
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.263, p.325 #37
Angelo Politiano (b. 1454 - d.1494) Italian
list maker
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.263, p.325 #37
Bartolomeo Goggio De laudibus mulierum ( In Praise of Women , c. 1487) (Other Voices)
Jacopo Filippo Foresti, De plurimis claris selectique mulierebus ( Concerning Many Famous and Select Women, 1497) (Other Voices)
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (fl. 1490 ?) German
list maker
translated as The Glory of Women (1529) and published in London (1652)
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.263, p.325 #31
new translation as Declamations of Noblility , U. of Chicago Press, 1996
Symphorien Champier La nef des dames vertueuses (The Ship of Virtuous Women, 1503) (Other Voices)
Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) The Instruction of Christian Woman trans. Rycharde Hyrde. London, 1524, 1557 (Half, p. 11, Other Voices)
Galeasso Flavio Capra's (latinized from Capella) Della eccellenza e dignita delle donne ( On the Excellence and Dignity of Women, 1525) (Other Voices)
Attributed to Robert Vaughan but possibly by Robert Burdet, A Dialogue defensive for women against malicious detractors (1542) (Half, p. 12 )
Edward Grosynhill (c. 1542) (English)
pamphleteer
The Praise of all Women, called Mulierum Paean, 1542
Half, p. 12
Sir Thomas Elyot, (English)
pamphleteer
The Defense of Good Women In aed. T. Bertheleti, 1545
Half, p. 382
Angolo Firenzuola
On the Beauty of Women (1548) (U. of Penn Press, 1999)
Francois Poulain de la Barre (fl. 1515 ?) French
list maker
The Women as Good as the Men, or the Equality of Both Sexes (1555)
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.263, p.325 #36
Baldasare Castiglione, Book of the Courtier (1528)
John Aylmer, (English)
pamphleteer
An Harborowe for Faithful and Trewe Subjects, agaynst the Late Blowne Blaste, concerninge the Governmet of Women, Strasborowe [J. Daye, London, 1559] (response (?) to John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstruous regiment of Women [Geneva, J. Crespin, 1558] )
Half, p. 381
Edward More (grandson of Sir Thomas More) (English)
pamphleteer
A Little and Brief treatise called the defense of women (1560)
Half, p.13
Nicholas Breton (English)
pamphleteer
The Praise of virtuous Ladies (1597)
Half, p.13
Anthony Gibson, (English)
pamphleteer
A Womans Woorth, defended against all the men in the world , J. Wolfe, 1599
Half, p. 382
Ercole and Torquato Tasso
pamphleteer
Of Marriage and Wiving (1599) by debates the women question: Ercole anti-feminist, Tasso pro-feminist
Half, p. 15
I.G. (English)
pamphleteer
An Apology for Womankind (1605)
Half, p. 15
Lodowick Lloyd (English)
pamphleteer
The Choice of Jewels (1607)
Half, p. 15
William Heale (English)
pamphleteer
An Apology for Women (1609)
Half, p. 15
Barnaby Rich (English)
pamphleteer
The Excellency of good women (1613)
Half, p. 15
Daniel Tuvil (English)
pamphleteer
Asylum Veneris; or, A Sanctuary for Ladies (1616)
Half, p. 16
Christopher Newstead (English)
pamphleteer
An Apology for Women (1620)
Half, p. 18
Richard Ferrers (English)
pamphleteer
The Worth of Women (1622)
Half, p. 19
Abraham Darcie (English)
pamphleteer
The Honor of Ladies (1622)
Half, p. 19
Johann Frauenlob (fl. 1600) German
list maker
Die Lobwurdige Gesellschaft de Gelehrten Weiber (1631)
work derived from Coelius, Angelo Politiano and other Roman sources
name means women praise and is probably a pseudonym
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.263, p.325 #37
Charles Gerbier (fl. 1610)
list maker
Elogium Geroinum: The Praise of Worthy Women (1651)
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.326 #43
Thomas Heywood (b.1574 c. - d. 1641) English
list maker
Gunaikeion; or, Nine Books of Various History Concerning Women (1624)
The Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts of the Most Worthy Women of the World (1640)
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.264, p.326 #42 and Half, p. 19
William Austin (English)
pamphleteer
Haec Homo (1637)
Half, p. 19
Johannes Sauerbrei (fl. 1640) German
list maker
De foeminarum eruditione (1671)
co-authored pamphlet with Thomasius
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.264, p.326 #39
Jacob Thomasius (fl. 1640)
list maker
De foeminarum eruditione (1671)
co-authored pamphlet with Sauerbrei
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.264, p.326 #39
John Shirley (fl. 1645) English
list maker
The Illustrious History of Women (1686)
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.326 #43
Charles Gerbier, Elogium Geroinum: The Praise of Worthy Women (1651)
Christian Franz Paullini (fl. 1665)
list maker
Das Hoch - and Wohlgelahrte Teusche Frauenzimmer
(The Highly Learned German Female) (1706)
list of 270 learned German women
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.264, p.326 #40
Johann Eberti (fl. 1665)
list maker
Eroffnetes Cabinet des gelehrten Frauen-Zimmers , 1706
scholarly list of learned women
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.264, p.326 #41
John Duncombe (fl. 1710) English
list maker
The Feminead (1754)
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.265
George Ballard (fl. 1715) English
list maker
Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (1752)
work generally considered accurate, project inspired by Elizabeth Elstob
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.264, p.326 #43
Theophilius Cibber (fl. 1715) English
list maker
An Account of the Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland , 4 vol. (1753)
list of famous women
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.326 #43
William Alexander (b. 1726 - d.1783) English
list maker
The History of Women from Earliest Antiquity, 2 vols.(1779)
aka Lord Stirling, list of famous women
Lerner, Feminist Con. p.326 #43
Charles Brockden Brown
Alcuin: A Dialogue first book published in US on women's rights (from Wagner, She Who Holds the Sky)
Lerner, Feminist Con = Gerda Lerner, Creation of Feminist Conscientiousness, Oxford University Press 1989 (date?)
Half = Katherine Usher Henderson and Barbara F. McManus, Half Humankind: Contexts and Tests of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640, [Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1985]
A few late nineteenth-century pro-women writers on equality for women:
The following men created the birth control movement:
Frances Place (1771 - 1854)
Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population (1822)
Noonan, pages 393 - 394
Robert Owen (Br.)
Jeremy Bentham
advocated using to contraceptive sponges
Noonan, 1797
William Godwin (Br.)
time period correct to be same as husband of Mary Wollstonecraft ??,
Noonan, pages 393 - 394
James Mill,
in Encyclopaedia Britannica , c. 1820 advocated birth control instead of emigration to control population
Robert Dale Owen
American, son of Robert Owen above
Moral Physiology: or A Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question (1830)
early birth control advocate, Noonan, pages 393 - 349
Charles Knowlton (American )
The Fruits of Philosophy: or The Private Companion of Young Married People which both advocated birth control and taught how to practice it
early birth control advocate, Noonan, pages 393 -394
Jean-Baptiste Etinne de Senancour (Fr.)
De l'amour (1806)
Noonan, page 393 - 394
Noonan = Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists by John T. Noonan, Jr., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1966
Feminist forefathers and American women's legal history:
"Of the leading male abolitionists before the war, only four - Samuel J. May, Robert Purvis, Parker Pillsbury, and Stephen S. Foster - remained even minimally loyal to women's rights after the war by insisting on their enfranchisment. All the rest, including Wendell Phillips, George William Curtis, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Theodore Tilton, Fredrick Douglass, and the brothers Samuel and Hemry Blackwell, did not want any aspect of the "women's question" to complicate their work of putting the country back together" page 148, Hoff
Richard Henry Lee, suffrage, equality, Hoff, page 62
Thomas Paine, suffrage, equaltiy, Hoff, page 65
President LBJ ?, Hoff, p. 232
Hoff = Law, Gender, and Injustice by Joan Hoff, NYU Press, 1991
For an anthology of feminist writings of American men, see Against the Tide: Pro-feminist Men in the United States 1776-1990, A Documentary History edited by Michael S. Kimmel and Thomas E. Mosmiller [Boston, Beacon Books, 1992]
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last updated June 3, 2002